Chapter 45
Theadora
Wewoketoa fine sunny morning. After breakfast, Declan said, “How about a trip to Italy?”
My eyebrows flung up.
Although unexpected, I soon warmed to that exciting idea.
We’d been living in our own bubble in Bridesmere, and I welcomed a break from all the issues percolating around us.
“When were you thinking?” I asked.
“How’s next week sound?”
“I have my exam at the end of the week. I guess that could work.”
“Why don’t you bring Lucy?” He buttoned up his shirt.
“Really?” I thought about Lucy’s infectious delight over her new administrative role at Reboot. She couldn’t stop hugging me for dropping her into this dreamworld.
“I’m taking a fellow pilot, Matt, an old army mate.”
“A fellow pilot?”
He nodded. “I’ve just purchased a jet.”
He said it like he’d just bought a car. “Are you serious?”
“I am an experienced pilot,” he said, combing back his hair in the mirror and looking dashingly handsome with that chiselled jaw and sculptured lips.
I shook my head in surprise. “I know so little about you.”
He held me. “We have all our lives to get to know each other, haven’t we?”
My heart expanded. “I still haven’t given you an answer.”
“I can live in hope, can’t I?” He smiled so sweetly that all I wanted to do was marry him on the spot and then lay naked with him forever.
My breath hitched when I saw my handsome fiancé. Yes, I’d agreed to marry him. A decision I made within a second of him asking, but I felt I needed to give us time, and perhaps on a subconscious level, him time to think it through. My inner pessimist found it difficult to process that this stunningly beautiful man would want to be with me forever.
Wearing a pilot’s uniform, cap included, Declan, with that purposeful stride, left me speechless. I melted before him. That tall, well-built man, who, with that debonair accent, and classic good looks, could have played James Bond. He chatted with his friend as they came towards us.
“Bloody hell, Thea, they’re in uniform,” Lucy gushed.
“I know. Declan looks hot.”
“So does the other one.” Running her hands down her brown hair.
Declan gave me a hug, drenching me in his masculine scent, and while my hormones had broken into a sweat dancing up a storm, he introduced us to Matt.
A stewardess welcomed us onboard the shiny aircraft that Declan and Matt had just been circling around and admiring, like boys would with a new shiny toy.
“Hello, I’m Margot, and I’ll be your host during this flight. Can I offer you some champagne?”
I sank into the red leather seats as Lucy answered a decisive “Yes.”
Declan entered. “Do you want to see the cockpit?”