Veiled Fantasies (Holiday Travel Romance)
Veiled Fantasies
A Holiday Travel Romance
by
Anna Lowe
Veiled Fantasies
Copyright © 2020 by Anna Lowe
author@annalowebooks.com
Cover art by Kim Killion
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental.
Other books in this series
Travel Romance
Veiled Fantasies
Island Fantasies
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Contents
Other books in this series
Veiled Fantasies
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Sneak Peek: Island Fantasies
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Veiled Fantasies
Stranded with a perfect stranger. Is he too good to be true?
All Jill Bowen wants is to get back home after a disappointing vacation. But when a “quick transfer” in Dubai goes awry, she is stranded in the Middle East, alone. Well, not quite alone. Complications never listed in her flight plan – not even the fine print – pair Jill with a handsome man with a ghost-ridden past. He is a perfect stranger – and seemingly perfect in every other way, too. But why does he bury himself in work? Why carry a photograph of a family that’s not his own?
Gradually, Jill and Erik discover a fascinating blend of ancient and modern in the streets of Dubai – and awaken to an intense passion that each had long since given up hope for. Just an innocent fling between two people thrust outside their comfort zones? Or dare they wish for more?
Chapter One
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* * *
Gate 63. Sydney to Paris. Delayed.
Jill Bowden hurried past the anxious crowd. Wouldn’t it be just her luck for her flight to be delayed, too? That would be the icing on the cake; a fitting finale to a vacation that hadn’t gone according to plan.
Gate 64, on the left. Sydney to Manchester. Flight canceled.
Now that looked bad. A long line of dejected faces snaked out of the departure lounge. What was going on? Jill re-shouldered her backpack and picked up her pace.
Gate 65, Sydney to London. Coming up ahead. Her eyes strained to read the departure board, scanning the faces of passengers for news. All she wanted was to get home. Why, she wasn’t sure. London still didn’t really feel like home, not even after more than a year there, but it was familiar, and familiar could be comforting. She could already picture flopping down on her worn couch, sipping tea, and pretending all this never happened. She would look forward, not back. Start planning her next vacation–a proper vacation, on a beach somewhere in the sun. Her and a good novel.
Her and a good man.
She fought the thought away. It seemed destiny just did not have that in store for her.
Gate 65, at last. Sydney to London, via Dubai. Ten minute delay. Jill felt her facial muscles ease a little. Ten minutes, she could manage. Just sit back and wait. She found a seat, flipped off her sandals, and tried to focus on the people around her instead of the clock. A harried-looking mother with three squirming children headed toward the bathroom; she really looked stressed. Nearby stood a man in flowing desert robes, looking terribly rich and important. Going home to Dubai, where he bred racing camels in a luxurious desert compound.
Jill crumpled her nose and tucked her hair behind her ear. She was doing it again. Making up stories about complete strangers just to pass the time. Pathetic, really, but better than dwelling on the fact that she was traveling alone. Again.
On the right, sat a retired couple burned a painful pink by the Australian sun. Going home to England after visiting their younger daughter–the one who lived on two thousand acres of arid outback with a hunky sheep farmer they didn’t entirely approve of. Beside them, a young backpacker couple shared headphones and giggled, eagerly awaiting new adventures. And beside them—
Wow.
Jill swallowed hard and let her eyes feast.
He was just stepping up to the waiting area. Dark eyes flicked up to the notice board, showing no reaction to the delay. He swung a bulky briefcase off his shoulder in an easy move that hinted of a past on a rugby field—that, or work much grittier than whatever office job he had just come from in those neat slacks and button-down shirt. A rugged hand scraped through fair, short hair. What was it about that combination of blond hair and dark eyes? It melted Jill every time.
He looked like he’d just come from a meeting, opened the top button of his shirt, and dispensed with his tie. If he’d been a little younger, he’d have kept the tie to look professional. A little older and he’d be so used to the thing that he wouldn’t bother taking it off. Thirty-something, just, Jill guessed. The type who looked like a million bucks in just about anything. Or just about nothing.
Jill reined in the image, watching his eyes shift to his cell phone as he began to text.
He was possibly the most gorgeous man she had ever laid eyes on. Fate had put the hunk of all hunks, Adonis himself, on her flight. Jill heaved a deep sigh and let her imagination flutter away from the noise of the departure gate.
A former weight lifter? Swimmer? Water polo player, that was it. Those guys were big, but agile. She imagined the muscles under that suit; imagined him in a bathrobe, reading the morning paper.
Whom was he texting? His gorgeous, perfect girlfriend, or maybe his wife?
Maybe both. Now that would be juicy. Whomever it was, the woman had good taste.
