“Okay,” he whispered back with a grin.
His lips finally touched mine as he let go of my face in favor of wrapping his arms around my waist and holding onto me tightly. His tongue eased my mouth open as it slipped along mine, sending a shiver of excitement through my body.
“Oy, do you need a lift or not?”
We both turned to face the driver of my Uber, who had been impatiently waiting for us this entire time. A blush heated my face as I shook my head.
“No, I don’t think so.” I glanced at Bastian.
“No, man, but we will need a lift tomorrow to the airport. We’re heading to LA—together.” He looked at me, lifting an eyebrow in silent question.
I nodded my head. “Yeah, together.”
Chapter17
Bastian
Since our talk yesterday,Bexley hadn’t mentioned anything about music—a frequent conversation topic between us. After grilling my mom, I found out she’d suggested that Bexley may have gotten involved with me to use my position as a music producer to skyrocket her career.
It was the furthest thing from the truth, which I explained to my mom when I told her the fake dating was my idea, and Bexley hadn’t even approached the topic of showing me a song until late in the week. Even then, I’d already decided if she was serious about her career, Iwantedto use my connections for her.
There was no reason I shouldn’t help her if I loved her and had the ability to.
Hell, we’d talked about starting a family, and she still maintained she was serious about that. That didn’t sound like someone who was only using me, as my mom suggested. So, with that, my mom smiled and offered me her engagement ring to give to Bexley if we were as serious as starting a family together.
She was looking around wildly, trying to take everything, when I reached out and set my hand on hers. “Everything okay?”
“Huh?” She twisted to me suddenly like I’d caught her in the middle of a train of thought. “Oh, yeah.” There was a tone. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but there was definitely a tone.
“You sure?” I asked, not wanting to pry, but the nerves raised doubt. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she was wrong, and she just realized it.
Bexley leaned in close to me, dropping her voice. “I thought first class would be … you know, classier.”
A surprised laugh escaped me as I squeezed her hand with a grin. “This is domestic first class, babe. It’s basically an upgrade from economy in chair size and capacity, not much else.”
“I noticed,” she said as she looked around in disappointment.
“The flight is only five and a half hours. There’s no need for fancy beds or anything like that.” I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed the back of it with a grin. “When we go to London in December, we’ll fly first class then, and you’ll see how cool it is.”
“London in December?” She looked back at me in surprise as I nodded.
“It was supposed to be Germany, but Julian has some work thing, so we’re going to congregate there instead.”
“You travel for Christmas?”
I shrugged. “Not always, but when we can, we do. We did enough Christmases at home …” I stopped talking as I took in the look on her face. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Oh, no. I was just thinking we still need to work out the logistics of all this. I like spending Christmas at home with my family.”
“Oh, right.” I looked down the aisle where Tommy and Sophie were sitting, watching movies on their screens. “Of course, well, traveling doesn’t have to happen. Unless maybe your family wants to come to London. We can arrange that too.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t have that kind of money.” She smiled and squeezed my hand back. “Thanks for trying to compromise, though.”
“Who said I’d ask them to pay?” She stared at me for a moment before I shrugged. “You know who I am. Surely you realized before this moment that I’m—” I cringed, hating to say something like this, it sounded so boastful, “—I’m rich.”
“I guess, I mean, I suppose I figured you weren’t hurting.”
“No, I’m not.” I agreed, leaning in to kiss her temple. “And if I lost my job today, I wouldn’t be hurting for quite a while. Julian and I both were very careful about being smart with our money when we first started earning. We made investments that have done very well and created an impressive portfolio. I could retire now and be perfectly fine carrying on my lifestyle as it is.”