The Millionaire's Proposal. Trish Wylie

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СКАЧАТЬ laugh. Oh, he was a bit of a charmer, this one, wasn’t he? Full of good old-fashioned Blarney, her nana would say with a throaty chuckle. He probably spent half his life chatting up women on planes, she wasn’t anything special, which reminded her—it really was time she let go of his hand.

      Gently extricating it, and immediately feeling the loss of warmth in contrast to the cool air from the plane’s air-conditioning, she lifted her chin and challenged him with an upward arch of one brow,

      ‘And how do I know you are who you say you are?’

      ‘You could take my word for it?’

      She turned her hand palm up and waggled her fingers, ‘I might need to see your passport to be sure.’

      ‘I might have a pen name.’

      ‘Do you?’

      ‘No.’

      Her fingers waggled again.

      ‘Not very trusting, are you?’ He shook his head, working hard at keeping the smile twitching his mouth in check. ‘Lesson one, by the way, would be: never give up your passport to a stranger when travelling alone.’

      Her eyes narrowed. ‘How do you know I’m travelling alone?’

      ‘In my experience, people who travel together tend to sit together on planes.’

      Good point. ‘Well, it’s not like I can grab your passport, climb over you and escape with it at twenty-seven thousand feet up, is it?’

      ‘True—’ he leaned a little closer and lowered his voice to a deliciously deep rumble ‘—though the climbing-over-me part might be fun to watch. No one’s ever tried that before—brings a whole new meaning to the term “in-flight entertainment”.’

      When she heard the click of his seat belt and he leaned closer still, she automatically leaned back towards the window to make room for him. Not that it wasn’t tempting to just stay where she was and ‘sit’ her ground, but this kind of dalliance was obviously something he was well practised at—and, Kerry being Kerry, she called him on it.

      ‘Do you flirt with every woman you meet on a plane?’

      Shooting her a challenging quirk of his brows as he reached behind him, he replied with, ‘Would make for lots of short relationships, don’t you think?’

      ‘Another occupational hazard, perchance?’

      ‘Possibly.’

      The contortions eventually wielded a well-worn passport he waved back in front of her face as he got comfy again. ‘I need this back. So be warned—I’ll wrestle you for it if I have to.’

      ‘Duly noted.’ She reached for it, but Ronan moved it just out of her reach.

      ‘Let’s make a fair exchange.’

      ‘Oh-h-h,’ Kerry laughed throatily, ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘Picture that bad?’

      ‘Are you suggesting I don’t photograph well?’

      He examined her face for a moment, the same low intimacy returning to his voice. ‘I doubt it.’

      Kerry felt warmth building on her cheeks, which she’d always thought for a woman her age was just plain old sad. That very thought then bringing her in a straight line to her excuse.

      ‘Didn’t anyone tell you not to ask a lady her age?’

      He frowned in amused confusion, tapping his passport off the knuckles of his hand. ‘And when did I do that?’

      ‘My date of birth is in my passport.’

      ‘Ah…’

      ‘And anyway, you have an aisle seat—you could make a faster getaway. Someone told me recently that giving your passport to a stranger is a bad idea when travelling alone.’

      There was a low chuckle of very male laughter, the sound making her smile at him again. Should she have to hazard a guess, Kerry would say that the ‘flirting with women on planes’ thing was pretty successful for him. Maybe the short relationships suited his lifestyle?

      ‘Do I get a name?’

      She spoke slowly, ‘You already have a name, Ronan.’

      ‘Your name.’

      ‘We’ll see…’ She waggled her fingers again.

      His stunning eyes narrowed briefly, the passport still tapping against his large hand. ‘I’ll swap you a look at my passport for your name.’

      ‘Once I’ve confirmed you are who you say you are, I’ll reveal my secret identity—how does that sound?’

      ‘That—’ he smiled again, forcing another smile from her in response before he added ‘—is a deal.’

      When her fingers closed around the end of the proffered passport he held on, waiting for her lashes to lift before adding, ‘And I’m not the only one capable of a little flirting on a plane, am I?’

      Tugging it free, she informed him with a haughty lift of her nose, ‘You obviously bring out my dark side.’

      ‘Not sure I’d agree with that.’

      Kerry shook her head, dropping her chin to flip through the passport and discovering page after page of stamps from varying countries around the globe. ‘Have you really been to all these places?’

      ‘Nah, I make my own stamps—it’s a hobby of mine.’ He chuckled again when she glared at him. ‘It’s easier to write a travel guide for a country if you’ve been there, I find. I tried it from home but no one ever came to visit my kitchen after I wrote the guide for there—which is a shame really,’ cos I had some great package deals going.’

      Kerry continued reading all the country names, trying to imagine what it must have been like to have visited so many places and seen so many things. It had to have made for an exciting life; he’d make one heck of a dinner guest. And it was yet another thing she could find attractive about him, because even if their ‘relationship’ was only going to last for the duration of the flight, she had to admit he was pretty irresistible on many levels—full of charm, in possession of a fully working sense of humour, capable of giving as good as he got, sexy as sin…a walking fountain of knowledge when it came to travelling…

      Be silly not to take advantage of the latter, really.

      When she found the photograph page she laughed softly. ‘Oh, dear—now that’s bad.’

      Ronan leaned in to look over her shoulder, his upper arm pressed against her shoulder. ‘Just needs a row of numbers across the bottom, doesn’t it? And a couple of shots from either side to make up the set.’

      Kerry turned her face towards his, her gaze searching his eyes back and forth while she breathed in СКАЧАТЬ