After a frantic day spent running through recipes, answering countless emails, checking orders and getting her new business manager up to speed on all the commitments she was being forced to cancel for the next week, Katie was holding on to her indignation by a thread when her car arrived at Heathrow the following evening.
Instead of being dropped off in Departures, though, they were met by a passport official before being whisked through the airport, the lights of incoming planes shining in the night sky overhead. The car drove past the airport buildings to arrive at a huge private hangar behind one of the runways. A sleek silver jet took up all the available space as the car parked beside the metal steps.
She swallowed heavily as the driver opened her door then began unloading the luggage the staff must have packed earlier that day—three suitcases worth of luggage containing clothes she had never seen.
She frowned. Up until now, she’d really been far too preoccupied with the pregnancy, the wedding, the huge changes to her business and her constant panic about how to navigate the deal she’d made with Jack without losing her mind to think too much about the world of luxury she had entered. A world she’d been excluded from ever since she was a teenager. A world she’d left without a backwards glance.
But, as she climbed the steps into the jet, it occurred to her Jack Wolfe’s lavish luxurious world was way, way more exclusive than her father’s. She’d come from money and, although she’d never enjoyed the strings attached when she’d lived under her father’s control, she knew how this world worked. Or at least, she had thought she did. But, even as the daughter of a British lord, she’d never travelled on a private plane—or had a passport official give her a personal service. Or had three huge suitcases full of clothes she’d never worn packed for her by someone else for a week-long holiday.
Except it’s not a holiday, it’s a honeymoon.
She puffed out her cheeks, the frustration that had been building ever since Jack’s high-handed demand yesterday at dinner giving way to something a lot less fortifying and more disturbing.
She’d barely had time to think in the past month. Perhaps that was why it hadn’t really occurred to her until this moment that everything about her new life with Jack Wolfe was way outside her comfort zone.
As she stepped into the plane’s interior, she was greeted by a hostess uniformed in the red and black colours of the Wolfe Inc logo. The middle-aged woman smiled and took her coat, before directing her to the plane’s interior.
‘Mr Wolfe is seated in the lounge area, waiting for you, Mrs Wolfe,’ she said.
Mrs Wolfe.
She’d been addressed by her married name several times since the wedding. But it had all seemed like an elaborate act until now. A knot formed in her stomach to go with the one in her throat.
She nodded, suddenly feeling woefully under-dressed in the worn jeans and plaid shirt combo she had been wearing all day to direct traffic in Cariad Cakes’ industrial kitchen.
Jack sat in one of the large cream leather armchairs in the plane’s lounge, typing something on his phone. The cabin was darker than she had expected, the lighting no doubt subdued for take-off. A single spotlight turned his short dark hair to a gleaming ebony and cast his handsome features into stark relief. He hadn’t shaved all day, and the beginnings of the beard shadowing his jaw, together with the scarred eyebrow, made him look even more rugged and untamed than usual, despite the sharply tailored suit trousers and ubiquitous white shirt perfectly fitted to his muscular torso.
‘Mrs Wolfe has arrived, sir,’ the hostess announced behind her.
Jack’s blue gaze locked on her face as he clicked off the phone. ‘Good evening, Mrs Wolfe,’ he said, the polite greeting loaded with a meaning that felt anything but polite thanks to the feral gleam in his eyes and the husky timbre of his voice.
She’d expected him to have his army of assistants with him on the flight but, as the hostess excused herself to prepare for take-off, Katie realised they were alone.
‘Hi,’ she said, but the word came out on a high-pitched squeak. Mortified, she cleared her throat of the rubble gathered there, and tried again. ‘Hello, Jack.’
‘Glad to see you made it in time for take-off,’ he said, the slight edge suggesting he hadn’t appreciated being kept waiting.
She hadn’t arrived with only minutes to spare deliberately—she’d been extremely busy all day—but his tone still rankled.
‘Did I have a choice?’ she snapped.
A sensual smile—part arrogance, part amusement and yet full of approval—had her heartbeat leaping in her chest. She knew he enjoyed provoking her. But why hadn’t she realised until now how much more he enjoyed it when she rose to the bait?
He chuckled. ‘I can’t very well go on a honeymoon on my own, now, can I?’ he said, the mocking twinkle in his eyes making him look even more attractive.
The bastard.
Oddly—given her anxiety about what exactly they were going to be doing in the Maldives, and her indignation at the high-handed way he’d sprung this trip—she found her own lips twitching.
‘I suppose not,’ she conceded as she took the seat opposite him. She sunk into the soft, buttery leather, suddenly aware of how exhausted she was. The extreme fatigue of her early pregnancy had been replaced by a more manageable tiredness in the last few weeks, but she’d been on her feet most of the day—and coping with the inevitable sexual tension of being in Jack Wolfe’s orbit didn’t help.
‘Although you may wish you had after a week stuck with me spinning my wheels,’ she offered. ‘I don’t think I’m the “lying on the beach” type.’
It wasn’t a lie. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a break, let alone been able to afford a holiday. She’d been working two or three jobs at a time ever since she’d left home—and even before leaving home she’d had a secret Saturday job because she’d wanted to be as financially independent as possible from her father.
‘Neither am I,’ Jack murmured. The approval in his gaze became hot and fluid, causing awareness to sizzle over her skin. ‘I guess we’ll have to find a way to keep each other occupied.’
The sizzle flared across her collarbone and rose into her cheeks.
His gaze narrowed on her burning face and the knowing smile widened.
If only she could conjure up a smart, pithy comeback, but it would have been next to impossible to fake indifference, even if she hadn’t been dead on feet.
The pilot’s voice rang out over the intercom to inform them they had just been given a departure slot and would be taking off in ten minutes.
Katie fastened her seat belt as instructed and glanced out of the window, realising the plane was already moving and had left the bright interior of the hangar. The lights of the terminal building as they passed it illuminated the congested lines of passengers waiting impatiently at their departure gates.
She sighed and rolled her head back, only to get trapped once again in Jack’s watchful gaze. But the sizzle dropped to a distant hum as fatigue settled over her like a warm blanket.
Her mouth cracked open in a huge yawn. ‘Good to know there’s at least one advantage to having a gazillionaire for my fake husband.’
His right eyebrow rose, drawing her attention to the scar, which had begun to mesmerise her. Curiosity and sympathy joined the potent hum of arousal.
Who had given him that scar? It must have hurt so much.
‘Which is...?’ he asked, the smile gone.
‘No boarding queues,’ she murmured, then shifted round in her seat away from that disturbing all-seeing gaze. Yawning again, she slipped off her shoes, snuggled her head into the soft leather and tucked her aching feet under her bottom.
She blinked at the red lights on the plane’s wing tip flashing as they swung towards the runway. The jet engine’s powerful rumble seemed to amplify the insistent hum in her abdomen but, as the plane accelerated down the runway, she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes open. Eventually the flashing light dragged her into the darkness and she let herself fall under its spell.