When Christakos Meets His Match

CHAPTER ONE


Five months later...

‘CARA...DO YOU have to leave so soon?’

The voice oozed sultry sex appeal. Alexio stalled for a second in the act of buttoning up his shirt—not because he was tempted to stay but because, if anything, he felt even more eager to leave.

He schooled his features and turned to face the woman in the bed. She was all honeyed limbs and artfully tumbled glossy brown hair. Huge dark eyes, a pouting mouth and the absence of a sheet were doing little to help Alexio forget why he’d chosen to take her to his hotel suite in Milan after his brother Rafaele’s wedding reception last night.

She was stunning. Perfect.

Even so, he felt no resurgence of desire. And Alexio didn’t like to acknowledge the fact that the sex had been wholly underwhelming. On the surface it had been fine; but on some deeper level it had left him cold. He switched on the charm he was famed for, though, and smiled.

‘Sorry, bellissima, I have to fly to Paris this morning for work.’


The woman, whose name he all of a sudden wasn’t entirely sure of—Carmela?—leant back and stretched seductively, displaying her perfectly cosmetically enhanced naked breasts to their best advantage, and pouted even more. ‘You have to leave right now?’

Alexio kept his smile in place and when he’d finished dressing bent down and pressed a light kiss to her mouth, escaping before she could twine her arms around his neck. Claustrophobia was rising within him.

‘We had fun, cara...I’ll call you.’

Now the seductive pout was gone, and the woman’s real nature shone through as her eyes turned hard. She knew when she was being blown off and clearly did not like it when the man in question was as sought-after as Alexio Christakos.

She stood up from the bed naked and flounced off to the bathroom, issuing a stream of Italian petulance. Alexio winced slightly but let out a sigh of relief as soon as she’d disappeared behind a slamming door.

He shook his head as he made his way out of the suite and towards the lobby of the plush hotel in the private lift reserved for VIP guests. Women. He loved them, but he loved them at a distance. In his bed when it suited him and then out of it for as long as he cared to indulge them—which invariably wasn’t for long.

After years of witnessing his mother’s cold behaviour towards his father, who had remained in slavish thrall to her beauty and eternal elusiveness, Alexio had developed a very keen sense of self-protection around women. He could handle cold and aloof because he was used to that, and he preferred it.

His father, thwarted by his emotionally unavailable wife, had turned to his son, making him the centre of his world. It had been too much. From an early age Alexio had chafed against the claustrophobia of his father’s over-attention. And now when anyone—especially a woman—became even remotely over-emotional, or expected too much, he shut down inside.

Brief encounters were his forté. Witnessing his half-brother’s wedding the day before had inevitably brought up questions of his own destiny, but Alexio, at the age of thirty, felt no compelling need to settle down yet.

He did envisage a wife and family at some stage...far in the future. When the time came his wife would be perfect. Beautiful, accommodating. Undemanding of Alexio’s emotions. Above all, Alexio would not fall into the same trap as his father: tortured for life because he’d coveted a woman who didn’t covet him. He’d been disabused at an early age of the notion that love might be involved.

He thought of his older brother turning up at his mother’s funeral and all the accompanying unwelcome emotions he’d felt that day: shock, anger, hurt, betrayal.

Used to blocking out emotions, Alexio had relegated the incident to the back of his mind. He hadn’t sought Cesar da Silva out, hadn’t mentioned it again to Rafaele—even though he knew Rafaele had invited their half-brother to his wedding. Predictably enough, after that first and last terse meeting, he hadn’t turned up.

Emotions were messy, unpredictable. They tripped you up. Look at Rafaele! His life had just been turned upside down by a woman who had kept his son from him for four years. And yet two months after meeting her again he was getting married, looking foolishly in love and blithely forgetting the lessons his own father had taught him about the fickle nature of women.

As far as Alexio was concerned—even if Rafaele appeared to be happily embarking on wedded bliss, and no matter how cute his three-and-a-half-year-old nephew was—his brother had been played for a fool by his new wife. Why wouldn’t she now want to marry Rafaele Falcone, wunderkind of the worldwide automobile industry, with an estimated wealth running into the billions? Especially if she had a son to support?

