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distance.
    ‘Yoo-hoo! Hannah! Over heeeeere!’
    Her conflicted emotions fled in an instant atthe sound of that voice. And, boy, did she not blame them?
    Why? How?
    The text! She’d sent Elyse a quick message saying she’d be getting in early, and how. Dammit!
    ‘Hannah!’
    She frantically searched the small crowd awaiting the arrival of loved ones from behind a chicken wire fence. With their matching long, thick and straight dark brown hair, pale skin, shiny baubles, and head to toe pink get-ups, Hannah’s mother and sister stood out from the small, chilly, rugged-up crowd like flamingos in a flock of pigeons.
    As though the years hadn’t passed—as though she didn’t have an amazing job and a great apartment, cool friends and real confidence in where she’d landed—Hannah’s hand went straight to her hair. Only to remember she’d done nothing with it that morning and now, as she stood on the windy Tarmac, it was making a fly for freedom in just about every direction possible.
    In about five seconds flat she went from respected ace assistant to a TV wunderkind to skinny tomboy shuffling a soccer ball around the backyard while her glamorous mother and sister shopped and groomed and giggled about boys.
    Her mother pushed through the crowd, opened a gate that probably meant she was breaking about half a dozen aviation safety laws, and headed her way. Hannah knew the grown-up thing to do was walk towards her, waving happily, but she was so deep into meltdown mode she began to physically back away.
    And that was when she felt an arm slide beneath her poncho to settle gently but firmly in the curve of her back. The wall of warmth that came with it stopped her in her retreat as nothing else could have.
    She must have been putting out such a silent distress call even her famously self-contained boss had felt it. Had come to her defence. Gallantry was becoming a bit of a pattern, in fact. If only the feel of him so close didn’t also make her knees forget how to keep her legs straight.
    And she needed every ounce of strength she had for what was about to happen. For coming up against her mother unprepared and un-liquored-up. And for subjecting her fuss-phobic boss to the living soap opera that was her family.
    Bradley and her mother. Oh, no.
    Brain suddenly working as if she had a sixth-sense, Hannah leaned in closer and said, ‘Take a sharp left now, head into those bushes to theeast and you’ll hit the main road in about three minutes. Hail a cab from there.
Go!
’
    His eyebrows came together and he laughed softly. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’
    ‘See that vision in pink hurtling our way? That’s my mother. And if you don’t run now you’ll feel like you’ve been hit by a hurricane.’
    But it was too late.
    She felt Bradley stiffen behind her. His fingers dug into her skin. If her brain hadn’t been working overtime on how to keep her boss from going into a meltdown right alongside her she might just have groaned with the intense pleasure of it.
    Virginia’s eyes had zeroed in on Bradley with a vengeance. No wonder. A six-feet-four hunk standing in the shadow of his own private jet wasn’t something any woman could easily ignore. Especially a strikingly beautiful woman currently between rich husbands.
    Elyse, ever the mini-Mum, tottered in her wake.
    Hannah felt Bradley grow an inch behind her as he breathed in deep. Then he broke the tense silence with, ‘So, to downgrade the hurricane to mild sun shower, what do I need to know?’
    Just like that, the Tarmac beneath her feet felt like familiar ground. At Knight Productions they never went into any meeting without being completely prepared for any outcome. Withoutknowing they’d never accept no for an answer. And Bradley always got his own way.
    ‘Number one: call her Virginia,’ Hannah punched out. ‘Not
Mrs
anything. She’s never liked to be thought of as a wife or mother. If people think she is either, it’s proof she’s of a