The mother and three children moved past, blocking the view, and Jill leaned left—far left—directly into the person beside her.
“Sorry.” She snapped back upright. Get yourself together, Jill!
She began to make resolutions, as she always did when confronted with a tantalizing fantasy. Like it was two minutes before New Year’s and all she’d done up to then was regret. Gotta get a life. Gotta stop hiding in work and start getting out more. Make new friends, maybe through a running club. Find a good man. Better than the last one, if nothing else.
The woman and her children straggled away. There he was again. God, he was something. The angle of his eyebrows, the chiseled jaw. If only he leaned over her the way he leaned over that cell phone and worked the buttons in his hand. What was he writing? Short delay, honey. Can’t wait to get home to you and make up for lost time. Love, your perfect hunk.
Oh man, she had to get a grip.
Jill dragged her eyes to the right, where three mismatched men in cheap suits stood in an awkward huddle. The one in the middle was dark, surly. A story there for sure. But before it materialized, Jill’s eyes migrated right back to Adonis.
Stop that!
She tried focusing on the backpacker couple, now locked in a long, slurpy kiss. Yikes. Known each other for six months and already thinking marriage. Met when the plumbing at her brother’s house went during a party, the one when–
A chiming noise sounded, and the PA system came on. “First call, Sydney to London via Dubai.”
* * *
Erik Bergstrom hit send and clicked the phone shut, allowing himself a slight smile. That secretary was such a flirt. He indulged her mainly because she had the magic touch when it came to booking unbookable flights, unavailable rental cars, and sold-out hotels. Other than the fact that she couldn’t get him business class for this flight, she was a real gem. The woman was also safely locked away at the other end of a phone line. Just a voice, not a real person who would ever intrude into his well-ordered world. No contact meant no disappointments, no misunderstandings. No threat.
He glanced up at the departure board. Sydney to…where? Where was he going? Right, the meeting in London. There’d been too many stops on this trip, and it wasn’t over yet. At least the flight was beginning to board. He would find his seat, read that report, and finally catch some sleep.
Sleep. Wouldn’t that feel good? But what if sleep didn’t come?
One drink, that would ease the way. He’d read the report, have one drink, and wake up just in time to land. Simple.
If only
his mind weren’t so restless, so haunted. The creases on his brow deepened. Maybe it would be better to work straight through. A drink would help with that, too. Words and numbers on the screen were almost as good as sleep, anyway. And they would save him from having to make conversation with anyone in the plane.
Work was the key. When he worked, he could forget.
He’d read the report, put together his summary, start that presentation. A quick stopover in Dubai and on to London—in business class, thankfully. He checked his phone for the flight information. How long was the stopover?
Only two hours. Then he’d be back in the air and tired enough to sleep. Just a quick, uneventful transfer in Dubai.
Chapter Two
Erik eased himself into his window seat and unfolded his legs. Even the newest A380 felt a little cramped in economy class. At least a window seat meant other passengers wouldn’t be crawling over him. The man over by the aisle looked quiet enough, but who knows who might appear in the empty seat between them. Hopefully not some chatterbox.
No matter. After the quick stopover, he’d have business class to look forward to, the rest of the way to where ever it was he was going.
Right, London.
He looked out the window, watching suitcases ascend a conveyor belt, then closed his eyes and willed his mind blank. When the space next to him stirred with a new arrival, he kept his eyes firmly shut. Closed eyes sent a clear signal to anyone thinking they might chat the flight away.
Whoever it was, he or she was quiet. A few seconds of shuffling, organizing the tiny space allotted to them, and that was all. Good. Someone sensible enough to leave him in peace.
Erik tried to settle back into a brief time-out from the world, but something teased at the edge of his senses. A very faint scent. Something fresh. Mild. Unexpected.
Nice.
Flowers. Flowers like…like the ones that bloomed around his grandparents’ cabin in summer. The yellow flowers around the back, the ones that danced along the path to the lake. Engulfing it, at times. A slew of memories came with that scent—fresh cut grass and the clack-clack-clack of the rusty hand mower his grandfather insisted on using, the wind in the trees, the sun on his face and voices, laughter. Innocent times, endless summer days with a purer form of exhaustion. The kind that meant you’d had a full, satisfying day and could look forward to another, then another.
Something fell, and the woman leaned down. Her hair brushed his knee—long, silky strands. Erik breathed that in, too.
The man in the seat in front of him shifted heavily, and Erik’s eyes flicked open, then shut.
Open.
Shut.
Open.