No, Alexio was steering well clear of similar scenarios and he would never allow himself to be caught as his brother had been. He would never forgive a woman who kept a child from him. Still, a sliver of unease went down his spine. His brother, whom he’d considered to share a similar philosophy, had managed to get caught...

Alexio’s mouth firmed and he pushed such rogue notions down deep. He put on a pair of shades as his driver brought the car around to the front entrance and was oblivious to the double-take stares of a group of women as they walked into the hotel.

As soon as the car pulled away Alexio was already focusing on the next thing on his agenda, the introspection his brother’s wedding had precipitated along with his recent unsatisfactory bed partner already relegated to the back of his mind.

* * *

Sidonie Fitzgerald buckled her seatbelt on the plane and took a deep breath. But she was unable to shift the ball of tension sitting in her belly. For once her habitual fear of flying was being eclipsed by something else, and Sidonie couldn’t even really enjoy that fact.

All she could see in her mind’s eye was her beloved Tante Josephine’s round, eternally childish and worried face and hear her quavering voice: ‘Sidonie, what does it mean? Will they take my home from me? All these bills...where did they come from?’

Sidonie’s aunt was fifty-four and had spent a lifetime locked in a world of innocence. She’d been deprived of oxygen as a baby and as a result had been mildly brain-damaged. She’d always functioned at a slightly lesser and slower level than everyone around her, but had managed to get through school and find a job. She still worked in the grocer’s shop around the corner from where she’d lived for years, giving her precious independence.

Sidonie pursed her lips. She had loved her self-absorbed and endlessly vain mother, who had passed away only a couple of months before, but how could her mother have done this to her sweet and innocent younger sister?

The never forgotten sting of shame reminded Sidonie all too uncomfortably of exactly how her mother could have done such a thing—as if she could ever really forget. Ruthlessly she quashed it.

When Sidonie’s father had died a few years before, their comfortable lives had crashed around their ears, leaving them with nothing. Sidonie had been forced to leave her university degree before the start of her final year in order to find work and save money to go back.

Moving to Paris to live with Tante Josephine had been her mother Cecile’s only option to avoid becoming homeless or—even worse—having to find work. Cecile had not been happy. She’d been used to a life of comfort, relative luxury and security, courtesy of her hard-working husband who had wanted nothing more than to make his wife happy.

It would appear now, though, as if Sidonie’s mother’s selfish ways had risen to the fore again. She’d encouraged her sister to take out a mortgage on the apartment that had been bought and paid for by her husband because he’d cared for his vulnerable sister-in-law’s welfare. Cecile had used this fact as leverage to persuade Tante Josephine to agree to the remortgage. She’d then used that money, and credit cards in both their names, to spend a small fortune. Tante Josephine now found herself liable for the astronomical bills as the remaining living account-holder.

Sidonie had to figure out the best way forward to help her aunt—she had no intention of leaving her to fend for herself. The start of the process had been taking on the burden of the debts into her own name. She hadn’t thought twice about doing it—ever since her childhood innocence had been ripped away Sidonie had developed a well-ingrained instinct to cover up for her mother—even now, when she was gone.

Sidonie was facing the prospect of moving to Paris to help her aunt get out of this crisis. She staved off the sense of panic. She was young and healthy. Surely she could get work? Even if it was menial?

In a sick way events had conspired to help her—she’d lost her waitressing job in Dublin just before she’d left for Paris to meet with a solicitor to discuss her aunt’s situation. Her restaurant boss had explained miserably that they had gone into liquidation, like so many others. Sidonie was going back to Dublin now—just to tie up loose ends and collect the deposit owed to her on her flat when she moved out.

Her hands clenched into fists at the thought of how her mother had only ever thought about herself, oblivious to the repercussions of her—

‘Here is your seat, sir.’

‘Thank you.’

