A Very French Affair: Bought for the Frenchman's Pleasure / Breaking the Boss's Rules / Her Secret Husband

He smiled wolfishly. ‘Please, be my guest. It’ll be fun to watch you try to squirm away from me for five hours.’

Sorcha sat down gingerly, very careful about where she put her arms. Then she sat back and closed her eyes.

Before long, though, the familiar terror began making its all too predictable insidious climb inside her chest as the engine’s throttle roared. At this moment even Romain beside her couldn’t distract her from it. She heard him rattle papers. The engines started up in earnest, the plane lurched forward, and she felt the colour drain from her face. Her hands, despite her efforts not to give anything away were clenched tightly in her lap. She longed to be able to wrap them around the seat—that always made her feel stupidly protected—but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.

As the plane gathered speed down the runway, her heart beat faster and faster.

‘What’s wrong? Scared of flying?’

The voice came from right beside her ear, and Sorcha jumped, eyes opening wide as she looked to Romain. She couldn’t even speak, and just nodded silently. When he saw the truly blatant fear in the blue depths, any teasing fled Romain’s mind. He acted purely on instinct and took one of Sorcha’s hands in his. It was clenched tight and he had to prise the bloodless fingers apart. Finally he was able to thread his fingers with hers and grip her tight. He saw her other hand go in a white-knuckle grip to the armrest.

Sorcha couldn’t believe it. The mind-numbing fear, the awful acrid taste of it, wasn’t hitting her as hard as it normally did. The plane left the ground, that awful moment came…and it was still awful, but for the first time ever bearable. It was only then, as the fear began its slow decline, that Sorcha felt the long warm fingers entwined with hers and heat unfurled in her belly. She looked down and could see white and brown fingers in a tangle. A hot, tight feeling made her abdomen clench, and the kiss invaded her consciousness with full lurid recall.

Looking up to Romain with horror, she saw him wincing. Abruptly she loosened her grip, but he didn’t loosen his. His face cleared, though, and he smiled.

‘Remind me never to arm-wrestle you. I don’t think I’d win.’

Sorcha snatched her hand back. She felt acutely vulnerable. She couldn’t believe she’d been so weakly transparent.

He settled back comfortably, turning his big body towards her. Sorcha looked resolutely at the back of the seat in front of her.

‘So is it just the take-off, or the whole thing?’

She sighed deeply. ‘Just the take off.’ She looked at him warily. ‘And being in tiny helicopters.’ She gave a delicate shudder. ‘That trip to Inis Mor…’

‘I thought you looked unnaturally pale when you got off. Why didn’t you say anything?’

She shrugged, casting him a quick glance. ‘What’s the point? It’s just a silly fear. No need to cause a fuss.’

He felt anger lick through him, but not directed at her. ‘So you’d prefer to put yourself through moments of terror like that just to keep people happy?’

‘Well, how else would I have got over there—or anywhere, these days?’

He just looked at her broodingly. ‘Where did it come from?’

Her head had that fuzzy feeling again. Why couldn’t she look this man in the eye for longer than two seconds without her head going to mush? He was going to suspect she was certifiably stupid.

‘What?’

‘Your fear of flying…. taking off…do you know where it comes from?’

Sorcha nodded slowly. Weighed up what it would mean to tell him. He saw the hesitation, and she saw how his jaw tightened.

‘I forgot about the embargo on your private life.’

Despite her best instincts, at that moment she perversely wanted to put her hand on his arm. She clenched her hand into a fist again. ‘No,’ she said tightly, and then, with a small smile that made her feel as if she’d been invaded by a rogue body snatcher, she said, ‘It’s fine.’

She looked away for a second, and then back, struck by how, even though they were in the plane surrounded by the crew, it felt as though it was just them, in some kind of bubble.

‘I was three years old, and we were taking a trip back to Spain to visit my mother’s family—’

He looked at her incredulously. ‘You’re Spanish?’

She hesitated for a split second…Hadn’t she been for most of her life? ‘Half-Spanish…My mother is. My father is—was Irish…’

‘He’s dead?’

She nodded, and felt herself go cold inside, she knew she was lying about being half-Spanish, but that was a part of her that was certainly out of bounds for discussion and none of his business. That bit of information lay far too close to the truth of everything else.

‘He died just before I turned seventeen.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Romain saw how she’d changed in an instant from being lukewarm to icy cool. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.

‘It was a long time ago.’

‘My father died when I was twelve…a heart attack.’

She looked at him, that guarded expression faltering slightly. She remembered what Maud had told her about his mother. ‘Mine too…a heart attack, I mean. I’m sorry.’

A moment passed between them, and neither noticed for a second when the air stewardess asked if they wanted anything. Then Sorcha looked up and a guilty flush stained her cheeks. What was she thinking? Getting lost in his eyes, telling him about her father? She saw the way the stewardess practically ate him alive with just a look and welcomed the cold dose of reality.

When they’d ordered water, she could feel him settle back in.

Please, no more conversation…

‘So…your fear of flying…’

Sorcha’s tone was brisk and almost bored. She didn’t see the way Romain’s eyes narrowed on her speculatively.

‘Like I said, we were on holiday, going to Spain. It’s really not that exciting—’

‘Indulge me.’

Sorcha gulped, looked at him quickly, and then away again. ‘The plane had just taken off, and at the last second something failed and it crashed back down. I didn’t have my belt on.’ She grimaced. ‘I’d managed to unlock it somehow, and when the plane fell back down like a stone I fell and got thrown around a bit…’ She shrugged. ‘That’s it. I told you it was nothing to get worked up about. It’s silly to still let it affect me.’

He looked at her for a long, intense moment and couldn’t stop the feeling that he was somehow letting her get to him—get under his skin in a way that went beyond physical attraction. He drew back. The shutters came down, his face expressionless.

‘If you don’t mind, I have an important meeting when we land in New York and I need to concentrate on some paperwork.’

And he promptly shut Sorcha out as effectively as she had shut him out from the start. It threw her. She made the motions of getting a book out of her bag, put on her glasses to read…but the page and the print blurred in front of her eyes. She couldn’t relax next to Romain, and her mind was feverishly trying to decipher what had made him clam up like that.

She was intrigued. Suddenly he had more facets to him than a mere autocratic and judgmental luxury goods magnate. She recalled how professional he’d been on the set the day before. He’d run it smoothly, fairly…especially when Dominic had threatened to throw a little tantrum when something hadn’t gone his way. Sorcha wasn’t used to a steadying force on a set. She found more often than not that she acted as the peacemaker, the mediator between various hysterical egos.

She sneaked another look, but Romain was a million miles away, immersed in facts and figures, shirtsleeves rolled up, his profile harshly beautiful. And extremely remote. In that moment she had trouble believing that he had ever kissed her with such passion only that morning.

Some time later Sorcha felt a bump and her head jerked up. She’d been asleep on something very soft…it felt like a cushion…only it was no cushion. It was an arm and a very broad chest. She jerked upright completely. Slumberous hooded grey eyes looked back at her, completely unconcerned. Sorcha took it all in in a flash—along with the fact that they were about to land. She must have heard the wheels being lowered.