Unbound Read Free Page B

forgotten what I look like—or else I’d better hide behind a filing cabinet for the next three months. I feel a hand around my arm, stopping me from moving. I turn round, startled—and find myself looking straight into Jonathan Huntington’s blue eyes.
    “You’re coming with us, Miss Lawson,” he explains, in that same condescending tone which leaves no room for argument.
    If I could get my breath back, I’d be able to respond. But Steven, the blond giant, is standing behind him and, before I realize what’s happening, he’s grabbed my suitcase and is pulling it away, back toward the Japanese businessmen. Jonathan Huntington is still holding onto my arm. And at last, my brain starts functioning again.
    “Hey!” I free myself from his grasp. “No! Wait!” I shout at the blonde’s retreating back and he stops right away. But Jonathan Huntington gestures for him to carry on. Then I feel his hand on my back, pushing me forward with determination.
    “My assistant just wants to help you with your luggage,” he explains and looks at me again as if I might be nuts. But then again, maybe I am.
    “I can’t go with you,” I tell him, and stop dead. It’s only logical; he must realize that. He has something unbelievably important to talk to that Japanese man about, at least I assume so, because otherwise he wouldn’t have met this man who came all the way from Japan at the airport, and I’m just in the way. Besides—I don’t like the way he makes it sound like an order. And I also don’t want anyone to take my suitcase away. “Please, can you tell that man—can you tell your assistant to give me my suitcase back? I really have to get to the subway, or I’m going to be late.”
    His lips curl upward, in obvious amusement, and I spot the little missing tip of tooth again. If it were anyone else it would be a blemish but on him, I found it incredibly attractive. I’m suddenly breathless again.
    “Late for an appointment with me?” he asks and he sounds unmistakeably mocking. Now I can breathe again. I stick out my chin.
    “No. Late for an appointment with your company.” His laughter is suddenly making me angry. Now I’m really not having any trouble breathing at all. “I don’t think it makes any sense for me to take up any more of your time. You have an important appointment and I would feel very uncomfortable being a further burden to you, after our misunderstanding.” It occurs to me once again that it was actually pretty nice of him not to have let me become a laughing stock. “Thank you, by the way.”
    “What for?”
    Oh no. Grace, for heaven’s sake, think things through before you open your mouth, for once. “You know what for. You could have—been less kind just now.”
    “And why are you turning me down now, when I’m kindly offering to take you with me?”
    Is …is he trying to confuse me? If he is, then it’s a resounding success. “I just don’t want to be late,” I say, almost in despair now.
    “Then come with me. You’ll get there quicker by car than by tube.”
    I’m still reluctant, even though I’m not really putting up much resistance to his big, warm hand on my back. I keep on walking. “But your friend, I mean, your business associate. Surely you have things to discuss.”
    “He won’t mind if you come with us, believe me.” The way he says this irritates me. He sounds sarcastic and there is a tone in his voice that sends a shiver down my spine. But I’m too flustered to give it much more thought because, at that moment, we’ve gotten back to where the other men are standing.
    “Miss Lawson will accompany us,” Jonathan Huntington explains, as if this isn’t obvious from the way he dragged me back, with his giant assistant pulling my suitcase. He sounds satisfied. No wonder. He probably always gets what he wants.
    The Japanese men nod in that typically Asian way, a little brusquely, while Steven and the dark-haired man watch with an impersonal kind of