CHAPTER FIVE
ANYOFTHE pleasure Kat might have felt at the sheer novelty value of the travelling style of the rich and famous was ruined for her by the thought of what lay ahead when they landed.
Every time she thought of the man who had left his only daughter to suffer a life a step from the gutter, icy anger rose up in her like a tide. She was not used to such feelings and they made her feel physically sick.
What did he want from her? Forgiveness? A second chance? Kat did not feel she had either in her.
The emotions surging and churning inside her must have shown on her face because at one point during the flight an attendant came and discreetly pointed out the bathroom facilities.
Happy to play along with the assumption she was a poor flyer, Kat vanished in the restroom for a few minutes of solitude she didn’t really want—it left too much time for her dark thoughts.
Trailing her hand under the water and looking at herself in the illuminated mirror, she found it easy to understand the attendant’s assumption she was about to throw up. She looked terrible, the emotional tussle in her head reflected on her face. She felt bad enough to wish for a foolish split second that Zach, who had fallen into conversation with one of the pilots as they’d boarded and vanished with him, was actually there to distract her—and that was pretty bad!
Nothing as dramatic as the kiss, of course. That had definitely been a step too far, she decided, a dreamy expression drifting into her eyes that she had no control over as she trailed her fingers across the outline of her lips, before snatching them away a moment later with a self-conscious grimace as she realised what she was doing.
When she retook her seat, despite her assuring the attendant she was feeling much better, the woman suggested she should alert Mr Gavros to the situation.
Kat hastily assured her that the only situation was her need to catch up on some sleep.
The attendant reluctantly complied, leaving Kat alone with her own thoughts and her rising sense of panic and trepidation for the rest of the flight. Zach didn’t reappear until after they had landed; actually she didn’t see him first, she felt his presence.
Even though she hadn’t looked around she knew the exact moment he had appeared. It made her fumble as she released her seat belt and got to her feet, smoothing down her hair and straightening the row of pearly buttons on the square-necked sweater she wore tucked into the belt that emphasised her narrow waist, then stopped because her hands were shaking. The amount of adrenaline circulating in her bloodstream was having a dizzying effect. A situation not improved when she lifted her chin and was no longer able to delay the moment she looked at him.
He had lost the coat and jacket and was standing there, looking elegant and as relaxed as someone as driven as him could. Also, overpoweringly sexy. She blamed the enclosed space and the slight tingle left on her lips from that kiss.
‘Where... How...?’ She stopped, hating the breathy delivery, and ran a tongue across her dry lips and lifted her chin and husked out, ‘Is he...my...grandfather here?’
The toughness she had adopted was paper thin; something about the way she stood there looking as vulnerable as hell and too proud to show it awoke something in a tiny, previously dead corner of Zach’s heart. He tensed as some nameless emotion clutched at him, making his voice abrupt when he finally responded.
‘He’s waiting in a hotel next door to the terminal, but don’t worry, it’ll be private.’ Alekis had taken over the penthouse floor to ensure privacy for the meeting, and presumably space for the specialist team on hand with defibrillators.
Zach just hoped this meeting was not going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Her lips tightened. ‘I hope he doesn’t expect me to pretend, because I won’t. I’ll tell him what I think of him.’
Her words jolted loose a memory. He remembered saying as much to himself before he’d walked back into the seedy apartment that for seven years had been what some would laughingly call his home. His nostrils flared now as he remembered the sour stale stench that had hit him as he had opened the door.
He was a realist; he hadn’t anticipated any sort of an apology or even regret, just an acknowledgement of what they had done. It had become obvious very quickly that he wasn’t going to get even that. He’d found his grandmother in her bed, hair matted, unwashed; her eyes had had a vacant look as she’d stared at him without recognition.
Of his uncle there had been no sign. Clearly when free bed and board was not worth the effort of living with a woman with what the doctors had diagnosed as advanced dementia, he had vanished. Later, Zach had discovered he had not got far. It seemed he’d picked a fight with the wrong solitary, weak-looking person, who, it had turned out, had not been alone. His uncle had died of his head injuries three days later—a sordid end to a sordid life.
He pushed away the memory and simultaneously dampened an uncharacteristic need to say something comforting, and almost definitely untrue, to soothe the conflict he could see in those golden eyes.
He couldn’t see this meeting being comfortable.
‘You mean you can pretend?’ He had rarely encountered honesty of the variety she possessed in a world where it was rare for people to speak the truth. She stood out. His eyes slid down her body. She stood out for a lot of reasons.
‘He is a stranger and he hurt my mother. He doesn’t mean anything to me.’
‘Then tell him that. The funding for your refuge is guaranteed.’
Kat found his response bewildering. Was he trying to play devil’s advocate? ‘You know I can’t. He’s ill, he might...’
The hand on her shoulder was light but strangely comforting. Finding Zach Gavros comforting in any sense of the word must mean she was in a worse state than she’d thought.
‘If I say something and he dies...how am I supposed to live with that?’ she choked out.
‘Alekis is tough and he has an army of medics on hand. Anything that happens is not your responsibility,’ he added, suddenly angry as hell with Alekis for putting his granddaughter in this position. ‘By this evening you can be swimming in the sea.’