Page 16 of Untamed Billionaire's Innocent Bride

CHAPTER FIVE

BYTHETIME they made it down out of the mountains in the hardy SUV Dominik kept back behind the cabin, then onto the private plane Lauren had waiting for them at the nearest airfield, she’d convinced herself that she’d simply...gotten carried away.

Once out of the woods, the idea that she’d let trees get into her head and so deep beneath her skin struck her as the very height of foolishness.

She was a practical person, after all. She wasn’t excitable. It was simply the combination of hiking around in heels and a man who considered kissing currency.

It was the oddness that had gotten to her, she told herself stoutly. And repeatedly.

By the time they boarded the plane, she had regained her composure. She was comfortable on the Combe Industries jet. In her element. She bustled into her usual seat, responded to her email and informed Matteo that she had not only found his brother, but would also shortly be delivering him to England. As requested.

It was amazing how completing a few basic tasks made her feel like herself again.

As if that strange creature who had lost herself on a strange man’s lap had never existed at all.

She threw herself into the work that waited for her, delighted that it gave her the opportunity to continue pretending she had no idea who that girl could have been, wild with abandon on Dominik’s knee. The farther they got from those woods, the farther she felt from all those bizarre sensations that had been stirred up in her.

Fairy tales, for God’s sake. What had she been thinking?

Lauren resolved that she would do whatever she could to make sure she never succumbed to that kind of nonsense again, no matter what bargains she might have made to get Dominik on this plane.

But all through the short flight, no matter how ferociously she tried to concentrate on her computer screen and all the piled-up emails that required her immediate attention, she was aware of Dominik. Of that considering gray gaze of his, following her every move.

And worse, the heat it kicked up in its wake, winding around and around inside her until she was terribly afraid it would make her burst wide open.

Fairy tale nonsense,she told herself sharply. People didn’t burst,no matter what they felt.

That was what came of tramping about in the wilderness. Too much clean air obviously made her take leave of her senses.

Back in London she felt even more like herself. Calm. Competent. In control and happily surrounded by tarmac. Concrete. Brick buildings. All the solid reminders of the world she knew. And preferred to inhabit, thank you very much.

“England’s greenest hills appeared to be rather more gray puddles and a procession of dingy, squat holdings,” Dominik said from beside her in the backseat of the car that picked them up from the private airfield outside the city. “What a disappointment.”

Lauren congratulated herself on her total lack of reaction to him. He was nothing more than a business associate, sharing a ride.

“Surely, you must know that it rains in England,” she said, and even laughed. “A great deal, in fact.”

She would have said nothing could possibly divert her attention from her mobile, but every cell in her body went on high alert when Dominik turned. And then faced her, making it impossible for her to pretend she didn’t notice the way his big body took up more than his fair share of room in the car. His legs were too long, and those boots of his fascinated her. They seemed so utilitarian. So ruthlessly masculine.

And she couldn’t even bring herself to think about the rest of him. All those long, smoothly muscled limbs. All that strength that simmered in him, that she was dimly surprised he managed to contain.

He didn’t sit like a San Giacomo. He might look like one of them, or a feral version, anyway, but he was far more...elemental. Matteo and his sister, Pia, shared those same gray eyes, and they had both looked stormy at one time or another.

But Lauren couldn’t help thinking that Dominik was a storm.

And her body reacted appropriately, prickling with unease—or maybe it was electricity.

Lightning,something in her whispered.

“What happens now?” Dominik asked, but his voice was lazy. Too lazy. She didn’t believe he cared what happened now. Or ever. This was all a game to him.

Just as she was.

That thought flustered her, and she didn’t make it any better by instantly berating herself for feeling anything at all. She tried to settle her nerves—the ones she didn’t believe in—as she stared at him sternly.

“What would you like to happen?” she asked, and told herself she didn’t know why she felt as if she were made of glass.

“I assume you are even now in the process of delivering me safely into the bosom of my warm, welcoming family.” His smile was as sharp as she felt inside. Jagged. “Will there be a fatted calf?”