Flight of Her Life - Excerpt

Excerpt

One entire week! How in hell’s name was she supposed to keep up the pretense for one whole week? Honestly, when Phillip’s parents saw beneath her cultured voice and her ability to dress slick, the premier family of Houston, Texas were going to run her out of town. They were going to realize what a fraud she was when she made her first move and destroyed their house with a flick of her wrist. Then their precious boy would never be allowed to marry her.

Bailey crossed her legs to relieve the ache in one buttock and give the other side of her bottom a little more weight. Sitting on the floor of the elevator for three hours the previous night had not been the most comfortable experience of her life and her backside hurt. She was going to cross her legs on this occasion, but she needed to get out of the habit as soon as she could. After all, she didn’t want people to think she was cheap.

She wondered if she would be considered vulgar for spending three hundred dollars on a rare bottle of bourbon and an expensive fragrance in order to impress people she hadn’t even met.

Impatient, she flicked her gaze up to check the flight board for the millionth time. She pressed her lips softly together to make sure her lipstick was still in place and glanced around the crowded New York City airport lounge, nervously patting her neat blonde coiffure which had taken her forty minutes to strap down.

As her eyes anxiously scanned the room, they fell on the familiar sight of a cowboy by the checkout in duty free. Second time she’d noticed him in an hour and she’d tried not to make eye-contact in case he decided to come over and re-acquaint himself.

Unable to resist, Bailey raised one perfectly sleek eyebrow, and leaned forward, pushed her black rimmed glasses further up her nose to take a closer peek. Nice. Purely from a female’s perspective, she could see nothing wrong with the male specimen in duty free. Long lean legs in pale, worn denim, and those thighs under that denim contracted as he bent to pick up his rucksack, sending an unwelcome fission of heat burning a rapid line through her stomach and into her loins, just like he had always managed to do. If she had to judge, she’d bet those muscles filled his jeans better than they used to when she’d been sixteen and he’d been…

Aware of her heart rate accelerating, Bailey jerked upright with a short sharp gasp, her eyes widening as the overwhelming sensation of carnal desire took her by surprise. She was an engaged woman—almost—she shouldn’t even be looking at tall, well-defined cowboys, especially ones she had already been…intimate with. Not that it should count as it had been so long ago, but he obviously still managed to make her mouth water.

Rucksack flung across his shoulder, his eyes caught hers and pierced through her like a blue laser as he walked straight toward her, leaving no doubt he’d been perfectly aware of where she was the whole time. Desperate not to be caught staring, Bailey dipped her eyes, uncrossed her legs and re-crossed them the other way. She accidently flicked her half-filled coffee cup as she flexed her knee, and felt the searing hot liquid splash down her legs and soak through her short neat black skirt.

“Shit.”

With a feral growl, she ducked her head and flicked at the scalding liquid with a

small napkin that had come with the coffee, dismayed to see tiny white balls of tissue gathering across her wet skirt as she dabbed furiously. Her jerky movements caused her heavy rimmed glasses to clunk off her nose and smack painfully onto her chin. Rolling her eyes she raised her head and came face to face with the handsome cowboy.

Crooked smile in place, his amused blue eyes met hers as he hunkered down next to her, slowly reached out, unhooked her glasses from behind her ears and removed them from her chin. He folded them and offered them back to her.

“Hey, Bailey. Fancy meeting you here.” His familiar low drawl made her mouth drop open. She wasn’t sure whether he could see the saliva dribbling from the corner of her lips, but she raised shaking fingers and slid them across her skin to check just in case. Annoyed with herself, she’d been convinced she had moved on; found a new life existing without him, when obviously he still had an overwhelming effect on her.

His eyes followed the movement of her fingers, skimmed further up to stare at her mouth, his own firm lips parted and his tongue took a slow swipe across his bottom lip, sending her pulse into overdrive.

“Hi.” Short, sharp and efficient—after all she was about to become engaged to be married and he had to realize he had no right coming on to her in an airport lounge, no matter how long she had known him. She reached out her left hand, twizzled the rock back the correct way, and deliberately dazzled him with her nine carat diamond ring as she grasped her glasses, and tried to take them back.

His smile stuck as he held on. She bared her teeth at him through her own tight smile and pulled the glasses toward her in a restrained tug-of-war. Her perfect manicure gripped the frame, the left lens popped out, completed a slow-motion somersault, and smacked onto the hard tiled floor in front of her, breaking in two.

“Shit.” Dropping off her seat to the floor, Bailey frantically grabbed the two broken pieces of her lens, stabbing the nail of her forefinger sharply into the floor tile in her short-sighted desperation. She felt the snap of it, like a part of her own finger had cracked. Heat blazed across her cheeks as her heart filled with anguish, her finger throbbed with agony, and she flicked rapid glances at the dark haired cowboy whose smile had spread right across his beautiful face, showing even white teeth. His wide, muscular chest and broad shoulders shook with laughter.

“Bailey, you shouldn’t hide your pretty face behind those frames, just to make yourself look sophisticated.”

“Shut up, Sebastian.” She flung herself back on the seat and felt the snag and tear as her tights caught on the edge of the tubular seating. “Oh my God.” Despair had her wailing as the cowboy’s laughter burned her ears. He reached out a hand, cupped the calf of her leg in his warm rough palm and unhooked her tights with the fingers of his other hand, stealing her breath as he smoothed those long, warm fingers up the back of her knee.

Breathless, she gazed down at his handsome, angular face.

“I don’t think you should do that.”

“Really?” He shuffled closer, his hand edged higher to skim up the back of her thigh; her breath came in short, panicked gasps.

“No, my fiancé wouldn’t like it.”

Laughter rumbled out of him as he removed his hand from her leg, kneeled in front of her and leaned his forearms lightly across her knees, raising himself up so she felt his

breath dance across her cheek.

“Good, because I’m not going to do it to your fiancé.”

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