His biceps flexed, making him even more imposing. Dark brows lowered over those blazing green eyes, drawing her gaze to the small scar she’d wondered about several times during the night. But then the hard line of his jaw tightened.
&
nbsp; ‘At least that’s one damn thing we can agree on,’ he said.
Turning away from her, he stalked back to the kitchen island, the rigid line of his shoulders suggesting he wasn’t as calm and collected as he was trying to make out.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t much comfort for the pain digging its claws into her belly as she headed across the kitchen on unsteady legs towards the stairs.
The last of her once glorious adventure had disintegrated, the hideous reality of it revealed, as humiliation and anxiety tangled in her gut.
And one miserable thought reverberated in her head.
How on earth am I going to survive an hour in a tiny plane with him when he hates my guts?
* * *
‘We can’t leave.’
Thirty minutes later Cassie stood on the dock with her evening purse and the torn gold dress stuffed into a backpack she’d borrowed from the housekeeper’s annexe. Her whole body was shaking as she tried to absorb what Luke had just barked at her.
‘What do you mean, we can’t leave?’ she said, trying to keep the tremble of panic out of her voice.
Surely she could not have heard him correctly? He wanted her gone as much as she wanted to be gone. She needed to be gone, like, yesterday if she was going to have any chance whatsoever of preserving the remnants of her tattered dignity until this dreadful day was over.
‘The plane’s damaged. The Wi-Fi went down last night and the cell phone service went out twenty minutes ago, while I was talking to the mechanic,’ he said, his face implacable.
‘But...’
But I can’t stay on Sunrise—not with you...not now. Not after the things you accused me of.
‘Don’t you have a boat?’ she asked, becoming more frantic by the second.
Her phone had lost its service too, but she had actually been grateful for it, having no idea what she was supposed to say to Ash now.
Ash’s jokey text had landed her in trouble with Luke, but she knew Ash wasn’t the one to blame for her predicament. Not even close. Eventually Luke would have found out the truth about Temple’s interest in his company and assumed the worst.
Their one wild night had been brought about by pheromones and insanity—on her part, at least—and she hadn’t stopped to think about how it would all play out because she hadn’t really cared at the time. Luke Broussard had unleashed feelings she had never known she was even capable of, and she’d ridden that adrenaline rush to its inevitable car crash conclusion.
She could see that clearly now. She should never have taken the risks she had with a man she barely knew. A man who clearly had serious trust issues she knew nothing about. But she had at least hoped she might be able to mitigate the worst of the fallout from this disaster when she got back to San Francisco.
She had come up with a course of action while raiding Mrs Mendoza’s living quarters a second time. She would simply tell Temple the truth—or as much of the truth as was required. That she had lost her objectivity with Luke Broussard, but that she knew he wasn’t interested in attracting investors.
Temple had in no way been committed to investing in Broussard Tech...this had simply been a fact-finding mission. She still had time to come up with other investment opportunities in the Bay Area, using the contacts he’d given her.
She had planned to use the flight back to the city to soothe Luke Broussard’s temper and get him to call off his plans to sue. She knew how to handle difficult billionaires after three years working for Temple—although she had to admit Temple was considerably less volatile than Luke. But she’d never been drawn to her boss the way she’d so stupidly been drawn to this man. Surely she could use that, somehow, to make Luke see he was being unreasonable? That following through on his knee-jerk reaction after seeing Ash’s inflammatory text would be expensive and unnecessary if Temple dropped any interest in his company?
But all her plans would come to nothing if she was stuck on Sunrise Island for any length of time, without being able to contact her boss or do the job he’d sent her to San Francisco to do.
Not only that, she didn’t think she could hold herself together if she had to spend any more time alone with Luke Broussard.
A surge of distress at the prospect made her heartbeat ricochet into her throat.
‘Yeah, I have a speedboat,’ he said, grinding out the answer as if she had no right to even ask. ‘But the power’s out by the boathouse, which means I’m gonna have to hand-crank the doors to get it out, and I don’t like the look of the weather.’
He thrust his fingers through his hair, then glanced up at the sky just as a dark cloud crossed over the sun.
‘It’s an hour’s ride to the mainland from here,’ he added. ‘And I’m not risking the journey just to please you when another storm could drop any minute.’