Best of Fiona Harper. Fiona Harper

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      CHAPTER FOUR

      ALLEGRA’S brain was swimming. She’d just jumped out of a helicopter and onto Finn McLeod! And now he was standing over her, grinning like a maniac while the wind whipped around them, offering his hand.

       She took it. How could she have done anything else?

       She couldn’t tell if this was better or worse than her late-night fantasies when she’d been stuck on an island with no one but Fearless Finn for company—and entertainment. A big blob of water fell out of the sky and crashed onto her scalp, but Allegra was only aware of it in a distant, out-of-body kind of way.

       The awareness that came from the warm hand clasped around her own? Now that was very much up-close and immediate, and definitely, definitely in her body. Just that simple action had caused her flesh to tingle and her pulse to do a series of jetés.

       She was touching Finn McLeod. Actually holding his hand.

       And as she looked into his eyes once again she realised that while TV Finn was just plain gorgeous, In The Flesh Finn had the kind of presence that made a girl’s nerve endings sizzle and her eyes water.

       Or could that have something to do with the rain?

       To be honest, she didn’t really care. She didn’t care about anything now; she was a million miles away from her life and Finn McLeod was holding her hand and talking to her in that beautiful Scottish accent of his. All she wanted to do was stare into those impossibly deep brown eyes…

       Oh.

       He’d been talking.

       And now he’d stopped. He was also frowning at her. Why?

       She suddenly became aware of the tension in his arm muscles, of the tugging sensation in her shoulder socket. He was pulling her. She was supposed to moving, getting up. Not letting her behind get damp on the sand. Not gawping at the most gorgeous-looking man she’d ever seen in real life.

       Thankfully, she was well used to telling her body to do things it had no real inclination to do. She issued a command to her feet and legs and they obligingly pushed down into the sand, levering her upwards with the help of Finn’s hand, until she was standing opposite him.

       Nobody moved for a few seconds. Not even the guy with the camera.

       She’d done what he’d wanted, hadn’t she? She’d stood up. So why was he staring at her as if he wasn’t sure if she was human or not?

       The downside to not being able to tear her gaze away from the deep brown eyes was that she was now privy to the slideshow of emotions flashing through them.

       Bewilderment. Concern. Uncertainty.

       And since he hadn’t looked anywhere else but right back at her since she’d sent him crashing onto the moist sand, the only conclusion she could come to was that he must be feeling all of those things about her.

       Not good, Allegra. Pull yourself together. You know how to do that, don’t you? You should do. Part of the training. It should come as naturally as the other basics, like pliés and tendus.

       She wrenched her gaze from his and stared out to sea, fixed it on the retreating black blob of the helicopter flying low over the water. It was much farther away than she’d thought it would be. Just how long had she been sitting on the beach, staring into Finn’s eyes?

       ‘Okay,’ she heard Finn say. ‘We’d better start sorting out some kind of shelter before it gets dark, or tonight will be our most miserable on the planet.’

       She turned to face the land and watched him as he trudged up the beach towards the dense green vegetation fringing its edge. The camera guy, however, didn’t move. He just kept pointing his lens at Allegra, his feet braced into the sand.

       She’d forgotten about the unseen bodies behind the camera when she’d phoned Finn’s producer back and agreed to do this. When the show aired it often seemed as if Finn was totally alone in whatever strange and exotic world he was exploring. And that was what she’d latched onto when she’d marched out of the rehearsal studio and had dug for her phone in her pocket—the chance of her very own private adventure with Fearless Finn.

       Another drop of rain hit her scalp, as fat as a water bomb. She stared back at the camera lens, doing nothing, saying nothing. Just what exactly had she got herself into?

       ‘Come on, Dave,’ Finn yelled from under a huge palm tree as the water bombs began to multiply. Allegra couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as if someone up there was aiming them directly at her, and they were an awfully good shot. Her long-sleeved shirt only had a few dry patches on it now, and water was dripping from her shorts down her bare legs.

       Dave merely adjusted the focus ring on his camera, keeping it pointed straight at Allegra. ‘Not my job, mate!’ he yelled back. ‘I’m here to capture you two battling to survive the elements.’

       She narrowed her eyes at the beady lens still trained on her, then took off up the beach, following her secret crush. If she stood next to Finn, that contraption would have to focus on something other than just her.

       The camera—and Dave—followed.

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