TheBillionairesPilot

by Suzanne Graham

  Evan couldn’t imagine being a father and watching his daughter leave for war. He gave Cassie’s dad credit for not blocking her decision. “How long did you serve?” he asked, wondering how long Cassie’s dad had had to pray that his daughter would get out safely.

  “Eight years,” she answered.

  Damn. That must have felt like forever to her father. “Why did you leave?”

  She stared out the plane window and didn’t answer for a long time. “That’s a personal question.” Her tone spoke of private pain.

  He resisted the impulse again to grab her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be intrusive.”

  She turned to face him, and the look in her eyes would haunt him forever. Sorrow and something he couldn’t define stared back at him. “It’s hard to step away when your country is at war—when you know the men and women putting their lives on the line every day for you, and you won’t be there to support them.” She dropped her gaze and fiddled with the giant diamond he’d placed on her finger.

  Regret, maybe guilt, was what he’d seen in her eyes. He waited to see if she would say more.

  “I left for selfish reasons,” she said softly.

  And he felt selfish for being glad she had left. Otherwise, he would never have had the opportunity to meet her, and he was very much enjoying getting to know her. She was smart and funny, principled and determined…and she knew how to defend herself. The dull ache in his head reminded him of that. Absently, he rubbed at the small lump as he watched her seem to struggle with her next words.

  Finally, she continued, “I was shot in the leg.”

  Evan’s chest constricted, and he had to force himself to keep breathing. “You were shot?” He remembered seeing the scar on her thigh at the pool, and his gut tightened.

  “It wasn’t life threatening,” she quickly added. “After I healed, I was cleared for active duty, but it changed me. I saw how easily I could lose my ability to fly, and I couldn’t bear to be permanently grounded.” She looked up at him, her fragility softening her eyes. “I was selfish. I left because I couldn’t imagine my life without flying. If I wasn’t a pilot, I’d be nothing.”

  “That doesn’t sound selfish,” he reassured her. “That sounds like you weren’t ready to give up what you loved.” The echo of his mother telling him something similar about his racing days sounded in his mind, but his situation wasn’t nearly the same as Cassie’s.

  “I left my buddies in the field,” she said, her tone suddenly sharp with self-contempt.

  “After serving eight years alongside them,” he pointed out. “You shed blood for your country. Isn’t that enough sacrifice?” He’d left his parents and his family obligations for more than eight years to pursue his hobby, and no sacrifice had been required of him. If anyone deserved to be self-loathing, it was he, whereas Cassie deserved praise and gratitude for putting her life on the line for her country.

  Cassie diverted her gaze from his and appeared to stare out the window again, as if to avoid him and put an end to this painful conversation about her service record.

  “I appreciate your willingness to fly with me to Texas,” she said, changing the topic.

  Suddenly, he realized the truth of the moment. “I’d want to be here for you even if we weren’t pretending to be engaged.”

  She turned swiftly to face him. “Don’t,” she said curtly.

  Puzzled, he asked, “Don’t what?”

  “Please don’t make this personal,” she spoke slowly, enunciating each word.

  “Cassie, haven’t we been around this corner already? There’s obviously a strong mutual attraction between us.” He didn’t get why she was fighting it. The woman was driving him crazy with her denials. “Why can’t we enjoy our attraction while we act out this engagement?” At this point, he didn’t even care if she was submissive or not. He just wanted to be able to act on this chemistry between them.

  “I thought you said you were a good listener, but you obviously weren’t listening when I said I won’t—I can’t—get involved with my boss on a personal level.” Her volume rose with her last few words.

  He checked his impulse to look over his shoulder to see if Dan was eavesdropping. Evan had filled his assistant in on his fake engagement arrangement with Cassie, explicitly stating the relationship was platonic. But if Dan heard Cassie now, it would sound like Evan was pressuring her into doing something she didn’t want to do. He definitely didn’t want to give Dan that impression. Evan was having a hard enough time as it was, trying to live up to his father’s image. He didn’t need to add “harasser of women” to his list of finer attributes.

  “I heard you say it,” he said in a calm voice, “but I don’t understand it. I’m not Trent.”

  Her eyes widened as he said the name, as if he wouldn’t remember the name of the bastard who had obviously treated her like crap. Again, Evan had the strong urge to slam his fist into the other man’s jaw. Maybe they’d take a detour through Chicago on their way back to New York, he mused.

  “I’m not looking to add another notch to my bedpost,” he clarified to Cassie.

  “Then what are you looking for?”

  “The opportunity to learn more about you.”