Sidonie’s thoughts scattered as she heard the exchange above her head, and she looked up and saw a man. She blinked. And blinked again. He was very tall and broad. Slim hips at her eye level. He was taking off an overcoat and folding it up to place it in the overheard locker, revealing a lean, muscular build under a fine silk shirt and jacket. Sidonie was vaguely aware of the way the air hostess was hovering attentively.

The man said in English, with a seductive foreign accent, ‘I’ve got it, thank you.’

The air hostess looked comically deflated and turned away. The man was now taking off his suit jacket, and Sidonie realised she was staring—no better than the gaping air hostess. Quickly she averted her head and looked out of the window, seeing nothing of the pewter-grey Parisian spring skies and the fluorescent-jacket-clad ground staff preparing the plane for take-off.

His image was burned onto her brain. It didn’t help when she felt him take the seat beside her and all the air around them seemed to disappear. And it really didn’t help when his scent teased her nostrils; musky and masculine.


He was quite simply the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life. Dark olive complexion, high cheekbones, strong jaw. Short dark brown hair. Firmly sculpted masculine mouth. He should have been pretty. But Sidonie’s impression was not of pretty. It was of hard and uncompromising sexuality. Heat. The last kind of person she’d have expected to sit in an economy seat beside her.

And then he spoke. ‘Excuse me.’

His voice was so deep that she felt it reverberate in the pit of her belly. She swallowed and told herself she was being ridiculous—he couldn’t possibly be that gorgeous. She turned her head and her heart stopped. His face was inches away. He was...that gorgeous. And more. He looked vaguely familiar and she wondered if he was a famous male model. Or a French movie star?

Something funny was happening to Sidonie’s brain and body. They didn’t seem to be connected any more. She felt a hysterical giggle rise up and had to stifle it. She didn’t giggle. What was wrong with her?

One dark brow moved upwards over the most startling pair of green eyes she’d ever seen. Gold and green. Like a lion. She had green eyes too, but they were more blue than green.

‘I think you’re sitting on my seatbelt?’

It took a few seconds for the words to compute, and when they did Sidonie jumped up as if scalded, hands flapping. ‘I’m so sorry... Excuse me... Just let me... It must be here somewhere...’

Sounding irritated, the man said, ‘Stay still and I’ll get it.’

Sidonie closed her eyes in mortification, her hands gripping the seat-back in front of her, and she hovered, contorted in the small space, as the man coolly retrieved his seatbelt and buckled it.

Sidonie sat down again and attended to her own belt. Feeling breathless, and avoiding looking at him again, she said, ‘I’m sorry. I—’

He cut her off. ‘It’s fine, don’t worry about it.’

A flare of something hot lanced Sidonie’s belly. Did he have to sound so curt? And why was she suddenly so aware of the fact that her hair was scraped up into a messy bun, that she had no make-up on, that she was wearing jeans that were so worn there was a frayed hole at her knee and an equally worn university sweatshirt. And her glasses. If Central Casting had been looking for ‘messy grunge student type’ she would have been hired on the spot.

She was disgusted at herself for letting a man—albeit a man as gorgeous as this one—make her feel so self-conscious. She forced herself to take a deep breath and looked resolutely forward. Out of the corner of her eye, though, she was aware of big, strong-looking hands opening up a tablet computer. Her belly clenched.

The seconds stretched to minutes and she heard him sigh volubly when the plane still wasn’t moving. His arm nearest to her reached up to push something, and she realised it must have been the call button when the stewardess arrived with indecent haste.

‘Yes, sir?’

Sidonie heard the irritation in his voice. ‘Is there a reason why we’re not moving yet?’

She looked over and saw only his strong profile and jaw, and even though she couldn’t see it she could imagine the kind of expression he’d be using: imperious. She glanced at the woman and felt sorry for her because she looked so embarrassed.

‘I’m not sure, sir. I’ll check right away.’ She rushed off again.

Sidonie let out a faint snort of derision. Even the stewardess was treating him as if he was some sort of overlord.

