Luccy undid her seat belt and stood up. ‘What about my luggage?’
‘Already taken off and in the car,’ Sin dismissed as he stepped back so that she could move into the aisle in front of him.
Of course it was. Why had she ever doubted it?
‘Good luck, love,’ the elderly lady called after her as Luccy walked down the gangway to where the door stood open waiting for them to leave.
Luck?
Luccy was going to need a lot more than luck if she was going to get through another conversation with Sin without breaking down…
‘You’ll give yourself jaw ache if you don’t relax soon,’ Sin murmured soothingly. Luccy was sitting absolutely silently beside him in his car as he drove the two of them away from the airport.
‘I would like to give you jaw ache!’ she muttered, dark sunglasses hiding the emotion in her eyes. ‘Half those people on the plane probably think I’m some sort of criminal being carted off to the police station!’
‘Then they would be wrong.’
‘You made me feel like a criminal!’ Luccy burst out angrily, her silence obviously at an end.
‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘I have no idea how you managed to delay the flight, let alone get onto the plane.’ She gave a snort of disgust. ‘You probably own shares in the airline—’
‘Make that a lot of shares,’ Sin interjected quietly.
Luccy’s fingernails dug into the shoulder bag she was holding protectively on her knees. ‘You think the Sinclair name gives you the right to do exactly as you please, don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, let me tell you that I don’t give that—’ she gave a dismissive snap of her fingers ‘—for the Sinclair name or the Sinclair trillions! You’re—’
‘I know.’
‘—nothing but a—a—What did you say?’ Luccy turned to look at him dazedly.
Sin’s mouth tightened. ‘I said I know, Luccy,’ he acknowledged heavily.
Her brows rose. ‘What do you know?’
‘That you don’t give a damn for the Sinclair name or the Sinclair wealth.’
‘You—you know that, do you?’
‘I believe so, yes.’
‘But I—how do you know that? Last night—’
‘Luccy, I would really rather we weren’t involved in an accident before we get back to the house,’ he cut in. ‘So do you think we could have the rest of this conversation once we get back?’
Luccy looked at him searchingly, noting the grimness of his expression, the nerve pulsing in his own tightly clenched jaw. He looked—she wasn’t sure how he looked!
She wasn’t exactly sure about the state of her own emotions, if she were honest. She had been stunned when she’d first looked up and seen Sin standing beside her seat on the plane. Had been mortified at how he’d drawn attention to her in that embarrassing way. But another part of her—another part of her had leapt with joy at his being there! Had begun to hope—
Hope what?
That Sin had come after her because he actually cared for her?
That really would be allowing herself to wander into the realms of fantasy.
Then what was Sin doing here?
He had changed his mind about letting her go, he had said. But what did that mean? The fact that Sin had booked her a seat on a flight later today meant that she really shouldn’t read too much into that statement…
But she wanted to!
Oh, how she wanted to!
‘Would you like something to drink?’ Sin offered politely when they were once more on the terrace overlooking parkland.
Luccy tapped her foot impatiently against one of the concrete slabs. ‘What I would like, as soon as you have said what it is you want to say, is to be on my flight back to England!’
Sin looked at her, seeing her face pale beneath those dark sunglasses. ‘Why did you leave without saying goodbye?’
A little colour entered her cheeks. ‘I left Wallace a note.’
‘So he told me.’ A nerve pulsed in Sin’s tightly clenched jaw as he recalled that Luccy had felt the need to say goodbye to Wallace but not to him.
She gave a dismissive shrug. ‘After last night there didn’t seem to be anything left for the two of us to say to each other.’
Sin drew in a sharp breath. ‘Luccy, do you have any idea why I decided I had to let you go, after all?’
She looked at him uncertainly. ‘Because you didn’t want to spend the next few decades married to a woman who hates you was, I believe, the reason you gave me?’
Sin frowned. ‘Do you hate me, Luccy?’
‘You said I did.’
‘I’m more interested in what you have to say than anything I may or may not have said!’ he rasped.
Luccy eyed him, still not sure what he wanted from her. Or how much more of this she could take…
She had left in the way she had in order to avoid another scene like this, had no defences left, against her love for him, or the way she was still so physically aware of him as he stood there so tall and handsome in his black polo shirt and faded blue jeans.
‘What do you want from me, Sin?’ She gave a pained frown, her hands tightly clasped together in front of her.
‘I want—’He broke off, giving a frustrated shake of his head. ‘What happened between the two of us two months ago, Luccy?’
She drew in a ragged breath. ‘I thought you were the one with all the answers on that subject.’
She had never done anything as reckless in her life before as going off with someone as she had done with Sin that night. She’d never do anything like it again, either!
Her eyes widened as Sin walked slowly, determinedly, towards her, not sure she could keep her fragile barriers in place if he came too close to her.
And then he was close to her, very close, so close that Luccy could no longer breathe…
‘I don’t have the answer to that one.’ He looked down at her. ‘You knocked me off my feet that night, do you know that?’
‘No…’ she breathed, her gaze caught and held by his.
‘Totally.’ Sin nodded. ‘And then when I came out of the shower and found you gone…’ He gave another shake of his head. ‘It was almost as if I had imagined you.’
Luccy grimaced. ‘I have nightmares like that too sometimes.’ Sin smiled slightly. ‘You were no nightmare, Luccy. The nightmare only began after I spoke to Paul Bridger,’ he grated, his mouth tightening at the memory.