  “Why?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Because you interest me.” And it was true. The more he got to know Cassie, the more he genuinely liked her. He wanted to explore this relationship fully.

  Her fresh sensuality was keeping him in a permanent semi-hard state, but that wasn’t the only thing that drew him to her. He liked her groundedness; too many women he met on the social circuit were flighty and only cared about shopping and partying. Cassie obviously had real world experiences that gave her a much different perspective on the important things in life, which he’d had to learn the hard way by losing his father.

  He didn’t see why he and Cassie couldn’t use this time together to develop an honest friendship…with benefits. But for some reason, she kept throwing up barriers between them, and that just made him more determined to solve the riddle named Cassie.

  Chapter Nine

  Cassie slipped the huge diamond off her finger as she sat in the back of the hired limo taking her and Evan to her dad’s house. She studied the ring in her palm as she considered a safe place to put it. Maybe Evan would rather hold it for her; she glanced up at him.

  With a raised eyebrow, he asked, “What are you doing?”

  Being so close to him with his clean, spicy-citrus scent made it hard to concentrate. She forced herself to focus on the current situation. “I can’t announce our engagement to my dad yet.”

  “You’d better plan to do it soon,” he warned. “The media is going to be all over it when we get back to New York. Dan’s probably got the press statement already finalized.”

  Her heart rate sped up, and her gaze darted to the closed privacy window between them and the driver. She lowered her voice. “Mr. Jacobs wouldn’t publicize it without our approval, would he?”

  After their plane had landed, Mr. Jacobs had taken a taxi to a nearby hotel to give Evan and Cassie privacy to meet her father. She didn’t know what was on the assistant’s agenda. Had Evan given him instructions to make the announcement?

  “No, Dan won’t say anything until I tell him to do so,” Evan reassured her. “But we have to make it public soon. Xavier will be waiting for the validation.”

  Staring at the sparkling ring in her palm, she shook her head. “How am I going to explain any of this?” she said more to herself than Evan.

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked up at him. “My dad knows I just started this new job on Thursday. How do I explain how far our relationship has gone in three days?”

  “Love at first sight,” Evan offered with a cocky grin.

  She held back on the unladylike snort that threatened. “Right. Not going to fly. I also have to explain why my boss is traveling with me and why I went to San Miguel with him for the weekend.”

  Evan
shrugged one shoulder. “That last part is easy, and it’s the truth. I needed a female employee to accompany me on a business trip.”

  She frowned at him. “And you think that’s going to sound good to my father?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “No.” She glanced out the window at the familiar scenery passing by.

  Her father had been living in this neighborhood for eight years—his last three years of service, plus the five years since he’d retired. It was the longest he’d lived anywhere during Cassie’s lifetime, and it felt like the closest thing she had to a hometown, even though she’d never lived here with him. Now that his health was poor, it was an extra bonus to have Aunt Marge living just thirty minutes away with her husband in Rockport.

  At the sight of Cassie’s favorite corner ice cream shop, her pulse raced. “We’re running out of time.” She turned back to Evan. “Are you sure we can’t just tell him the truth?”

  Adamantly, Evan shook his head. “Absolutely not. I can’t risk it until I get the contracts finalized with Xavier.”

  Resigned to lying to her father, but still hating it, she said, “Okay, we’ll have to use the same backstory we came up with for Xavier.”

  “We met through mutual friends at a concert, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. But my dad knows I haven’t made any new friends since coming to New York.”

  “I thought you said you and your dad were estranged.”

  “We’re not as close as we used to be, but we still talk regularly.”

  Evan inclined his head. “Okay, forget the mutual friend introduction. We’ll keep it simple. You were at the concert. I was at the concert. We met in line, buying a beer. We’ve been getting to know each other for a while, but I didn’t tell you I was the owner of the company you were interviewing for.”

  “Leave that last part out,” she instructed.

  “Why?”

  “Because it borders on deception. Integrity is important to my father, to any soldier, which is what makes this whole situation…”

  “Painful for you.”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  Evan reached for her hand, entwining their fingers. “I really appreciate what you’re sacrificing for me and the company.”

  She studied their linked hands. If only their engagement was real, she would willingly face her father’s disapproval about the quickness of the timing. She glanced up at Evan’s earnest expression.

  Even though she’d acted so badly toward him last night, he had forgiven her and been extremely supportive since she’d received the news about her father’s trip to the hospital. Evan had shown her in many ways that he was, indeed, different from her last boss.

  She studied his handsome face. Yeah, she could see herself wanting to spend every day for the rest of her life with this man, so maybe love at first sight really did exist.