He looked at her then. ‘I’m sorry... Did you say something?’

Sidonie tried not to be affected by his overwhelming presence. She shrugged minutely. ‘I’m sure we’re just waiting in line to take our slot on the runway.’

He turned to face her more fully and Sidonie cursed herself. The last thing she needed was his undivided attention on her.

‘Oh, really? And what if I have an important meeting to attend in London?’

Something hot flashed into Sidonie’s veins and she told herself it was anger at his insufferable arrogance. She crossed her arms in an unconsciously defensive move and said in a low voice, ‘Well, in case it’s escaped your attention, there are approximately two hundred people on this plane. I’m sure more than one other person has a meeting to make, and I don’t see them complaining.’

His eyes flashed and momentarily stopped her breath. They were so unusual and stark against his dark skin. He was like a specimen from some exotic planet.

‘There’s two hundred and ten, actually, and I don’t doubt that there are many others who have important appointments lined up—which makes my question even more relevant.’

Sidonie barely registered the fact that he knew exactly how many were on board and bristled at the way his eyes had done that quick sweep up and down her body, clearly deducing that she wasn’t on her way to an important meeting.

‘For your information,’ she said frigidly, ‘I have a connecting flight to Dublin from London and I’ll be very inconvenienced if we’re late. But that’s just life, isn’t it?’

He leant back a little and looked at her. ‘I wondered where your accent was from. It’s intriguing.’

Sidonie wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, so she clamped her mouth shut. Just then someone dressed in uniform with a cap came alongside their seats and coughed slightly to get the man’s attention.

Releasing Sidonie from his compelling gaze, the man turned, and the pilot bent down and said discreetly, ‘Mr Christakos, sorry about this delay. It’s beyond our control, I’m afraid... They’ve got a backlog of planes waiting to take off. It shouldn’t be much longer, but we can get your private jet ready if you’d prefer?’

Sidonie knew her eyes had gone wide as she took in this exchange.

After a few moments the man said, ‘No, I’ll stay, Pierre. But thank you for thinking of it.’

The captain inclined his head deferentially and left again and Sidonie realised that her mouth was open. Abruptly she shut it and looked out of the window before the man could see. In her line of vision was a similar plane to theirs, standing nearby, with the distinctive Christakos logo emblazoned on the side, along with a quote from a Greek philosopher. All of Alexio Christakos’s planes sported quotes.

Alexio Christakos.

Sidonie shook her head minutely, in disbelief. The man next to her—now on his phone, with that deep voice speaking in a language that sounded like Greek—could not be the owner of Christakos Freight and Travel. That man was a legend. And he would certainly not be sitting beside her, with his long legs constricted by the confines of economy class seating.

He’d been a case study in their business class at college before she’d had to leave. Astonishingly successful while still disgustingly young, he’d made headlines when he’d cut himself off from his father’s inheritance to go his own way, never revealing to anyone his reasons for doing so.

He’d then grafted and worked his way up, starting up an online freight company that had blown all of the competition out of the water, and when he’d sold it after only two years he’d made a fortune. It was that early success that had given him the finances to branch out into air travel, and within the space of five years he’d been competing with and beating the best budget airlines in Europe. He had a reputation for treating customers like people and not like herded cattle, which was a trademark of a lot of Christakos’s competition.

He was also one of the most eligible bachelors in Europe, if not the world. Sidonie was not a gossip magazine aficionado, but after they’d studied his entrepreneurial methods in college she’d had to listen to her fellow classmates wax lyrical about the man, drooling over copious pictures of him, for weeks. With a sinking feeling in her chest, she realised why he looked vaguely familiar. Even though she’d not shared in their collective drooling she’d glanced at a couple of pictures, dismissing him as a pretty boy.

Now she knew: pretty he was not. He was all male. Virile and potent. She felt like squirming, and she wanted to change seats. She was suddenly acutely uncomfortable and didn’t like to analyse why that might be. She wasn’t used to someone having such an immediate physical effect on her.

