Glass Houses by Stella Cameron Page B

of flowers, but one side of his jacket was pushed back and his other hand sunk into his front pocket. Olivia had always been a leg woman, and this man’s legs certainly made memorable lines in his trousers. Penny would call him “brilliant, a complete knockout.” What a face. And he was tanned.
    She flushed and looked at her hands in her lap. That wasn’t Sam, although there had been a strong resemblance to this man in those fabulous dreams she’d had.
    Not Sam.
    That left a bespectacled man with a pleasant face, straight brown hair, and a really nice smile. She could say, “Sam?” in a loud voice and see what happened.
     
     
    O livia hadn’t come.
    Aiden identified what he felt as mostly disappointment. Oh, there was a little relief in there, but mostly he was sorry she wasn’t on the plane. Evidently she’d come to her senses and bagged it. Vanni was going to laugh himself sick, not that Aiden cared. He hoped Olivia would be okay, that’s all.
    The guy in front of him made a sudden move, hauled up the cordon, and went beneath to throw his arms around a tired-looking woman with three children. They stayed there, hugging and chattering in Spanish before moving slowly off. Aiden watched them go. They made him feel good.
    Maybe there were one or two passengers to come yet.
    The woman who had struggled through and sat down on a chair opposite was still there. She looked completely lost, but he’d learned not to gather up anyone he saw who appeared needy.
    Another passenger, a man, straggled through.
    The seated woman wasn’t very old, late twenties maybe.
    She had a lot of soft brown curls that made her eyes look huge from a distance. If Olivia really didn’t show, he could offer to help this woman. If she turned him off, at least his conscience would be happy.
    She had lovely legs. A faintly baggy brown skirt didn’t reach her knees and even a pair of sensible flat shoes didn’t detract from legs that deserved to be noticed.
    Maybe he should go to the TWA desk, use his badge, and try to get his hands on the flight manifest. He could even have missed Olivia altogether.
    Damn. This was the kind of thing that reinforced a man’s conviction that women were unpredictable.
    He caught the woman’s eye and smiled. She smiled back, and he liked it. She had a sweet face, not flashy, but easy on the eye. When she tossed her hair back, he got a sensation that would only hit a man who didn’t have a life.
    Hey, a man ought to be able to laugh at himself. He didn’t have a life in the accepted sense—accepted by other guys. Not anymore. Only it was okay for him to comment on his isolated private life, but it wasn’t okay for Vanni Zanetto and members of his family to have opinions. What they didn’t get, partly because he’d never tried to explain, was that he wanted a woman in his life, wanted her very badly, but he was some kind of throwback who believed there was only one right woman and he’d better be careful not to miss her because he was distracted by anything that looked promising in a skirt. He’d been that route, and it was past time to move on.
    The worried-looking lady probably wasn’t tall—just about average. He’d say her looks were better than average. Someone nice lived behind those gentle, sparkling eyes. She was obviously waiting to be met, but each time she looked in his direction she gave a small, vaguely embarrassed smile. Too bad she didn’t have any idea how to put her clothes together, but her figure was good—he could tell that. Nice breasts inside a white blouse buttoned to the throat and secured with some sort of pin. Her jacket looked as if she’d washed it all wrong, then forgotten to iron it.
    Average. Brown hair and eyes. Sturdy. A sartorial disaster.
    No hat, no flower in the buttonhole, and not what he ’d call sturdy exactly. But… holy hell!
     
     
    H e held the bunch of flowers as if he’d forgotten they were there. Olivia thought he might be trying to make up his mind