Love In The Jungle Read Online Free Page A

full force this
time, embarrassed to realize that I’d been so wrapped up in a game on my phone
that I hadn’t heard him.
    Well, I had. It was one of those moments where there’s a
delay in your brain as someone talks to you. I’d heard what he said, but
apparently my first response was, “What?” So elegant, Clara, very refined and
genteel. Glad all those years of working in the corporate world had done
wonders for my manners. Luckily, he seemed not to mind. In fact, he seemed
slightly amused by my conversational blunder, his lips faintly upturned and the
skin around his eyes crinkled. Like he was trying not to smile at me, maybe to
spare my feelings.
    Great. Sympathy from a stranger who was probably some famous
model/actor that I wasn’t aware of.
    “Where are you traveling?” he asked again. I noticed his
laptop had been pushed to the side, opening the space between us for
conversation. My mom had gone on a huge rant about not giving travel details to
random people while I was away, but this guy looked harmless…among many other
things. Besides, he was obviously a traveler too; I could see his boarding pass
poking out of the top of what looked like a leather-bound address book.
    “Ghana,” I told him. He held my gaze for a second, looked
down to pull his boarding pass out.
    “As in the 4 o’clock Ghana flight?”
    My eyes narrowed a little as I read the bolded text on the
paper, I nodded. “Now the 5 o’clock Ghana flight?
    Apparently we were travel buddies now, waiting for the same
flight.
    “Delays,” he groaned, rolling his eyes. He then tucked the
ticket away and grinned. “Could be worse, I suppose… I anticipated a delay of
at least an hour given the weather.”
    “Yeah.” Okay, we were not going to talk about the
weather. After quickly shutting down the game of my phone, which was making
cutesy little noises to entice me back to play, I extended my hand across the
small table. “I’m Clara.”
    His hand was soft and warm as it enveloped mine, his long
fingers making mine look like stubby midget digits. “Grant.”
    We both squeezed, neither of us pressing too hard, and my
stomach did a fluttery somersault. He might have looked like a corporate guy,
but I’d never seen one this good looking around the office before.
    “So what brings you to Ghana?” Grant inquired as we pulled
apart, my skin tingling. I brought my hand beneath the table to rest on my lap,
pressing my thumb into my palm hard to detract from the sensation.
    “Vacation,” I remarked, quickly deciding that he didn’t need
to know the whole truth about my travels. He nodded, and I added, “It’s my
first time there.”
    “Accra’s beautiful,” he insisted. “I love spending a few
days there when I have the chance.”
    “Do you go for work?” Intrigued, I leaned in to the
conversation, not caring how obvious I was being about the fact that I found
him interesting.
    “Sometimes,” he answered. “Sometimes for fun, this trip is a
bit of both.”
    “What exactly do you do?”
    His smile turned to something a little more playful, teasing
even, and he raised an eyebrow at me. “When did this turn into an
interrogation?”
    “Right about when you asked me where I was going,” I fired
back, ready to play. My eyes flicked to my phone’s screen, noting that I only
had fifteen minutes before I—we—needed to head to the gate. Grant could
definitely help pass the time.
    “I’m just a curious soul,” he said, holding his hands up
innocently. The skin around his eyes crinkled when I laughed, his smile growing
into something more genuine now. “I like hearing people’s stories too.”
    “And dancing around questions, it seems.”
    He exhaled softly, looking rather attractive if not somewhat
flustered.
    “I’m an engineer,” he said, and suddenly the fancy clothes
and pricey laptop and leather notebook made sense. “I travel a lot for work.”
    “Bet that’s nice,” I chuckled. “I wish my work paid me to
fly