His eyes stayed on the seat ahead but it was the periphery of his vision that commanded his attention. Her khaki slacks extended a long way into the leg space. Hands, tan, wiry, unadorned by jewelry, sorted through a stack of reading material. A blue diary and a cheap thriller, plus some kind of sports magazine. She’d planned ahead for the long flight, obviously. The hands placed a second book on top, a thick one. His eyes slid over the cover. Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Cien Años de Soledad. One Hundred Years of Solitude—in Spanish? But the other book and the magazine were in English.
Interesting.
The next thing she produced was a plastic water bottle with an abstract Eifel Tower: Paris Marathon. Now that would explain the legs and the slightly raised veins, a faint road map hinting at a very busy circulatory system. Her hair was a sun-tinged light brown, the fair complexion Northern European. A Brit?
The hands reached for the in-flight magazine and leafed to the world map. She was studying their route. Erik recalled the excitement of his early flights, of watching countries and mountain ranges slide beneath him. That heady feeling of being an astronaut, like he used to dream of as a kid. Before all the travel had melted together into an endless succession of foreign airports and cookie-cutter hotels.
And now, yet another long flight, surrounded by strangers. He closed his eyes and thought back to summer once again.
* * *
He checked his watch to find that four hours had gone by. Good. He’d made a good dent in his work. He reached for his glass, only to find it empty.
A whole vodka, gone so fast? No, the vodka was earlier, before the gin. But now that was gone, too. Where was the stewardess?
The man in the aisle seat had gone to the restroom, and the woman sitting next to Erik stood, too, using the chance to stretch out a little. He watched her stride up the narrow aisle, turn back, then pace away.
Trim, leggy, lithe. A runner, remember? Late twenties, maybe. She was pretty in a natural, undecorated kind of way, like the girls back home. Not like the corporate types, dressed to kill—and with attitudes to match. No, this woman was different. Her purplish-blue blouse brought out the intense color of her eyes. Loose and airy, it gave her lots of room to move. So she chose comfortable and practical over showing off what had to be a great body. Why that? Maybe she didn’t like feeling hemmed in.
Or maybe she was simply here to get from A to B, not to make an impression on anyone. Just like him.
Fine. Now that he’d figured her out, he could focus on work.
He adjusted the angle of his laptop but found his eyes wandering back. Unlike most of the passengers on the flight, she didn’t seem tuned out. Her eyes were wandering, taking everything in. All the while moving, stretching. Boy, did she have energy. A lot of pent-up energy with nowhere to put it.
Or did she? He thought of the Eifel Tower water bottle, the stack of books, her worn backpack. No, this was a woman who found ways to blow off that energy. He disciplined himself not to go too far imagining all the ways she might do this, given a different setting.
He was very good at disciplining himself. Denying himself. Like a soldier. He was a rock, fully armored for maximum protection. He knew just what he wanted; to be left alone, to get this project wrapped up. So what the hell was he doing, day-dreaming?
His eyes couldn’t resist another peek. Her diary lay face down on the table, an address scribbled across the back. Jill Bowden, Blackheath, London. But her accent was American, he was sure of that after hearing her exchanges with the stewardess.
What to make of her? A bilingual American living in London. Traveling home from Australia, alone. A woman with a hungry mind and a storehouse of energy. He was almost tempted to start a conversation. Too bad he didn’t have the time for anything but work. He crooked his neck from side to side, trying to concentrate.
What was it about this flight?
What was it about her?
His eyes floated over his laptop screen. If Martin were here, and five or ten years younger, he’d be checking her out. This American was just his brother’s type. Martin the clown, Martin the charmer. If Martin was here, he’d be getting up his nerve to go talk to this woman. Recruiting Erik to help with some set up, something to get her attention. A spilled drink, maybe. A casual question or comment: Gabriel Garcia Marquez! My favorite author!
He couldn’t help but break into a smile, imagining the scene. How often had he been pressed into assisting Martin in one scheme or another? Sometimes, it was Martin who fished Erik out of trouble, but more often, it was he who had to cover for his older brother. His accomplice through so many childhood misadventures.
Then the spotlight shifted to other memories, and the smile slowly faded until he just stared into empty space.
* * *
Movement helped ease the stiffness, helped her relax. Jill stretched up onto her toes and rolled her shoulders back, vowing to never take a flight as long as this one again. At least not alone. Which was pretty much the same as never.
She’d grabbed her chance to stand up when she could. Though the Fates had assigned her a seat right beside Gorgeous, there was only so long she could fake nonchalance. The past hours had ticked by like a marathon yoga session devoted entirely to breath control. Long inhale, long exhale. Reading was a lost cause, so she’d concentrated on sitting, very, very still, with Mr. Perfect only inches away.