“Don’t worry about it,” he said easily. “I’ve done the same thing at least three times since I left home. Are you ready to go?”
“Yep.” I reached for my suitcase, but he got to it first, quickly wrapping his fingers around the extended part of the handle and rolling it out of my reach.
“I can do that, you know.”
“I know, but so can I.” He shrugged, giving me the sexiest little smirk as he swept his free hand out ahead of him. “Your carriage awaits, milady.”
“I can’t believe you got a limo to drive us to the airport,” I muttered as I turned toward the gleaming black monstrosity. Butterflies stretched their wings in my stomach.
Bart fell into step beside me, rolling my suitcase with us as we made our way to the car. “You mentioned you’d never been in one, and considering that it was one of only two things you said you’d like to do so far, I figured we should get the trip started out right.”
“Jeez. You really are setting a pretty high bar for yourself,” I teased. “Starting with a limo and the Northern Lights. At this rate, you’re going to have to rent out Disney World for an entire day to top it.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he mused.
I spun around to face him with my eyes wide, my hand acting completely of its own accord as it reached out to smack his shoulder. “Don’t even think about it, Philips. That wasn’t me hinting at something. It was merely an observation prompted by my nerves.”
He laughed and rubbed at a pretend sore spot where I’d smacked him—too lightly to really have hurt. He opened the door when we got to the limo. “Still, it really isn’t a bad idea. I’m not even sure if it’s possible to rent out Disney World for a day, but they might be amicable to the idea of renting it out for the night.”
“Amicable?” My brows lifted, but then I ducked down to climb into the back of the house on wheels, and my jaw dropped. “Forget Disney World. This thing is amazing. It’s got freaking mood lights? And a fridge?”
“Yep. It’s also got charging ports if you need to put some extra juice in your phone or any of your other devices on the way. Then again, the plane has the same, so don’t worry too much about it. I’ll make sure to keep you connected.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled as my butt hit the buttery soft leather seats. I almost moaned. The cab, or whatever it was called, was huge inside. Soft music met my ears as I got settled, and I smiled when I recognized the song.
“Leaving on a jet plane, huh?” I said when he slid in beside me after handing my stuff over to the driver to load in the trunk.
“It was one of my parents’ favorites. I thought we could work on our own playlist, but for now, I’ve borrowed one of theirs.”
“It’s perfect.” I risked a peek at him, noticing how his long legs spread out ahead of him and how completely relaxed he looked. There was a touch of sadness in his features, too, but I understood why.
Leaving him to his thoughts for a while, I kept quiet for as long as I could until it started feeling too awkward, but when I tried to make small talk, things definitely took a turn for the worse. After stumbling over my words a few times, I sighed and decided to just shut up.
When we finally got to the airport, it wasn’t the one I’d been expecting. We also weren’t just dropped atdepartures. Instead, we were at a private airstrip and we were driven right up to a private jet waiting on the tarmac.
For the first time, I realized that this trip wouldn’t be anything like what I’d imagined. I was traveling with a billionaire, after all, and one who’d given up everything to do this. Between the limo and the jet, it was clear that he planned on going all out. It was also then that I realized what he’d meant when he’d said the trip would be better if he didn’t go alone.
All this time, I’d been feeling like some kind of parasite. One that he’d pitied enough to invite along because somewhere deep down inside, he still cared about it. As I stared up at the jet, though, I had a flash of things from his perspective.
Boarding that thing alone to go see one of the sights his father had wanted to see most in the world would’ve been downright depressing. I wasn’t the person who was supposed to have been here with him, but I was a person. A person he’d known for a long time and who had known that other person.
Somehow, the knowledge made something ease within me. My presence here wasn’t as a pitied parasite. It was as a friend, and that? That, I knew how to live with.
CHAPTER11
BART
Hours later, the jet touched down on a dark runway in Reykjavik. I blinked back into the waking world slowly, still rubbing my eyes as I leaned over to get a view out the window. There wasn’t much to see at first. To me, it looked like any other runway anywhere in the world at night, the lights indicating where to land and where to go from there too bright to make out much beyond them.
As my eyes adjusted and the landscape slowly came into focus, I realized it felt a little like we’d just landed on the moon. From my research, I knew windswept volcanic lava covered the ground for miles from the airport, and while it was covered in a thin blanket of snow, there were definitely hints that it was there.
In the ambient light from the city in the distance, I faintly saw steam vents erupting, getting my first real-life taste of the country’s impressive natural geothermic artistry. It was fucking gorgeous, and my first instinct was to make sure Serenity was seeing it too.
She was still fast asleep in the seat across from mine, though. After we’d taken off, we’d chatted for a while. Then we’d watched an in-flight movie and ate a meal together before we’d both eventually dozed off, fully reclined in the armchairs that were the size of a twin bed each.
As I looked at her, I smiled. Although I’d been scared I was making a mistake, being with her was easier than I thought it would be. We’d gotten off to a bit of a rocky start and things had been a bit awkward on account of her nerves—and mine, for that matter—but we’d pushed through it. Something seemed to have changed for her when we’d reached the airport back in New York, but I didn’t think it had been just that she’d been impressed by the jet.
It had looked more like something had clicked into place and she’d finally relaxed. Now, I was looking forward to sharing this adventure with her more than ever before. As the pilot put on the brakes and we started slowing, I put my hand on her arm and gently shook her awake.