Page 96 of Crossed Wires: The Complete Series

Monet stared after him, her chest tight.

She couldn’t get out of her seat. Her heart punched so hard in her chest she wondered if her breastbone was still in one piece.

What did she do if Dylan and Annie…what if they…

Joseph stopped at the jet door and turned back to her. “I think you need to actually leave the jet if you’re going to talk to someone here, don’t you?”

The words were spoken with droll sarcasm, and yet a small smile played with the billionaire’s lips, and just before he slipped on black sunglasses, Monet saw warmth in his gaze.

Then he turned back to the door, now rising outward, and stepped out of the jet.

Monet stared at the empty doorway, at the saturated blue sky beyond it, a sky like none she’d seen in New York.

Dylan’s sky.

She straightened, rose to her feet. Heart still behaving like a wrecking ball, mouth so dry she could hardly swallow, she walked down the aisle and stepped out of the jet.

Into Oz.

“Jesus,” Dylan muttered. “Monnie.”

“Monet?”

Hunter’s question barely registered in Dylan’s brain. Nor did Annie’s surprised gasp. He stood stock-still beside the pickup, his hand resting on Mutt’s solid body, his gaze fixed on the woman standing at the top of the jet stairs.

Monet.

She was here. In Australia.

He pulled in a slow breath. Clenched his jaw. Released his breath and ran his hand down Mutt’s back. He did all those things to keep himself by his brother’s side. To keep himself from running to the jet, scooping Monet into his arms and kissing her senseless.

She was here.

Then what the fuck are you doing standing beside Hunter? Dickhead.

He started walking toward her.

Toward the woman who had shaken up his world.

Halfway across the airstrip he passed Annie’s father. If the man said something to him, Dylan didn’t know. He didn’t take his stare from Monet, watching her walk down the steps, her long dark hair lifted from her face by a playful summer breeze, her eyes hidden by those damn dark sunglasses she’d been wearing the very first time he met her.

She wore almost the same thing she had then—dark jeans, a snug black shirt and knee-high black boots. New York attire through and through. So completely inappropriate for the scorching Australian summer day, and yet she looked so perfect right there in front of him, so bloody right.

He was three steps from the jet when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

For a surreal moment he wondered if she was truly there. Perhaps his mind was playing silly buggers with him. He ached for her so much, missed her so much, perhaps his mind had conjured her up.

“Hello, Dylan.”

Her accent caressed his senses. Her husky voice stroked his sanity.

His breath burst from him in a ragged gush and he shook his head. “You reallyarehere.”

The corner of her lips twitched. “Where else would I be?”

The urge to haul her close and crush those twitching lips with his mouth smashed through Dylan. Hard and almost impossible to deny. Instead, he stood motionless. He needed to know why she was here before he did anything stupid, like make love to her right here on the dust-covered tarmac for everyone to see.

“New York?” he responded.