* * *

The woman in the seat next to Alexio was starting to fidget. He had to curb the urge to put his hand on her thigh to stop her and curled that hand into a fist. She was clearly a nervy sort from the way she’d reacted when she discovered she was sitting on his seatbelt.

It was intensely irritating to him that he was aware of her at all. That he’d done a minor double-take on hearing her challenge him. He chafed at being in such close confines with another person after years of the luxury of private air travel, but if he wasn’t so damned conscientious...and controlling... His mouth quirked at the thought of the insult that had been hurled his way more than once.

On the phone, his assistant was informing him of his schedule in London, but Alexio caught sight of a sliver of pale knee peeping out of torn jeans beside him and stifled a snort. Could she be any messier? He’d taken in an impression after exchanging those few words—light-coloured hair, a slim body, pale face, glasses. Voluminous sweatshirt that hid any trace of femininity. And a surprisingly husky voice with that intriguing accent.


Alexio did not take notice of women who did not dress like women. He had high standards after being brought up by one of the world’s foremost models. His mother had always been impeccably turned out. He frowned. He was thinking of her again.

Realising the novel fact that he was not actually taking in a word his assistant was saying, Alexio terminated the conversation abruptly. The woman went still beside him and something tensed inside him. He could be on his way to his private jet right now but he’d refused. Again, not like him. But something had stopped him. Something in his gut.

He glanced over to see that the woman had a capacious grey bag on her lap and was pulling things out of the seat pocket in front of her to put them in haphazardly. Another strike against her. Alexio was a neat freak. She’d pushed her black-framed glasses on her head and his eye was drawn to her hair.

It was actually strawberry blonde. An intriguing colour. It looked to be wavy and unruly if let loose, and he found himself wondering how long it was when it wasn’t confined in that high bun, with wisps curling against her neck and face.

Something tightened inside him, down low. Her face, too, was not as unremarkable as he’d first thought. Heart-shaped and pale. He could see a faint smattering of freckles across her small straight nose and it shocked him slightly. It had been so long since he’d been this close to a face without make-up. It felt curiously intimate.

Her hands were small and quick. Deft. Short, practical nails. And just like that Alexio felt a punch of desire bloom in his gut. It was hot and immediate as he imagined how small and pale those hands would look on his body, caressing him, touching him, stroking him. The images were so incendiary that Alexio’s breath stopped for a moment.

The girl seemed to have restored her belongings to her bag and now, almost as an afterthought, she took her glasses off her head and put them in too.

She must be aware of his scrutiny—he could see a flood of red stain her cheeks. And that stunned him anew. When was the last time he’d seen a woman blush?

Alexio leant back slightly, noting that her mouth in profile looked full and soft. Kissable.

‘Going somewhere?’ he asked, slightly perturbed that his voice sounded so rough.

The woman took a breath, making her sweatshirt rise and fall, drawing his eye to the flesh it concealed. He had a sudden hunger to see her. And he wondered about her breasts. That desire increased, shocking him slightly with its force. He’d just left a woman in his hotel suite—what was wrong with him?

She looked at him and Alexio’s eyes met hers. He sucked in a breath. Without the black-framed glasses they were stunning. Almond-shaped. Aquamarine. Like the sea around the islands in Greece. Sparkling green one second and blue the next. Long dark lashes were a contrast against her pale colouring, and her eyebrows the same strawberry blonde tone as her hair.

She looked resolute, her hands gripping her bag, that soft mouth tight now, eyes avoiding his. ‘I’ll move seats.’

Alexio frowned. Everything in his body was rejecting the notion with a force he didn’t like to acknowledge. ‘Why on earth do you want to move?’

This was another novel experience—a woman trying to get away from him!

Alexio settled back further in his seat. The woman opened her mouth again and he saw small, even white teeth. Her two front teeth had a slight gap in the middle. He had the uncanny feeling that he could just sit there and stare at her for hours.

Now she was blushing in earnest.

‘Well, you’re obviously...you know...’ she looked at him now, slightly agonised.

