‘I’m guessing you don’t like being compared to your father.’
‘You’re guessing right.’
Aerin wondered what made Drake so uncomfortable about being compared to his father. Not all sons had good relationships with their dads, even Tom had hit a rough patch in his teens with their dad. Their power struggle had gone on for a year or two until it eventually resolved as Tom had matured a bit more and their dad had loosened up.
But had Drake’s father’s untimely death meant he had never been able to enjoy getting closer to him? She could only imagine the guilt he would feel at never being able to fix things with his father. Many psychologists spoke of the father wound in modern men. Was Drake one of those men who carried deep emotional wounds from a distant, uninvolved father?
Aerin was wary of asking too many more deeply personal questions. She wanted their weekend together to work well in order to achieve her goal of satisfying her school friends that she had finally found a partner. But she also wanted the weekend to be positive for Drake, not an ordeal he had to endure.
On the other hand, there were things she needed to know about him in order for their charade to succeed this weekend. And there was a part of her thatwantedto know more. She found him increasingly intriguing, like a complicated puzzle she was keen to solve. Her work required her to pay attention to every detail, from the tiniest to the largest and everything in between. Her powers of observation stood her in good stead for event planning but also gave her a talent for seeing and sensing things other people did not. And she was seeing and sensing things about Drake Cawthorn that demanded further investigation.
‘I’m sorry for asking you so many questions but I need to know a little bit about you otherwise it will look strange to my friends. I’m a details person—I’ve always been like that. They would expect me to know everything there is to know about you.’
One side of his mouth came up in a cynical slant. ‘Is that even possible? To know everything about a person? You can’t. You can only know what they’re willing to tell you. After that it’s all guesswork.’
‘Who did you go to live with after the accident? Your grandparents?’
‘No, both my parents were estranged from their parents. I went to live with my aunt, my mother’s older sister.’
‘It must have been such a terrible time for you,’ Aerin said. ‘Were you badly injured in the accident?’
‘I wasn’t injured at all because I wasn’t there.’ There was a strange quality to his tone, a flat emptiness that seemed to echo with self-recrimination.
Her gaze went to the jagged scar on his left eyebrow. ‘Oh? I thought that’s where you must’ve got that scar and your crooked nose.’
Drake stroked one of his fingers across his scarred eyebrow. ‘No, I got both of those in a fight when I was a teenager.’ His expression still had a grim set to it as if he wasn’t proud of that time in his life.
‘You weren’t in the car? I didn’t realise that.’ Aerin could only imagine the survivor guilt he must have felt, or still be feeling. If he had been in the car, he might not be alive today. The thought of him not existing made something deep in her chest ache. He had been a part of her life for so long she could not imagine life without him.
‘No, I wasn’t with them that day.’ His voice still had that strange quality to it, an echo of regret, deep sadness and something else she couldn’t put her finger on. She noticed his hands were clenched into fists against his strongly muscled thighs as if he was working hard to contain the emotions their conversation had stirred.
The pilot spoke at that moment through the intercom to inform them about the flight conditions and time of arrival. Aerin listened with one ear but she was still mulling over the things Drake had told her. She had always thought he had been in the car with his family—that was certainly the impression her brother had given her. She could only imagine the shock Drake would have experienced when informed of his parents’ and sister’s deaths. And how the sudden changes brought about by such a tragedy could impact a boy of fifteen.
The pilot stopped speaking and the jet began to taxi down the runway.
Aerin placed one of her hands over Drake’s tightly fisted one resting on his thigh. ‘I’m sorry if I stirred up sad memories for you by asking you so many questions.’
Drake looked at her hand on top of his for a beat or two. Then he placed his other hand over the top of hers and gently closed his fingers around hers. He turned his head and gave a crooked smile but there were shadows in his eyes that plucked at her heartstrings.
‘It’s okay, it was a long time ago and I’ve moved on.’ His voice had a gravelly edge that hinted at the depth of emotion he was keeping contained.
Aerin’s gaze drifted to his mouth and something flipped over in her stomach. His top lip was sensually contoured and his philtrum ridge between his nose and top lip was so well defined it could have been carved by a master sculptor. His lower lip was fuller than the top one and there was a shallow cleft in his chin partially hidden by his generously sprinkled dark stubble. She had a sudden urge to touch his regrowth with her fingers to experience its roughness against her softer skin. His broad-spanned hand was still anchoring her smaller one and the warmth of him seeped through her flesh like radiation. The heat travelled through her body, igniting a smouldering fire in her core.
His gaze drifted to her mouth, lingered there for a heart-stopping moment before returning to her gaze. His eyes moved between each of hers as if searching for something. Aerin suddenly realised she had never been this close to a man before. Close enough to see the individual pinpricks of stubble on his lean jaw. Close enough to see the flare of his ink-black pupils in the deep dark pools of his irises. Close enough to feel the soft waft of his warm breath against her face.
Aerin gave an audible swallow and sent the tip of her tongue across her lips. He followed the movement with his gaze, then one of his hands came up to the side of her face, cupping her cheek with a touch so gentle she shivered in reaction. His hooded gaze was focussed on her mouth, the ever so slight uptick in his breathing rate sending hers up as well.
‘Are you going to...to kiss me?’ Her voice came out breathless and a little rusty.Please, please kiss me.But of course she was too shy to say it out loud. She was too shocked that she actuallywantedhim to kiss her. It was a driving force building in her body, a wave of need she had never experienced before. A magnetic pull towards his mouth as if he had some sort of sensual power over her, drawing her inexorably closer. She had never wanted anyone to kiss her before now. And while Drake wasn’t anywhere near her Mr Perfect, right then, all she could think about was feeling his firm lips against hers.
One side of his mouth tilted wryly. ‘That would be flirting with danger, don’t you think?’
She blinked and snatched in a much-needed breath. ‘W-why is that?’
His hand cradling her cheek shifted to her chin, lifting it so her gaze was fixed on his. ‘Because that wasn’t part of the deal.’
The deal was a hands-off one but she suddenly realised how much she wanted him to kiss her. It was an urge, a desire she had never felt like this before. His mouth was a magnet drawing her like an iron filing. She wanted to feel those firm lips against hers, she wanted to experience her very first kiss from him. ‘The deal?’
‘We’re not being observed right now.’