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patiently waiting thirty feet away.
‘That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ he pressed, his voice harsh.
I swallowed, forced my head to nod. ‘Yes. Elsa will check my schedule and let you know.’
His lips tightened, assailing me with an urge to see him smile one last time that was so unbearable, I turned and hurried out onto the frozen tundra, my feet sinking into snow, towards the pilot who
alighted and came to escort me.
Jensen handed him my bag, then stood, feet braced, cold eyes boring into my back as I climbed
aboard.
He didn’t back away or go inside as the rotor blades churned up snow.
Even when his white jacket was pelted with snow, he didn’t leave. He stood there, his glorious
hair whipping around his face, jaw set as he stared up at the helicopter.
Unable to help myself, I stared back, my eyes watering as he blended into the blinding white
landscape.
Only when the chopper banked steeply did I look away, my heart already thudding with deep dread
at the enormity of the misery that awaited me.
CHAPTER NINE
‘OH, MISS MORTIMER, you’re back! I wasn’t expecting you till later this morning...’
Elsa’s surprise registered hollowly in my head as she entered my office. I heard her stop a few feet from my desk, but didn’t turn from my position at the window.
‘Can I get you anything? Your usual coffee?’ Her voice trailed hesitantly when I continued to stare at the window, glaring miserably at the view I didn’t want to see.
It was the wrong view. For starters, London was wet and dreary and had been since my return two
days ago, the rain unable to make up its mind whether to turn to sleet or mizzle.
I wanted a white-out, thick snow covering everything in sight and cutting off the world.
But more than anything, I wanted the man who I’d been snowed in with. As much as I appreciated
her, Elsa’s presence was just another reminder that I was half a world removed from where I wanted
to be.
I forced myself to turn around, to paste a half-decent smile on my face as I sat at my desk. ‘I came in a little early.’ Understatement of the year. I’d abandoned sleep at two a.m., my queen-sized bed suddenly feeling like a wide, endless ocean of misery, determined to swallow me up.
The longer I’d lain there, staring at the ceiling, the deeper my despair and panic had taken hold.
With the business day beginning, I’d decided to call it quits where sleep was concerned, and get a
head start on my work.
In hindsight, I realised leaving the perfectly adequate loneliness of my Mayfair mews house to
place myself in the operating hub of the Mortimer Group empire wasn’t my finest decision.