by AJ Nuest
“Well, the decision isn’t final yet, but they sure seemed positive. The companies we’re competing against are in New York, so they aren’t as familiar with the Chicago area as we are. Keep your fingers crossed. They’re supposed to call us on Monday.”
“How many people were there?”
“Me, plus three others.” Tessa relaxed in her seat and crossed her legs. “Their event coordinator, Mrs. Henderson, a nice older lady with one of those curly blue perms—I didn’t know women could even get that shade of blue these days.”
Tiffany laughed.
“And the president, Mr. Brower, and his assistant, James…” A dark blur stopped at her row and she glanced to the side. Tiffany’s chatter streamed through the phone, but Tessa didn’t register a word as a set of dangerous ice-blue eyes drilled directly into her soul.
Dibs stood in the aisle, striking in a charcoal gray suit and red tie, briefcase in one hand, coat in the other. A line of people built behind him, but their eyes remained locked, and he stood frozen, his face a blank mask.
“Oh…my…God.” Tessa spun toward the window.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m completely dead.” She peeked over her shoulder. Dibs stared at the ticket in his hand…then at the small number on the baggage compartment above the seat.
“What happened?” Tiffany asked.
“You’ll never believe who’s about to sit next to me.”
“Are you sitting down or what?” The man behind Dibs flicked a hand toward her row.
“I am so-o-o, so, so, so dead.” Tessa pinched the bridge of her nose.
“The whack job? No way!”
She stole another glimpse over her shoulder. Dibs faced the man behind him, grudgingly stepped into the row and plopped into the seat beside hers.
Hunched over the phone, Tessa covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “I have to call you back,” she whispered.
“You call me the minute the wheels touch ground.”
“Later.” She clapped her phone shut and sat up, staring at the tray table in front of her. Maybe if she remained motionless, he would just ignore her. Why God? Why him?
“Hi, Rex.” He dropped his briefcase and shoved it under the seat in front of him.
“Hi.” Out of all the millions of people in the entire—
“This should be an incredibly uncomfortable flight.”
He was right, but she didn’t know which was worse. How they were stuck with each other for the next two hours, or the tense muscles in his jaw and the way he seemed barely able to look at her.
The airline attendant closed and locked the door. The plane jerked as the wheel blocks were removed. “Maybe we should just agree not to speak,” she suggested.
He grunted and buckled his seatbelt. “Yeah, I’m not sure that’s going to work for me.”
Inhaling through the tightness in her chest, she placed her fingertips to her temple and tried to massage away the sudden dull ache. Well, it was probably only a matter of time before she ran into one of them.
The engines powered up. The plane slowly inched from the terminal. The captain’s voice crackled through the speakers, welcoming the passengers on board. Tessa focused on the flight attendant and her yellow, plastic oxygen mask, stretching a rubber tube down the length of her arm.
“Can I just ask you why?” Dibs faced her, his words clipped. “And please don’t say ‘it’s me, not you.’”
The unwavering steel in his gaze broadcasted how angry he truly was, and she buffered the thick block of ice surrounding her heart. “It’s me, not you.”
“That’s pathetic.” He wrenched forward in the seat.
“Yeah, well, it’s also the truth.” As if she owed him an explanation in the first place. As if he didn’t know exactly what happened between them. She rolled her eyes and peered through the window.
“Oh, so now I get the truth.”
Fighting with him was a waste of time, but his sarcasm pushed her eject button and the words popped out of their own accord. “Okay, you don’t have to be insulting,” she spoke over her shoulder.
The engines roared beneath her. The wheels bumped against pavement as the plane gathered speed down the runway.
“I’m insulting. I’m insulting!” he yelled over the noise.
“I would say being called a pathetic liar is insulting, yes!” Gravity forced her back in the seat when the plane tilted into the air.
The cabin slowly evened out. Dibs shifted in his seat. His knee bounced once, twice. “I just wanted to have dinner,” he said quietly.
“That’s how it starts.”
“What’s ‘it’?”
“It!” She tossed a hand in the air. “Like I said at the bar—relationships, the breakups, the whole mess. You know…it!”
The moment stretched longer than the length of the plane while he scanned her face. “I only wanted to have dinner, Tessa, I wasn’t proposing.”
Ridiculous. He should know better than anyone the risk he represented. “Doesn’t matter. That’s still how it starts.”
A stern scowl rutted his brow. “What exactly is your problem?”
Was he kidding with this? “My problem is I don’t want to be in a relationship, which, by the way, I told you at the bar.” And which hadn’t been a problem until he showed up.
The smiling flight attendant locked her cart in place, leaned across the seats, and handed them each a napkin. “May I offer you something to drink?”
“Dewars, rocks.”
“Vodka, in any form.”
“Okay, sure.” She hesitated, shifting a cautious gaze between them.
The edgy silence grew to a gaping hole, sucking the air from the cabin while the flight attendant fixed their drinks. She handed Tessa a glass, and then offered a glass to Dibs, flicking her eyes over each of their faces before rolling her cart down the aisle.
