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to communicate that with you. I was married a long time. Now I’m single again at thirty-two. I haven’t had a lot of practice at this.’
    Eliza stared in disbelief at the gorgeous man beside her in the driver’s seat. At his handsome profile with the slightly crooked nose and strong jaw. His shoulders so broad they took up more than his share of the car. His tanned arms, strong and muscular, dusted with hair that glinted gold in the sunlight coming through the window of the car. His hands— Best she did not think about those hands and how they’d felt on her bare skin back in magical Montovia.
    ‘I find that difficult to buy,’ she said. ‘You’re a really good-looking guy. There must be women stampeding to date you.’
    He shrugged dismissively. ‘All that eligible billionaire stuff the media likes to bang on about brings a certain level of attention. Even before the divorce was through I had women hounding me with dollar signs blazing in their eyes.’
    ‘I guess that kind of attention comes with the territory. But surely not everyone would be a gold-digger. You must have dated some genuine women.’
    She hated the thought of him with another woman. Not his ex-wife. That had been long before she’d met him. But Eliza had no claim on him—no right to be jealous. For all his fine talk about how he hadn’t been able to forget her, the fact remained she was only here with him by accident.
    Jake slowly shook his head. ‘I haven’t dated anyone since the divorce.’ He paused for a long moment, the silence only broken by the swish of the tyres on the road, the air blowing from the air-conditioning unit. Jake gave her another quick, sideward glance. ‘Don’t you get it, Eliza? There’s only one woman who interests me. And she’s sitting here, right beside me.’
    Eliza suddenly understood the old expression about having all the wind blown out of her sails. A stunned, ‘Oh...’ was all she could manage through her suddenly accelerated breath.
    Jake looked straight ahead as he spoke, as if he was finding the words difficult to get out. ‘The support group covered dating after divorce. It suggested six months before starting to date. Three months was long enough. The urge to see you again became overwhelming. I didn’t get where I am in the world by following the rules. All that dating-after-divorce advice flew out the window.’
    Eliza frowned. ‘How can you say that? You left our seeing each other again purely to chance. If we hadn’t met at the airport—’
    ‘I didn’t leave anything to chance. After six months of radio silence I doubted you’d welcome a call from me. Any communication needed to be face to face. I flew down to Sydney to see you. Then met with Dominic to suss out how the land lay.’
    ‘You what ?Andie didn’t say anything to me.’
    ‘Because I asked Dominic not to tell her. He found out you were flying to Port Douglas this morning. I couldn’t believe you were heading for a town where I had a house. Straight away I booked onto the same flight.’
    Eliza took a few moments to absorb this revelation. ‘That was very cloak and dagger. What would have happened if you hadn’t found me at the airport?’
    He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘I would have abducted you.’ At her gasp he added, ‘Just kidding. But I would have found a way for us to reconnect in Port Douglas. Even if I’d had to call every resort and hotel I would have tracked you down. I just had to see you, Eliza. To see if that attraction I’d felt was real.’
    ‘I...I don’t know what to say. Except I’m flattered.’
    There was a long beat before he spoke. ‘And pleased?’
    The tinge of uncertainty to his voice surprised her.
    ‘Very pleased.’
    In fact her heart was doing cartwheels of exultation. She was so dizzy that the warning from her brain was having trouble getting through. Jake tracking her down sounded very romantic. So did his talk of abduction. But she’d learned to be wary of the type of