He could have nothing. Nothing! What was between them was over. She just had to get away from these thugs and she’d find some way to leave.

But she’d see Andreas first.

The plane didn’t taxi towards the airport buildings but instead stopped far out on the runway.

Andreas drove himself out to meet it. He didn’t need Sebastian to tell him that the fewer people who saw this first reunion, the better. He’d like to get rid of Holly’s minders and the aircrew first, but that was impossible. They’d have to be paid well for their silence.

He reached the plane and waited with ill-concealed impatience for the steps to be put in place and the doors to open.

Georgiou emerged first. The big man stopped on the top step and looked helplessly down at Andreas. He held up his hands, as if in surrender.

‘You want us to carry the cargo down?’ he asked, with a wary glance at the airport workers within earshot. ‘She…we could have trouble.’

‘You and your men leave the plane,’ Andreas said grimly. ‘I’ll come up.’

‘You’ll be…safe?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped, and climbed the steps with purpose. This was getting farcical. Even though he hated the idea that she’d been abducted, he needed to remind himself that this woman had deceived him. She was here because of that deceit. He had every reason to be angry and the sooner he had it out with her, the better.

Or maybe there was some simple explanation. Maybe this could be a five-minute conversation and she could leave again. It could all be a mistake.

Maybe.

‘She’s up the back. She’s hardly spoken to us since we left Australia, and only then in anger,’ Georgiou said, standing aside, and Andreas nodded and entered the cabin. And saw her.

For a moment his world stood still.

Holly.

She was just the same. His Holly. The Holly he’d held in his heart all these years. Holly, in her tattered jeans and T-shirt, her hair wild and tumbled, always laughing, always teasing. The image he’d loved most was of her riding bareback across the paddocks, daring him to keep up with her if he could.