Tessa gulped two big swallows from her glass, and found little comfort when he did the same.
“You left, and you didn’t even say goodbye.”
She expelled a frustrated breath. “I know I left. I was there, remember?”
“I wasted an entire day locating you.”
Her hand clamped down on the arm rest. “Is that what this is about? The fact that I inconvenienced you?”
“No, that is not what this is about,” he snapped. “Now who’s handing out insults?”
“Are you sure? Because it seems the only reason you’re upset is that I didn’t do what you wanted me to do, which is exactly my point!”
The flight attendant reappeared beside Dibs. “Is everything all right here?” She aimed a disapproving eyebrow first at Tessa, then at him.
“Yes.” He straightened his tie.
“No.” She crossed her arms.
The flight attendant remained at Dibs’s elbow.
He glanced up at her. “Everything’s fine.”
She narrowed her eyes at them before sashaying away.
He lifted his glass, huffing. “You know, you really must be full of yourself.” He tipped the rim to his lips.
“There’s another nice insult,” she muttered. And look who was talking…Mr. Wine ’Em and Dine ’Em Money Bags! She hopped around in her seat. “And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”
“When we talked on the phone. You acted like I was a stalker or something.”
“Well, maybe the forty million flowers and the fifty-foot banner freaked me out a little.”
“I was trying to be romantic.”
“Well, it was creepy.” She reached up and violently twisted the air nozzle, aimed the blower directly at her head.
“It was charming.”
“Huh! Maybe in your world,” she grumbled.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” He pointed at her. “I told you the truth from the very beginning. You knew exactly who I was and what I was about before anything ever happened…unlike someone else in the room.”
She gasped. The nerve! Who the hell did he think he
was? “I never once told you a lie.”
“The whole thing was a lie!”
“Oh, so now we’re talking about your pride?” She sneered at him. “You couldn’t handle that I wasn’t just standing at attention, waiting to do your bidding. Ha! What a crock.”
“This is not about my pride!”
“You’re so used to women falling all over themselves you couldn’t believe I might not want to see you again. I hate to break it to you, Dibs, but that’s exactly about your pride!”
The flight attendant rematerialized, a hand on her hip. “Okay, it’s getting a little loud, folks. Could I suggest maybe one of you change seats with another passenger?” She faked a smile.
“We’re both staying right here.” Dibs pointed at the floor.
“Well, then, may I suggest you keep your voices down? We’re starting to receive some complaints.” Lips compressed in a firm warning, she sauntered toward the rear of the plane.
“Don’t speak for me,” Tessa said.
“What are you talking about?”
“ ‘We are both staying right here.’ ” She mimicked him, jabbing a finger toward the floor.
He grunted and finished off his scotch.
Exasperation tightened her shoulders, her foot bouncing while she stewed, Dibs’s last words vaulting around inside her head like some deranged ping-pong ball. She finally snapped her chin over. “I never lied.” She snapped it forward.
“Don’t try fixing this by telling yet another lie. That never works.”
“I’m not trying to fix anything. I’m saying I didn’t lie.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, I didn’t.”
He sharply spun on her. “Well, then, what would you call what happened?”
“A one-night stand,” she whispered, “which was perfect until you went completely crazy and broke all the rules!”
“What rules!” He threw a hand in the air. “First categories, now rules? You and your strange ideas about who everyone is and how we should all fit into these special little niches. Didn’t you ever consider not everyone would just sit back and let you call all the shots?”
“Keep your voice down,” she scolded. “Or they’ll separate us like two children in school. And of course I never thought about anyone else calling the shots. Why should I? This is my life and I do what I want, remember?”
“At the expense of hurting everyone around you?”
She pulled her head back, contorting her brow. Now what was he going on about? “Who got hurt, Dibs? Who? Did you get hurt?”
He locked onto her face and the moment expanded and warped, her words souring the air like a thick plume of exhaust. “Yes, actually, I did. My feelings were very hurt.”
And for the first time since leaving New York, she looked at him, truly looked at him…and winced as the truth smacked her right between the brows.
The effect of her actions was written all over his face, the resentment darkening his brow, the humiliation etched into the corners of his eyes. He had been hurt by her disappearing act…more so than she would have ever believed possible.
Regret swarmed in and washed away the vestiges of her anger. Tiffany was right. Leaving had been an act of callousness…cowardice…even though she had never meant to hurt him. Hell, she never meant to hurt anybody…she had only been trying to protect herself.
She blinked as memories of Michael slammed home, the crushing heartbreak when he left, without so much as a word. Realization settled on her shoulders like a wooden yoke. She was no better. Over and again she left. Without a single thought to anyone but herself.
Embarrassment trumped her dismay, flooding the frigid hubs of her heart. How could she have been so stupid? With each leave-taking, she’d become more and more a living example of everything she detested. The very personification of Michael’s betrayal.
She closed her eyes and turned away from Dibs. She didn’t need to imagine his frustration. She already knew, the sharp delivery of her words making her despise what she’d done all that much more.
“Listen,” he said.
