Carole Mortimer - Tall, Dark & Scandalous

A lot of good it would do her if she were!

At the moment Jordan St Claire was a man who had become out of touch with his real charming self as well as the life he had led before the accident. The A-list actor Jordan Simpson wouldn’t even have looked at Stephanie McKinley twice. In fact he probably wouldn’t have bothered looking at her once! And when Jordan was back on two healthy legs—

‘Are you going to help me or not, Stephanie?’

He wouldn’t look at her again, Stephanie finished with painful honesty.

She had initially taken this job with absolutely no doubt as to her professional ability to help Lucan St Claire’s brother. The fact that the brother had turned out to be Jordan Simpson had complicated things from the beginning. That Stephanie’s attraction to him had allowed things between them to go as awry as they had was more than a complication.

So, was she now going to let her emotions stand in the way of giving Jordan the help he needed? Was she going to deny him that help when he had finally asked her for it?

Stephanie knew she couldn’t do that. Her professional dedication simply wouldn’t allow it.

‘Yes, Jordan, I’m sure I can help you.’ She nodded as she stood up. She only hoped it was true. Just as she hoped that she could put away her personal feelings for this man and concentrate on helping him regain full health. ‘Although I’m not too sure about flying to London in a helicopter,’ she added with a grimace. She found flying in a normal plane traumatic enough, so goodness knew how she would feel in a flimsy helicopter.

He chuckled softly. ‘We’ll be quite safe with Gideon—he flies the same way he does everything. With icy reserve,’ he supplied as Stephanie gave him a curious glance.

‘I thought his earlier coolness was because he disapproved of me.’ After all, he’d had reason enough to disapprove after the scene he had almost walked in on!

‘No.’ Jordan gave a humourless smile. ‘You’re no exception to the rule, Stephanie—Gideon makes a point of disapproving of everyone.’

The three St Claire men were totally different from any other men she had ever met, Stephanie mused minutes later as she made her way up the stairs to bed. Lucan was cold and arrogant. Gideon icily reserved. Jordan—

Perhaps she had better not think any more about what sort of man Jordan was!

She especially shouldn’t think about his recent admission that he had just been playing with her earlier on…

Jordan was seated in the front of the helicopter beside Gideon as they took off. Instinct alone made him glance back at Stephanie, only to realise that she had a death-grip on the arms of her own seat, her short fingernails digging into the leather.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked with concern.

She didn’t even glance at him but continued to stare straight ahead, her eyes wide in a face that was completely devoid of colour, her jaw clenched as she spoke between gritted teeth. ‘Fine.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Jordan contradicted flatly as he undid his seat-belt. ‘Keep it steady, Gideon,’ he warned as he began to climb into the back.

‘What are you doing?’ Stephanie’s expression was one of complete panic as Jordan’s movements redistributed the weight and made the helicopter tilt slightly from side to side.

‘Coming to sit next to you,’ Jordan explained patiently as he sat down and buckled himself into the seat. Then he reached out and prised the fingers closest to him from the armrest, before taking Stephanie’s hand firmly into his own. ‘You don’t like flying.’ He stated the obvious.

‘Hate it!’ she muttered as her fingers tightened painfully about his. ‘No criticism of your capabilities intended, Gideon,’ she added shakily.

‘None taken, I assure you,’ he drawled confidently from the front of the aircraft.

Jordan ignored his brother’s insouciance and concentrated on Stephanie. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me you don’t like flying?’

She flashed him a green-eyed glare before hastily resuming her death-stare towards the front of the helicopter. ‘I did tell you last night that I wasn’t sure about flying in a helicopter!’

‘Not sure and terrified are two distinctly different things!’

‘What difference would it have made if I had been more forceful about it?’ she snapped.

‘We could have let Gideon fly back on his own and driven down.’

Stephanie shook her head, and then obviously regretted it as even her lips seemed to go white. ‘You needed to get to London as quickly as possible.’ Her jaw was once again tightly clenched.

Jordan scowled. ‘If it had been that urgent then we would have flown down last night. You—’

‘Leave the girl alone, Jordan,’ Gideon rapped out from the front of the plane. ‘Can’t you see she feels ill?’

Jordan could see that all too easily. He was furious with himself for not realising how nervous Stephanie was about flying—preferably before the helicopter had taken off!

His fingers tightened about hers. ‘You’re an idiot for not telling me.’

‘Thank you so much for that, Jordan,’ Stephanie snarled back. ‘Comments on my mental state are just what I want to hear when I’m hanging hundreds of feet from the ground in a helicopter that looks as if a brisk wind might blow it out of the sky!’

Gideon chuckled softly in the pilot seat. ‘No need to worry, Stephanie. The accident record in this type of helicopter is minimal, I assure you.’

‘Minimal, maybe,’ she gritted out through her teeth. ‘But not non-existent.’

‘I suggest you keep any more helpful information like that to yourself, Gid,’ Jordan said.

‘I could always turn back—’

‘No!’ Stephanie shuddered at the mere thought of Gideon turning the helicopter, let alone landing it on the helipad behind Mulberry Hall.

‘But if this really is a problem for you, Stephanie…?’ Jordan frowned, clearly not happy.

‘We’re in the air now,’ she said tautly, her fingers curled so tightly about Jordan’s that she was sure she must be cutting off the blood supply to his own fingers. ‘I’ll just make a mental note to myself to never, ever fly in a helicopter again!’

Stephanie was grateful for having Jordan’s hand to hold during the rest of the flight, but even so, by the time they landed at the private airfield a few miles outside London, where the St Claire helicopter was obviously parked when not in use, she was aching from head to toe from the pure tension of just getting through the flight. Even her teeth ached as she staggered thankfully down onto the tarmac and all but fell into the chauffeur-driven car that was waiting for them to arrive.

‘All right now?’ Jordan prompted gently as he climbed into the back beside her, while Gideon sat in the front with the chauffeur, the glass partition raised to give them privacy.

Stephanie dropped her head back onto the leather seat beside him, some of the colour thankfully returning to her cheeks as she swallowed before answering. ‘That was the most terrifying experience of my life.’

Jordan gave a mocking grin. ‘You have yet to share a house with the whole of the St Claire clan.’

Stephanie had shared a house with Jordan for the past few days, and that had been traumatic enough!

Although he looked most unlike the unkempt man she had spent those two days with. When he’d appeared in the kitchen earlier this morning his long hair had been washed and brushed back from his face in silky dark waves, his jaw freshly shaven, once again revealing that fascinating—and sexy!—dimple in the centre of his chin, and he was wearing a pale brown cashmere sweater over a cream-coloured shirt and tailored brown trousers with brown shoes.