He quirked a brow. ‘What am I?’

Her cheeks went an even brighter red and Alexio had to curb the desire to reach out and touch them to see if they felt as hot as they looked.

She huffed now, impatiently. ‘Well, you’re obviously you, and you have things to do, people to talk to. You need space.’

Something cold settled into Alexio’s belly and his eyes narrowed. Of course. She’d heard that exchange with the pilot and would have deduced who he was. Still...in his experience once people knew who he was they didn’t try to get away—the opposite, in fact.

‘I have all the space I need. You don’t need to go anywhere. I’ll feel insulted if you move.’

* * *

Sidonie had to force herself to calm down. What on earth was wrong with her? So what if he was Alexio Christakos, one of the most powerful entrepreneurs of his time? So what if he was more gorgeous than any man she’d ever seen? Since when had she become a walking hormone, anyway? The flight was only an hour. She could handle anything for an hour. Even sitting beside Alexio Christakos.

She forced herself to relax her grip on her bag and said, in as calm a voice as she could muster, ‘Fine. I just thought that in light of...who you are...you might appreciate some more space. I mean physically. You’re not exactly...’ Sidonie stopped and bit her lip, slid her gaze from his uncomfortably.

In an effort to distract him she started to take stuff out of her bag again: a book, papers...

‘I’m not exactly what?’

Sidonie could hear the barely suppressed smile in his voice and it made her prickle at being such an object of humour for him.

‘You know very well what I mean...’ She waved a hand in his general direction. ‘You’re not exactly designed to fit into economy class, are you?’

She could have sworn she heard a muffled snort but refused to look, thrusting her bag back down under the seat in front. She hated to acknowledge the zinging sensation in her blood, as if she’d been plugged into a mild electric current.

She sat back and crossed her arms, and looked at him to find him regarding her with a small smile playing around his mouth. Lord. Almost accusingly she asked, ‘Why are you here anyway? Apparently you could be on a private jet rather than waiting here like the rest of us.’

That green gaze was steady, unsettling.

‘It’s a spot-check. I like to do them from time to time, to make sure things are running smoothly.’

Sidonie breathed out as something clicked in her brain. ‘Of course. I read about that.’

He frowned and she clarified reluctantly, feeling hot and self-conscious. ‘You were a case study in my business module at college.’

That information didn’t appear to be news to him. ‘What else did you study at college?’

Embarrassed now, Sidonie admitted, ‘Technically I’m still in college... I had to leave before the start of my final year just over a year ago, due to personal events. I’m saving money to try and complete my course... My degree is in Business and French.’

‘What happened?’

Sidonie looked at him. On some level she was shocked at his directness, but it was also curiously refreshing. She couldn’t seem to remove her gaze from his. The small space they occupied felt strangely intimate, cocoon-like.

‘I... Well, my father lost his construction business when the property boom crashed in Ireland. He struggled for a while but it was useless. He only managed to get himself into debt.’ Sidonie went cold inside. ‘He passed away not long afterwards. Everything was gone—the business, the house... College was paid for up to a point, but then the money ran out. I had to leave and work.’

Sidonie felt uncomfortable under his gaze. It was intense, unsettling.

‘And why were you in Paris?’

Sidonie arched a brow. ‘What is this? Twenty questions? What were you doing in Paris?’

Alexio crossed his arms and Sidonie’s belly clenched when she saw how the muscles in his arm bunched under the thin silk of his shirt. She gulped and looked back into that hypnotising gaze.

‘I was in Milan yesterday at my brother’s wedding, he said. ‘Then I flew to Paris this morning to catch this flight, so that I could do my check while en route to London.’

‘Are you not concerned about missing your meeting?’

Alexio smiled and the bottom dropped out of Sidonie’s belly.

‘It’s not ideal, but they’ll wait for me.’

Of course they would, she thought faintly. Who wouldn’t wait for this man?

‘So,’ he said patiently, ‘now will you tell me why you were in Paris?’