She forced herself to meet his gaze.
“Let’s just call a spade a spade. I really liked you and you didn’t like me at all, and that’s what this is about. Not my pride or this crazy notion that I was trying to control you, but the fact that you just didn’t like me, and you didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face.”
Her heart sank when he faced forward. She dropped her focus to her glass, the ice dancing against the side. Leaving him in such a place would be cruel. And he was certainly wrong about one thing.
She finally lifted her chin. “I did like you.”
When he turned, she offered him a small smile. Regardless of the damage she’d done, she owed him at least that much.
“Well, then, what’s the problem?” he asked.
She filled her lungs, but the circumstances weren’t that easy to explain. “The problem is…it never works.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It never works, Dibs. Something right around the corner always ruins the whole thing. Nothing but heartache and loneliness wait at the end of every relationship, and I’ve simply made the choice not to go through that. It’s just easier to avoid the whole mess right from the beginning. And if I were you, I would think long and hard about making the exact same choice.”
He searched her face several seconds before his shoulders lowered the slightest degree. “What was his name?”
“Who?”
“The man who did that to you.”
She jerked her eyes away from his. “No one did anything to me, Dibs.”
“Bullshit.”
The silence between them resumed. Tessa sipped her drink, the alcohol swirling through the misery in her gut. She finally braced her elbow on the arm rest and dropped her cheek into her palm. What a mess. If she’d ever had any doubts about jumping back into the dating pool, this confirmed everyth—
“You know, you don’t exactly corner the market on heartbreak, Rex.”
She slowly straightened, lifting her brows.
“Divorced, remember?”
Oh, yeah…Empathy unfurled in her chest and she nodded.
“Her name was Margaret, and once upon a time I really loved her.” He sized up the remains of his scotch, lowered the glass to his thigh. “My mother introduced us while I was at school and strongly suggested I propose. My father, on the other hand, insisted. A marriage to Margaret’s family consummated a business deal between two powerful investment firms.
“Unfortunately, her love was tied to a trust fund—which she gained access to the night of our wedding—along with the junior executive who managed the funds.”
He sighed and shook his head, and the ice surrounding Tessa’s heart cracked at his obvious distress.
“It wasn’t until two years later I discovered the affair, and at the time I was angry with everyone. Margaret for her deception, myself for not realizing her intentions sooner…my parents for allowing the marriage to happen when they should’ve had my best interests at heart.”
Of course. This was the family rift he spoke of the night they met. And knowing what his parents had put him through, she couldn’t fault his decision to place distance between them. Not one bit. The remaining ice encasing her heart melted and puddled at her feet. “I’m so sorry, Dibs.”
He shrugged, as if resigned to past hurts. “My point is, just because someone doesn’t give you what you deserve, that doesn’t mean you should automatically settle for less.”
“I know.” She waved away his comment. “Believe me, this isn’t the first time I’m hearing the old ‘what the hell are you doing’ speech. It’s just…I’m kinda going through a thing.”
He chuckled, shaking an ice cube into his mouth.
Tessa swirled the vodka in her glass, images of the day she and Dibs met streaming through her mind like some idyllic made-for-TV movie. He’d been totally sweet to her that night, and in return
she’d acted like an all-consuming bitch.
The poor guy. Hands down, he deserved a big, fat apology, but she didn’t even know where to start. The thought of having a long, involved discussion about how screwed up her life had become ever since her fiancé dumped her made her skin crawl.
She peeked at Dibs from the corner of her eye. He seemed deep in thought, chewing his ice. She inhaled and swung her attention back to the window. In the long run, it didn’t matter. After this flight she would probably never see him—
“Okay, you’re right.”
She swiveled in the seat, guardedly waiting for him to continue.
“I may have come on a little strong. Sorry. I guess I got wrapped up in the whole thing there. I apologize.” A polite smile tipping his lips, he inclined his head.
If not for the close quarters, she would’ve had to scrape her chin off the floor. He was apologizing to her? Was he serious? “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I should have called you back and explained. I just didn’t know what to say. This whole thing was my fault. I’m sorry.”
He dipped his chin, granting her forgiveness.
“Well, that, plus I thought you were a total whack job,” she added.
He whipped his head around. She lifted an eyebrow. Mirth dallied like a ray of sunshine along his lips, and then they shared a quiet laugh.
“Forty million flowers, huh?” he asked.
“Yeah, well, I tend to exaggerate.”
“Good to know.”
She resettled in her seat, smiling, but before long an uneasy pressure gathered and radiated outward from her chest. What was his name? echoed in her mind. She shifted uncomfortably, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs. Dibs had figured it out. And all this time she thought she was so damn coy. God, what an idiot.
And meanwhile here he sat, sharing his heartbreak over his ex-wife, following that up with a sincere apology. The right thing would be to explain. After all, his only request had been to see her again. Was that really so bad?
She closed her eyes. “His name was Michael.” She drained the last of her vodka.
“I knew a Michael once.” Dibs popped a chunk of ice into his mouth. “Hated him.”