Island Fling With The Tycoon. Therese Beharrie

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       CHAPTER TWO

      EMMA’S BROTHER WAS not quite as mythical as she’d made him seem. He was very much human, Piper thought, unashamedly studying him as he drove.

      His jaw was locked, the sharp angles of it more pronounced because of the tension. Most of his expression was still obscured by his glasses, though she could tell he was glowering. The glasses seemed necessary for that—or, rather, the expression seemed necessary. She hadn’t seen anything other than it since they’d met.

      It wasn’t her fault he’d had the wrong sign. And maybe she should have asked him, but she never approached strange men. She steered away from men in general, actually. Found it to be a good rule since she didn’t trust her own judgement.

      The first man she’d trusted had manipulated her whenever she’d allowed it. When she hadn’t, too. The second man she’d trusted had abandoned her; she still hadn’t forgiven her brother for that, if she was being honest. As for the third man...

      She’d chosen Brad, and somehow he’d ended up being exactly like her father. She’d paid for that. Was still paying for it in the form of caution and rules and the constant fear of falling for the wrong person again.

      She sucked her lip in, looked out of the window. Her trip down memory lane had extinguished her curiosity about the man beside her. Instead, she focused on the actual lane they were driving along. It was an apt description for the narrow road they were rattling down. Caleb handled it with a confidence she wasn’t sure the road warranted.

      She wanted to tell him to slow down, to give way to the large buses driving the curves of the narrow road. To watch out for the scooters zooming past them at what felt like every turn. But her voice wouldn’t work. She suspected it had something to do with feeling vulnerable, and the fact that she didn’t want him to know she was.

      It seemed to be an unofficial mark of their short relationship, this vulnerability. Her inability to speak because of it. Back at the airport, when he’d assumed she’d wanted him to carry her bag without asking, it had kept her from accusing him of taking control like the men in her past. It had also kept her from blurting out a thank you when he’d told her he believed she could do it herself, unlike the men in her past.

      That difference was why she’d been surprised he’d given in so easily. Nevertheless, her entire body had braced for the argument she’d thought would come. They’d been inevitable before, with Brad. And he’d disguised control with gentlemanliness, which was part of why it had taken her years before she’d seen it. It wasn’t the only reason, but still, she was careful because of it. She didn’t take anything at face value any more. She couldn’t trust herself to.

      The car jerked to the side as a bus took a narrow corner wide. A sound escaped from her lips.

      ‘We’re fine,’ he said curtly.

      ‘I didn’t say anything.’

      ‘You made a noise.’

      ‘It was involuntary.’

      ‘We’re still fine.’

      ‘So you say,’ she muttered, refusing to look out of the window on his side as the bus loomed over them.

      ‘You shouldn’t have come to Mykonos if you’re afraid of tight roads.’

      ‘I couldn’t get out of it.’

      ‘You tried?’ he asked, surprise making his voice lighter.

      ‘Everything. But Liam had an answer for every concern.’ She looked at him. ‘Some of that was because of you,’ she said accusingly.

      ‘I didn’t do anything.’

      ‘Aren’t you paying for the extravagant wedding?’

      ‘Well, yes, but—’

      ‘I couldn’t afford to come here by myself.’ She sighed at the idea. ‘It was a legitimate excuse. Then Emma’s magical unicorn of a brother swoops in and suddenly I have no reason to back out.’

      Caleb made a strangled sound that would have been amusing had another bus not rounded the corner. She hissed out a breath.

      ‘You didn’t learn your lesson from the first bus?’ he asked darkly. ‘We’re fine. This is how people drive here.’

      ‘Doesn’t mean I have to like it.’

      ‘That’s true.’

      He pulled back onto the road. She closed her eyes when it seemed as if he was still too close to the walls keeping them from falling off the edge of the cliff.

      She had an intense wave of nostalgia for home. In Cape Town, South Africa, she had a choice about what kind of road she wanted to drive on. It wasn’t the standard, these narrow and inclined roads. No, the СКАЧАТЬ