“What are you doing here?” Nerves scattered over my skin, adding to the residual trembling from turbulence.
“I think the same reason why you’re here.”
The driver butted in. “Are you Mr. Oak?”
The man tore his eyes from mine. “I am.” Hoisting his backpack higher onto his shoulder, he swiped a hand through his thick dark hair. The locks immediately flopped back over his forehead as if they’d claimed that part of his face and refused to behave. His skin was the perfect alabaster of a true Englishman while his height and broadness of well-used muscles hinted he might be more farm boy than aristocrat.
A mental movie unravelled in my head of him toiling away beneath the hot sun (shirtless, of course) with his glasses sliding down his sweaty nose.
I’d never thought of glasses as a sex statement (more of an inconvenience) but on him...holy crap.
His attention fell back to me. He cocked his head, running his tongue along his bottom lip. “I wondered where you disappeared to.”
“Pardon?” I hated the way his gravelly voice slipped beneath my clothes as if he’d already seen me naked. I loathed the way his accent made me want to revoke my many rules and beg to listen to who he was and share my tale in exchange. I never wanted to talk about myself...so why him? What made him so different?
“On the plane. You bolted when we landed.”
My heart stopped. “Wait. You could see me on board?” Embarrassment flushed my skin. He’d seen me throwing up? He’d witnessed a neurotic idiot shove as many belongings as she could into pockets of a jacket that’d become far too stifling in the muggy heat, all because she’d had a hare-brained idea of surviving after plummeting thousands of feet into a stormy ocean?
Wonderful.
Flipping brilliant.
“I saw you. I was even tempted to come and talk to you.” His eyes slipped over my nose, cheeks, and lips, taking far more liberties than a stranger should. His damn glasses glittered in the lights, drawing all my focus to the one part of him I wanted to escape.
Wait...
Tempted to talk to me but didn’t.... Guess he did see me in all my crazy glory.
My voice cracked with nerves. “And why didn’t you?”
Why would you ask that?
I didn’t want to know what’d turned him off. I’d made a pact to reinvent myself when I returned home. Whoever he’d seen on the plane no longer existed.
Then why do you care if you're no longer that person?
Shut up!
God, I was annoying myself.
His eyebrows quirked in an entirely roguish way. “Why didn’t I what?” The connection between us grew heavier by the second.
Seriously?
He’d baited me, and, like a stupid fish, I couldn’t ignore the hook. “Come talk to me?”
Suddenly, the smouldering awareness snipped free with one caustic laugh from him. “Oh. Let’s just say, I have my reasons.”
My cheek smarted as if he’d slapped me physically rather than just figuratively. I didn’t know how to take that.
Should I be impressed that he noticed me and not care why he hadn’t approached, or jilted that I’d interested him but not enough to enlist conversation?
Egotistical jerk.
Duncan laughed under his breath, returning to his wife.
Mr. Oak noticed we had an audience and the brief glimpse into the man who chased what he wanted (but for some reason didn’t chase me) shut down, leaving a polite stranger in his wake.
He waved at the Evermore family. “Galloway.” His eyes once again landed on mine. Leaning forward, he held out his hand. “Anyway, we’ve talked now, so no harm done. Like I just said...I’m Galloway.”
Automatically, social graces made me loop my fingers with his.
Big mistake.
Colossal mistake.
The second we touched, the embarrassment flushing my skin turned to sexual mist, mingling with sweat from the humid tropics and rolling in a dirty droplet down my spine.
His touch felt like a hundred fireflies—bright, flickering, and completely alive against my flesh.
His mouth parted.
His fingers tightened around mine.
And the driver coughed loudly, hacking a spit-ball by my feet.
Eww!
I leapt to the side, wrenching my hand from Galloway’s, leaving me confused and not entirely sad that the touch had been severed.
What the hell was that?
And why did I have equal measures of fascination and abhorrence for this cocky English man who complimented me and insulted me all in one breath?
“Ready to go?” The driver marched to the van door and tossed his clipboard inside. Coming toward me, he stole my suitcase and yanked it toward the trailer attached to the back. “We’re all here. Let’s go. Perfect time to get you to your hotel before the rain starts again.”
The shock of having my suitcase stolen deleted all thoughts of Galloway and the unwelcome power he’d had. I was a professional songwriter and singer. I wasn’t a dumb mute rendered idiotic by a handsome man.
Slipping my heavy jacket from my shoulders, I wiped beaded sweat from my forehead. “Wait...are you sure there isn’t another flight leaving tonight? I’d rather stay at the airport, just in case—”
“She’s right,” Galloway muttered. His five o’ clock shadow bristled in the low illumination. “I need to leave tonight. Not in the morning. I don’t care what they say; I’m travelling to Kadavu.”
The driver cocked his head. “Kadavu?”