Sicilian Nights Omnibus Read Free Page B

Airport soon, for his own private jet and the onward flight to Florence, where he would stay at his apartment in the exclusive renovated palazzo that had originally belonged to his mother’s family.
    * * *
    ‘Look, Leonora, I really don’t think this is a good idea.’
    Leonora gave her younger brother a scathing look.
    ‘Well, I do—and you promised.’
    Leo groaned. ‘That was when I was halfway down one of Dad’s best reds, and you’d tricked me.’ He stood up, his brown hair tousled. He might be six foot three in his socks, but right now he still managed to have the frustrated look of a younger brother who had just been outwitted by his older and smarter sister, Leonora decided triumphantly.
    ‘You agreed that the next time you flew your boss into London in the private jet I could fly him back.’
    ‘Why? He hates women pilots.’
    ‘I know. After all, he’s turned my job applications down often enough.’
    Leo’s expression changed. ‘Look, you aren’t going to do anything silly, are you? Like barging into his office, telling him you flew the plane and asking him for a job? You’d have as much chance of succeeding as you would have of getting into his bed,’ Leo told her forthrightly.
    Leonora knew all about the stunning beauties the Sicilian billionaire who owned the airline her younger brother worked for dated, and she certainly wasn’t going to allow Leo to guess how much his comment hurt—as though somehow it was a given that she wasn’t woman enough to attract the interest of a man like Alessandro Leopardi. Not, of course, that she wanted to be one of Alessandro Leopardi’s women, but she certainly did want to be one of his pilots.
    ‘No, of course I’m not going to ask him for a job.’
    Leonora crossed her fingers behind her back. She was in full jokey can-do Leonora mode now—even in the privacy of her own thoughts. It just wasn’t fair. She was every bit as good a pilot as her younger brother, if not better, and she just knew that if she proved that to Alessandro Leopardi he would offer her a job. His exclusive first-class service flew passengers all over the world, and she wanted to be one of that elite group even more than she had once wanted to work for someone like Alessandro himself as a private pilot.
    ‘You can’t possibly think you’ll really get away with this,’ Leo protested.
    ‘No, I don’t think it. I know it,’ Leonora told him promptly, going on firmly, ‘Since you let me fly the new jet when you were sent to collect it I’ve been having extra lessons in one, and I’ve probably racked up more flying hours than you have.’ She didn’t even want to think about how much it had cost her to get those flying miles in such an expensive craft, or how many lessons in Mandarin she had had to teach to earn the money.
    ‘Okay, so you can fly the plane. But you haven’t got a uniform.’
    ‘Ta-dah!’ Leonora said, opening her trench coat to reveal the uniform, and then producing her cap from the supermarket bag in which she had been carrying it.
    Leo’s face was a picture. ‘You know if you get found out that I’ll be the one losing my job.’
    ‘Only wimps get found out,’ Leonora replied as she slipped off her coat and swept up her hair before cramming it under the cap
    ‘Captain Leo Thaxton at your service.’
    Leo groaned again. ‘Isn’t it enough that you’ve stolen my uniform without stealing my name as well?’
    ‘No,’ Leonora told him. ‘It’s my name too. I’ve never had cause until now to be glad our parents thought it a good idea to give us practically the same name. Now, come on.’
    ‘What about the co-pilot?’
    ‘What about him? It’s Paul Watson, isn’t it? The one who breaks Alessandro Leopardi’s rule about his pilots not partying with the stewardesses? I’m sure I shall be able to persuade him that it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to say anything.’
    ‘I knew I should never have told you about Paul. He’s going to kill