He kept her braced against his chest as he negotiated the door handle to the bedroom, shouldered himself in and deposited her on the bed with a lucky move that brought him down hard beside her. The jet dropped, this time a good fifty feet, pulling a low, agonized cry from Francesca. He kept a hand on her, his body half draped over her. The jet leveled out. "Swallow," he commanded.
Her throat convulsed as she did. "This is soooo not good."
"It's just turbulence." He recovered his own breath.
"Still." Her eyes popped open, valiantly hanging on to her terror. "Donnn't leave me."
"I can't at this moment." He gave the sky a grim look through the tiny, oval windows. It was an inky, endless black canvas crisscrossed by vibrant streaks of jagged gold lightning.
Francesca pulled him toward her as if he was a pillow. He put a palm to her shoulder to push her back into the bed. A whimper escaped her throat. "Please."
He crumbled. Gathered her soft curves to him and held her while the storm raged on outside. She smelled like orange blossoms-like intoxication and innocence all in one. The plane leveled out and stayed that way for minutes. In the warmth of his arms, Francesca stopped trembling. He tried to remember the last time he'd held a woman like this, for comfort, and didn't have to think long. It would have been seven years ago when Susanna had left.
The thought did something strange to his head. He glanced out the window as the lightning receded and the space between rumbles of thunder lengthened. Having Francesca wrapped around him like this was inspiring the need to find out whether his dream would come anything close to reality... The thought made him hard so fast, comfort was obliterated on a long, potent surge of lust.
He stood and dumped her on the bed. Her eyes flickered open. "It's calming down now." She curled up in the fetal position and used the pillow as a cushion instead of him. He turned and made for the door as a whole lot more creamy thigh was exposed. Mother of God.
Back in the main cabin, he buckled himself in and stared out the window at the storm. He'd called this one-he had. It had been a bad idea. A bad idea that was getting worse every minute.
CHAPTER FOUR
FRANKIE WOKE WITH the instinctive feeling something was not quite right. Bright light beat an assault against the throb behind her eyes. Her head felt fuzzy...heavy.
She closed her eyes harder against the overwhelming light. She must have forgotten to close the blinds. And on a morning when she had a blinding headache... Great.
A low, insistent hum beneath her ear made her frown. Were they renovating the brownstone across the street again? The floor dipped beneath her, riding a stream of air. Floors don't move unless you live in California. Her eyes sprang open. The light streaming in was coming from tiny oval windows, a world of blue flowing by. She wasn't in her bedroom; she was in the Grant Industries jet on her way to London. And it was morning.
Her gaze flew to the watch on her arm-8:00 a.m. Oh, lord.
Pieces of the night before assembled themselves in her head. That awful thunder and lightning storm... The way the jet had been tossed around like a toy airplane, subjected to God's fury. That pill of her sister's she'd taken that had knocked the lights out of her...
Oh, no. Her heart plummeted. The rest of it she didn't want to remember. Her boss carrying her in here in the middle of that madness because she'd been half passed out. Him putting her to bed. Him holding her...
She buried her face in the pillow. She'd clung to him like a woman possessed. So far from the independent, strong woman she was it made her cringe to think of it. Made her cringe to think she'd given him yet another reason to think her less than competent.
Heat flooded her face. Tessa would never have put herself in that position. Tessa would have been cool as a cucumber in the face of almost certain aeronautic death.
She got out of bed in a hurry, made it behind her and attempted to straighten her rumpled suit and hair. Deciding nothing was actually going to be accomplished until she changed clothes and redid her makeup, she made her way out into the main cabin.
Harrison looked fresh in a crisp blue linen shirt, tie and pants, his jacket slung over the back of the seat beside him. Ready to do battle with Leonid Aristov.
He looked up at her. "Feeling better?"
She nodded. "I apologize for last night. I had no idea that pill was going to affect me that way."
He waved a hand at her. "Forget about it. It was a bad storm." He flicked a glance at his watch. "We're landing in just over an hour. If you want to shower and change, do it now."
She nodded. She wanted desperately to tell him this wasn't her, not the way she'd been acting lately. But he stuck his head back in the report he was reading. Not the time to plead her case. And a part of her knew with Harrison, actions spoke louder than words.
She retraced her steps to the bedroom and headed for the shower to make herself into the deadly efficient assistant she knew she was. She could do this. She could.
* * *
They landed without incident at London City Airport, where they were picked up by a car and spirited to the Chatsfield. The opulence of the swanky hotel with its reputation for hosting anyone who mattered bounced off Harrison's consciousness as they were ushered up to their luxury suite. His mind was focused on the meeting ahead and getting Leonid Aristov to sign on the dotted line.
He checked his smartphone as Francesca dropped her belongings in her bedroom. An email had come in from Aristov. A feeling of foreboding swept over him.
Grant-Stuck in Brussels. I'm hosting a charity gala tonight at my house in Highgate. Why don't you come and we'll talk there? Two tickets will be delivered to you this afternoon. L
Rage bubbled up inside of him, swift and all-consuming. Was he kidding? He had dragged himself across an ocean, put together an exhaustive presentation that obliterated the Russian's concerns about the acquisition and he wanted to talk at a party?
His brain whirred as he struggled to figure out why Aristov was suddenly putting this deal on the back burner when he had been so anxious to sign just weeks ago. Forty million dollars was going to go a long way to pulling the Russian out of the financial mess the oligarch had found himself in recently, bad luck and bad decisions plaguing him in his home country and threatening the empire he'd built.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows with their incomparable view of London, agitation raising his pulse rate. Aristov had told him he was getting out of the automotive business and realigning his assets. So why?
A niggling worry entered his head, one he hadn't let himself think of until now. Could Aristov have guessed his true intentions? That acquiring Siberius was only a stepping stone to destroying the man who had killed his father? Impossible. He had made sure every company, every lifeline he had snapped up that kept Anton Markovic's automotive empire in business had been buried so deep behind red tape they could never be traced back to him. The one or two deals he'd made publicly could innocently be explained as smart business strategy.
That Siberius was the only supplier in the world left that could keep Anton Markovic manufacturing engines once Grant Industries cut off his other lifelines was something Aristov could not know.
His head pounded with a deep throb, drawing his hand to his skull. If he didn't obtain Siberius as planned, Markovic would continue production, the Russian's company would gain more influence and his plan would be dead in the water.
A fiery feeling stirred to life low in his gut. He would never let that happen, not while he lived and breathed on this earth.
His head took him back to that night. To the horrific scene that had met him when he had walked into the Grant family home on the eve of his father's announcement he would run for governor. The unnatural silence in the house. The eerie feeling that something was very, very wrong. His father's body had been limp and lifeless, slumped over the desk he had created such genius at.
His body went rigid. The beast in him climbed out of the box he had placed it in seven years ago and into his head, blurring his vision. Anton Markovic had been as responsible for his father's death as if he had pulled the trigger himself and he would have a target on his back until he lived his own personal version of hell.
There was no other possible outcome.
The gray mist in his head swirled darker. He pushed it ruthlessly away. If he let the wolves in his head win, if he let the beast rule, he would make a mistake. And any wrong move at this point would bring it all crashing down.
Francesca chose that particular moment to walk back into the room. Her apprehensive expression as he turned to face her had him wiping the emotion clean from his face.