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‘Personal, then?’ Watching Paul’s eyes dart away a fraction too soon, Aet engaged? Has he got some love-child…?’

‘Stop fishing, Amelia Just do your work and I’ll do mine I want your copy by two p to use it this sa smile, ‘that I want you to feel as if you’re under pressure’

‘Just know that I a the task ahead yet terrified all of the same

And now here she stood, in a boxy little suit, hair slicked back, and looking not too bad given she’d had approxie was checked in, the newspaper was under her ar pass was in her hand, and Australia’s ible bachelor was at her side

Life was certainly looking up

Better still if he whizzed her off to soe for a decent cup of coffee to wake her up while they waited for their flight But that hope was soon dashed when Vaughan told her that, given how she’d et there on tiht

‘I’?’

‘No, thanks,’ A the newspaper under her arm

‘You’re sure?’ Vaughan checked, pulling a suitably bored face at her choice of in-flight entertainment

‘I like to keep abreast—anyway, you don’t really have tihan The six-thirty’s already boarding’

‘So?’ he answered with annoying arrogance, striding off towards the newsagent’s

And because it was all business passengers, because there were no irate toddlers or wheelchairs to board, the line of red-eyed passengers filed in quickly—leaving A the eye of an irritated air stewardess, as chatting into the wall phone and tapping on the cohan so long

‘Miss Jackson?’ the air stewardess called, replacing the phone’s receiver ‘I’ to have to ask you to board now, please The door’s about to close’

‘It’s Miss Jacobs,’ A she sounded assertive ‘I’er’

‘Well, when he returns you can tell your colleague that he’s justinto the coate has just closed I’ll see if there are any spaces on the seven aue’s surname?’

‘Mason,’ A for hi to get past the first hurdle ‘Vaughan Mason’

It was like watching a soluble aspirin drop into a glass

The pretty face, set in stone, suddenly fizzed into aniave way and the air stewardess positively sparkled at theinto the co, in fact—over to the seriously caers at Amelia as he appeared at the desk

Make that two soluble aspirin, Aht of his ard passenger, carrier bag bulging, thuazine, not remotely in a hurry

Vaughan made his way over

‘Mr Mason!’ Amelia wasn’t sure who said it first, both steward and stewardess were talking in effusive tones, practically carrying hi the carpeted ay as A with us this —what a pleasure’

‘What’s wrong?’ Vaughan asked as A, in her seat

The plane taxied along the runway, and the sigh froers was audible when the captain announced that they’d missed their slot and would have to wait another fifteen minutes before take-off

‘Nothing’ Amelia sniffed, and waited for hihan azine Aht would have gone’

‘Probably,’ Vaughan conceded