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forced her, hadn’t tried to take anything from her…he’d just coaxed her gently until she responded.
    She laid her head forward on the cabin door, realizing that she had no idea how to handle Nigel Carter. She could protect him and his daughter from any outside threat, but she had absolutely no fucking idea how to handle the man when they were alone.
     
    Nigel exited the bedroom at the back of the plane and froze. Justine stood where he’d left her, but her demeanor had totally changed. She seemed smaller; for the first time since he’d met her, he was really aware of her height. He didn’t know what had shattered her Amazon persona, but he had a feeling it had to do with whatever had sparked her temper.
    Hell, he knew he had sparked her temper. Knew she’d deliberately preyed on his fears about his daughter. He was angry at himself for the weakness. But it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Piper was his weakness. Everyone at Baron knew it.
    “Justine?”
    She straightened up and when she turned, he saw a hint of vulnerability in her eyes. But it was gone in a flash and instead, he was staring into those hard-as-steel blue eyes of hers. The keen intelligence and the strength he’d first seen in her was back.
    “Yes?”
    “Everything okay with the pilot?” he asked, pulling back from his own need to get some kind of retribution from her for scaring him.
    “I haven’t checked yet. I’ll be back in a second.”
    She opened the door to the cockpit and Nigel went to his desk. He sat down in the big leather chair he’d earned. He looked around the private jet and instead of seeing the hard work that had brought him here, he saw the safety it gave him and Piper. The luxury of flying when they wanted to, instead of having to comply with an airline’s schedule.
    He saw the opportunity that he’d been given by using his chutzpah and intelligence to climb his way to the top of the corporate ladder, and he knew there were men and women in the Amazon Basin who might want the same thing. Men and women in Peru and Brazil who would be happy for the opportunity to carve out their own niche in Baron Industries the way he had.
    He had never questioned why he was determined to open the operation in Cusco. From the first time he’d met with the commerce officials, he’d understood what they wanted to do. The shared vision had been enough incentive, the financial ones simply a bonus.
    The door opened, and Justine reentered the main cabin. Nigel glanced up from his laptop and their eyes met. She stood there with none of the restless energy that had been so markedly different from what he’d seen from her earlier.
    “Everything okay?”
    “Yes, the captain took us to a higher altitude to avoid any more turbulence. We will probably arrive in Lima a bit earlier than we had anticipated.”
    “That’s fine.”
    She shrugged.
    “Justine?”
    “Yes?”
    “I’m not sorry I kissed you.”
    She looked at him for the first time since she’d reentered the cabin, really looked at him, and he realized that he’d inadvertently hit the problem. She was nervous about that embrace. He knew then that a simple affair wasn’t in the cards for the two of them.
    He rubbed the back of his neck and waited. Finally, she walked forward and sat in the captain’s chair in front of his desk.
    “I’m not used to kissing my clients,” she said at last, her voice low-pitched and the slightest bit husky.
    “Good.”
    A slight smile lit her lips. “You aren’t what I expected.”
    He arched one eyebrow. “What did you expect?”
    “Some moneygrubbing, type-A-personality executive.”
    “Moneygrubbing?”
    “Ya know what I mean. The locals don’t want you in their area, but you are going anyway because of the money.”
    He noticed she’d changed the topic, turned the conversation toward business, and away from the personal. “You know nothing about why I’m determined to build that operation.”
    “You’re right.