“I suppose my ticket being gone has something to do with my ‘assistant’?”
He doesn’t respond but I know.
“What do you want? Wasn’t dinner enough?”
“Board the plane, Ava.” His tone is firm and commanding. “You’re delaying our departure.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I get on that plane of yours.”
He smiles with the ease of a man used to getting his way. What I wouldn’t give to wipe that expression off his face.
“Is that so? I guess they’ll need to break out the blankets in Hades tonight.” Before I can respond, he picks me up and tosses me over a shoulder like a sack of rice. Blood rushes to my face, but that isn’t the only thing making my cheeks heat.
“Put me down, you bastard!”
I lash out with my legs, trying to hit him in the ribs or wherever it’s going to hurt enough for him to stop this, but he wraps an arm around the backs of my knees, effectively stopping me. My head bounces on his back, and I pound the thick slab of muscle there, but I might as well be smacking a rock.
“You’re making a scene, Ava. Bad girl.”
He smacks my ass with his free hand. It stings enough to make me see red with outrage. I flail around, trying to get down or hurt him or even better—accomplish both.
“Keep doing that and I’ll drop you. Which will hurt.”
“Like you care!”
“But I do. Very much.”
The softly spoken words seem oddly sincere. And for some absurd reason I believe him.
“Then let me down,” I say quietly.
“Not until you’re on board.”
He takes the steps up to the plane. His gait is uneven. Did he hurt himself? Or did I manage to hit him hard enough to make him limp?
A tiny part of me says he deserved it, but I feel bad anyway. I don’t want him injured. I just want to be left alone.
“Welcome aboard, Mr. Reed,” comes a friendly greeting in a professional female voice.
Oh my fucking god. Kill—me—now. “We have a crew member here?”
“The plane’s not going to fly itself.”
I cover my face with my hands. I don’t drop them when he puts me back on my feet. I don’t resist when he sets me in a plushy leather seat and buckles the belt.
This has to be a nightmare. A horrible dream induced by anxiety and guilt and nerves and wine and stress. If I can just wake myself up, I’ll be back in my hotel room after a refreshing nap. I’ll go to the Night Bazaar and have that curry I saw in my dream.
Yes. That’s exactly what I’ll do…just as soon as I wake up.
“Would you like something to drink?” the cabin attendant asks.
I open one eye and peer upward. She looks back at me with a professional, polished smile as though she hasn’t just witnessed my being hauled on board like a sack of cornmeal.
Okay. I need to face the reality that Lucas did indeed carry me onto this infernal jet like a…possession, and the people who work for him are unlikely to help me get off it.
“What do you have?” I ask in my calmest voice.
“She won’t touch anything other than Dom,” Lucas interjects. There’s a glass of champagne on the armrest next to him, and a little movie plays in my mind: me snatching the bubbly and tossing it in his face.