‘Give me a call if we’ve got a problem.’
He strode away and Lulu watched him go, unable to credit the disappointment that was dropping through her at a rate of knots.
What was wrong with her? This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? He was a control freak. She couldn’t believe he’d been scoping out her schedule when she’d thought he was flirting with Susie!
How could he have put her through that?
Lulu blinked. Wait a moment—two nights ago there had been no reason for him to be interested in her schedule. She bit her lip. Unless he was interested in her.
‘Chérie?’
Her mother had approached and was looking at her with that half-agonised expression Lulu discovered she could barely look at nowadays.
‘I’m flying home today,’ she heard herself say, sidling over to the window, which gave her an excellent view of anyone coming and going from this wing of the castle. ‘You should stay on with Jean-Luc for the golf.’
‘I rather thought you and I could fly down to London for a West End show and some shopping and then shoot home at the end of the week with Jean-Luc—that way I’ll be with you if something goes awry.’
Lulu was watching Alejandro cross the courtyard. His long, easy strides were in direct contrast to her own jerking heartbeat. How could he just walk off like that? Although she guessed he had tried, hadn’t he?
She closed her eyes momentarily, trying to block out her mother’s voice telling her how well she’d done this weekend, asking why she’d make it any more difficult for herself by facing another plane journey alone.
Lulu had a sudden image of herself hiding in a hotel bathroom in London, with her mother in the next room, and her peeing on a stick.
She turned around, pecked her mother on the cheek. ‘I love you, Maman, but I have made other arrangements.’
‘Lulu!’
She grabbed her hand luggage and ran as fast as she could in her clumpy shoes and narrow skirt—out of the room, down the stairs, across the flagstone-laid hall, out into the courtyard.
She was on the lawn when she saw him heading for the helipad.
‘Alejandro! Wait for me!’
He turned around, arms hanging loose from those broad shoulders, and Lulu had to swallow a very large lump of nerves. Because he was such a force of nature, so assured in his masculinity and determined to have his way.
Well, so was she. Determined to have her own way, that was. And she was about to take a huge leap into the unknown.
‘Why did you ask Susie about my schedule the other night?’ she shouted over the whup-whup of the blades.
‘Because I wanted to date you.’
Finally he’d said the right words.
‘I’m coming, then,’ she announced. The wind from the rotors was already destroying her carefully constructed up-do. ‘What do you think?’
‘You don’t want to know what I think, querida.’ His expression was wry. He gave a jerk of his head. ‘Get in.’
Lulu scrambled into the chopper. Fresh nerves assaulted her, but she didn’t have much choice.
They were already in the air when she thought to look down, and there on the lawn was not only her mother but Trixie and Susie too, all of them gazing skywards. Trixie was waving madly. Lulu extended her hand and waved back, feeling nothing but relief that she was leaving them and their questions behind, but as she turned to Alejandro beside her she felt a big ball of dread in her belly.
So much could go wrong.
Alejandro was looking at her as if he had her exactly where he wanted her. She guessed he did. Only she wondered where the man who had taken her so passionately on the library desk had gone, and she figured that if the idea of an unplanned pregnancy had spooked him, he needed to wait until he’d learned the truth about her.
Too much trouble. Lulu already knew that, and it was only a matter of time until he knew it too.
*