But, really, why bother? Whatever she said wasn’t going to change the fact that they were stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.
Only just because he’d managed to trick her into getting on his plane, it didn’t mean that he was going to have everything his own way. Remembering his remark back at the airport, she felt her breathing jerk, and she curled her fingers into the palms of her hands. She sure as hell wasn’t going to spend the rest of this flight entertaining him.
‘I’d love to keep on chatting,’ she said coldly. ‘But it’s been a long, and exhausting day, and as you can imagine I’m very tired.’
Their eyes met—his calm and appraising, hers combative—and there was a short, taut silence.
Finally he shrugged. ‘Of course. I’ll show you to your room.’
Her room!
‘No—’ She lurched back in her seat.
She would have liked to brush her teeth, and maybe put on something more comfortable, but the thought of undressing within a five-mile radius of Ram made her heart start to beat painfully fast.
‘Actually, I think I’d rather stay here,’ she said quickly. ‘These seats recline, don’t they? And I’m not really sleeping properly at the moment anyway.’
He stared at her speculatively, and she wondered if he was going to demand that she use the bedroom.
But after a moment, he simply nodded. ‘I’ll get you a blanket.’
Five minutes later, tucked cosily beneath a soft cashmere blanket, Nola tilted back her seat and turned her head pointedly away from where Ram sat beside her, working on his laptop.
How was he able to do any work anyway? she thought irritably. After everything that had happened in the last few hours anybody else—her included—would have been too distracted, too agitated, too exhausted.
But then wasn’t that one of the reasons she’d been so reluctant to tell him about the baby? Just like her father, he always put business first, pleasure second, and then the boring nitty-gritty of domestic life last. And, having offered to fly her home in his private jet, he probably thought he’d been generous enough—caring, even.
Stifling a yawn, she closed her eyes. Ram’s deluded world view didn’t matter to her any more than he did. He might have been her boss, and he might be calling the shots now. But that would change as soon as they landed in Scotland. Edinburgh was her home, and she wasn’t about to let anyone—especially not Ram Walker—trample over the life she had built there. Feeling calmer, she burrowed further down beneath the blanket...
She woke with a start.
For a moment she lay there, utterly disorientated, trying to make sense of the soft wool brushing against her face and the clean coolness of the air, and then suddenly she was wide awake as the previous night’s events slid into place inside her head.
Opening her eyes, she struggled to sit up, her senses on high alert.
Why did it feel as though they were slowing down? Surely she couldn’t have slept for that long? Picking up her phone, she glanced at the screen and frowned. It didn’t make sense. They’d only been flying a couple of hours, and yet the plane seemed to be descending.
‘Good, you’re awake.’
Her heart gave a jolt, and she turned.
It was Ram. He was standing beside her, his face calm, his grey eyes watching her with an expression she didn’t quite recognise.
‘I thought I was going to have to wake you,’ he said coolly.
He was holding his laptop loosely in one hand, so he must have spent the last few hours working, and yet he looked just as though he’d had a full eight hours’ sleep. She could practically feel the energy humming off him like a force field.
But that wasn’t the only reason her pulse was racing.
With his dark hair falling over his forehead, and his crisp white shirt hugging the muscles of his chest and arms, he looked like a movie star playing a CEO. Even the unflattering overhead lights did nothing to diminish his beauty.
Was it really necessary or fair for him to be that perfect? she thought desperately. Particularly when her own body seemed incapable of co-ordinating with her brain, so that despite his appalling behaviour at the airport her senses were responding shamelessly to his blatant masculinity.
Gritting her teeth, hoping that none of her thoughts were showing on her face, she met his gaze.
‘Why are we slowing down? Are we stopping for fuel?’
‘Something like that.’