Sidonie looked at him and unbidden a lump came to her throat for her wayward. selfish mother and her poor Tante Josephine who was so worried. She swallowed it down.

‘I was here to meet with a solicitor to deal with my mother’s affairs. She passed away in Paris a couple of months ago. She’d been living with my aunt; she’s from here originally.’ She corrected herself. ‘Was from here, I mean. She moved back after my father died.’

Alexio uncrossed his arms and his expression sobered. ‘That’s rough—to lose both parents in such a short space of time. I lost my mother too—five months ago.’

Sidonie’s chest tightened. A moment of empathy. union    . ‘I’m sorry... It’s hard, isn’t it?’

His mouth twisted. ‘I have to admit that we weren’t that close—but, yes, it was still a shock.’

That feeling intensified in Sidonie’s chest. She revealed huskily, ‘I did love my mum, and I know she loved me, but we weren’t that close either. She was very...self-absorbed.’


Suddenly the plane lurched into movement and Sidonie’s hands went to grab the armrests automatically as she looked out of the window. ‘Oh, God, we’re moving.’

A dry voice came from her left. ‘That’s generally what a plane does before it takes off.’

‘Very funny,’ muttered Sidonie, and their recent conversation was wiped from her mind as she battled with the habitual fear of flying she faced.

‘Hey, are you okay? You look terrible.’

‘No,’ Sidonie got out painfully, knowing she’d probably gone ashen. Her eyes were closed. ‘I’m not okay, but I will be if you just leave me alone. Ignore me.’

‘You’re scared of flying? And you’re taking two flights to Dublin? Why didn’t you just take a direct flight?’ Now he sounded censorious.

‘Because,’ Sidonie gritted out, ‘it worked out cheaper to do it this way, and the direct flights were all full anyway. It was short notice.’

The familiar nausea started to rise and she clamped her mouth shut, feeling cold and clammy. She tried not to think back to the huge breakfast her Tante Josephine had insisted on them both having before they’d left on their respective journeys. It sat heavily in her belly now.

The plane was moving in earnest; this was always the worst part—and the take-off. And the landing. And sometimes in between if there was turbulence.

‘Did something happen to make you scared?’

Sidonie wished he would just ignore her, but bit out, ‘What? You mean apart from the fact that I’m miles above the earth, surrounded by nothing but a bit of tin and fibreglass or whatever planes are made of?’

‘They’re actually made mainly of aluminium, although sometimes a composite of metals is used, and in newer technology they’re looking at carbon fibre. My brother designs and builds cars, so we’re actually looking into new technologies together.’

Sidonie cracked open one eye and cast Alexio a baleful glance. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because your fears are irrational. You do know that air travel is the safest form of travel in the world?’

Sidonie opened both eyes now and tried to avoid seeing outside the plane. She looked at Alexio. That didn’t really help, she had to admit.

She said somewhat churlishly, ‘I suppose that the likelihood of the plane going down while its owner is on board is not very high.’

He looked smug. ‘See?’

Then he leant closer, making her pulse jump out of control.

‘And did you know that of all the seats on the plane these are the safest ones to be in—in the event of a crash?’

Sidonie’s eyes widened. ‘Really?’

She saw humour dancing in those golden depths and clamped her eyes shut again while something swooped precariously in her belly.

‘Very funny.’

Then the plane jerked and Sidonie’s hands tightened on the armrests. She heard a deep sigh from beside her and then felt her left hand being taken by a much bigger one. Instantly she was short of breath which she could ill afford to lose.

‘What are you doing?’ she squeaked, very aware of how tiny her hand felt in his.

‘If it’s all right with you, I’d prefer it if you abused me rather than my armrests.’

Sidonie opened her eyes again and glanced left. Alexio was looking stern, but with a twitch of a smile playing around his mouth. Lord, oh, Lord. She said, a little breathlessly, ‘I think somehow that your armrests can withstand my feeble attempts to bend them out of shape.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Alexio replied easily, ‘I won’t let it be said that I couldn’t offer support to a valued customer in her hour of need.’