Page 49 of Angel In Armani

Lucas waited for Sara while she completed her postflight and got organized. Of course he did. He was annoying that way.

She wanted to tell him to go, go have his fancy dinner or whatever it was his detour to the city entailed, and leave her in peace. No flirting and charming and making her forget her resolve.

She would find out how long he was going to be and then she would walk to her favorite little deli near the heliport and get some dinner, and then she’d wait for him and deliver him back to Staten Island. And out of her hair.

It was an excellent plan.

A simple plan.

Somehow, though, as she came around the helo to where he stood, looking into his very blue eyes, she didn’t think Lucas was going to let things be quite that simple.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” She gestured him toward the walkway that led to the terminal building.

“Do you?”

“Well, if I did, that would’ve been ruined by your little side trip, wouldn’t it?” she muttered.

“That depends,” he said. “You said you didn’t have plans. Have you been holding out on me, Sara Charles? Did you have a hot date tonight?”

She almost laughed. Her and a hot date? Apart from the moment of idiocy with Lucas back in Sag Harbor, there had been very little heat in her life lately, and what there was 100 percent self-service. There’d been no time for dating since her dad’s accident. Not that any of that was any of Lucas’s business. “Are you always this nosy about your pilots?” she said, hoisting her flight bag up on her shoulder and turning toward the terminal.

“Only the pretty ones,” he said. “And there’s only been one pretty one.”

“Oh yes, and who was she?” she said, only half joking.

“Don’t do that,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Put yourself down.”

“I’m the pretty one, am I?”

“Yes.”

He reached a hand toward her, and she ducked away. “Don’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because this is somewhere I work. And I don’t want people getting the wrong idea about you and me.”

He stepped back. “What’s the wrong idea?”

“That I’m fooling around with a client.”

“That sounds like a pretty good idea to me.”

“That’s because you’re the one who won’t get called a slut for doing it. And it won’t affect your professional reputation.” She started walking toward the terminal.

Lucas moved with her. “So let’s go somewhere away from this and talk about it. Because I’m sorry, Sara but I’m not giving up on you just yet.”

“Don’t you have an important dinner date or something?” she said, trying to sound casual. He had her stomach squirming and her pulse doing strange things. He wanted to have dinner with her. He wanted to see her again. It was amazing. And a disaster.

“This is it.”

She jerked to a stop. “Excuse me?”

“I wanted to come to the city so we could have dinner,” he said simply. “I figured you wouldn’t want to on the island, given you grew up there. Not discreet enough.”

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