  Evan watched her as she pulled her hand free from his and slipped the ring back on her finger. The engagement might be fake, but her budding feelings weren’t, and she knew he desired her too, after their incendiary kisses last night. Of course, her emotions went beyond desire. She admired the man inside, in addition to his outer appearance.

  She might be repeating the same mistake by falling for her boss, but Evan was not Trent, as he’d reminded her on the plane. In fact, she couldn’t imagine two men more dissimilar in terms of values and character.

  She lifted her hand and watched the light reflect in the diamonds. “It was fast, but we knew right away we’d each found the one we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with.” She hesitated before meeting Evan’s gaze. Had she given away too much of the truth?

  He regarded her with his dark eyes. “Yeah, sometimes it happens that way.” With a gentle graze, his finger brushed a stray hair off of her cheek.

  Her skin heated at his touch, and her gaze dropped to his lips.

  He leaned down as she stretched up to meet him. Their kiss started soft and slow, almost like it was their first contact, as if they were just getting to know each other. Maybe it was because this was their first kiss that wasn’t ensnared in the web of lies of their fake engagement. This was their first kiss that felt honest. Not that the lusty ones hadn’t been honest, but this one seemed like it was just between the two of them, no games, no pretenses.

  Evan whispered against her lips. “Cassie?”

  “Yeah,” she breathed out.

  “Stop thinking and kiss me.”

  Her lips curled up in a smile as she focused her attention on the man before her. She dragged her fingers through his hair and tugged him closer, giving him deeper access when she parted her lips to his exploring tongue.

  His body was hard and powerful as they pressed against each other in the limo’s backseat, but he touched her so gently, so reverently. She felt precious and feminine in his arms, and her female parts were heating at the idea of exploring more of Evan’s masculinity. She ran her hand down the front of his shirt, enjoying the feel of his solid muscles under her fingertips. She was tempted, oh so tempted, to investigate the lower half of him.

  “Mr. Mitchell,” the driver’s voice over the car speaker snapped Cassie back to reality. “We’re one block from our destination.”

  Cassie dropped her arms from around Evan and looked out of the window. They were within a minute of seeing her father. Quickly, she ran her fingers through her hair and grabbed the compact mirror out of her purse to check her lipstick. It wouldn’t be good to show up at her father’s house looking like she’d been making out in the backseat of a car, even if it were true.

  Evan chuckled softly at her side.

  She spared him a quick glance. “What?”

  He grinned. “You are such a girl.”

  She didn’t know whether to be offended or not. “Was there ever a doubt I wasn’t a female?”

  Chuckling louder, he shook his head. “You have so many pieces to your personality I don’t think I’ll ever solve the whole puzzle.”

  She sent him an answering grin. “A woman likes to be a little mysterious.”

  “Definitely a riddle to be figured out,” he agreed as the car pulled to a stop in front of Cassie’s father’s house.

  The white clapboard bungalow appeared a little worn around the edges. The front porch looked like it hadn’t had its regular paint job in a few years, and the top step was listing to the left. Her chest ached at the outward signs of her dad’s declining health because if he were feeling fit, he’d never allow the house to deteriorate like this.

  Her palms grew sweaty at the prospect of introducing Evan to her dad.

  “Can the driver wait here with our bags for a little while?” she asked Evan. “I don’t want to overwhelm my dad. He might not feel like having overnight guests, and we might be more comfortable staying at a hotel,” she rambled out.

  Evan laid a warm hand on her knee. “It’s fine, Cassie. Whatever you think is best.”

  “Thanks,” she breathed out her relief.

  When the driver opened the back door, she stepped out and drew in a lungful of the dry, clean air of Texas. She took a moment to appreciate the setting sun on the distant horizon of the wide-open sky. Nowhere in the world could compare to the pinks, purples, oranges, and reds of a Texas sunset.

  After another deep breath to settle her nerves, she turned to Evan. “Ready for this?”

  “It’ll be okay, Cassie,” Evan offered his reassurance.

  “We’ll see,” she said then headed up the porch steps with Evan following her. She knocked on the front door and listened for sounds of her dad inside the house.

  “Coming,” his gravelly voice called out, filling her with gratitude that she was here. She’d missed him so much.

  The deadbolt slid open with a click. Then she was finally face-to-face with her dad in the open doorway. Tears threatened as she absorbed the signs of aging in the grey pallor of his skin, the deep creases around his eyes and mouth, and the stoop of his shoulders. She couldn’t believe how m
uch he’d aged since her visit at Christmas, just four months ago.

  “Hi, Dad.” She took a step forward, craving the feel of his arms around her.

  He held himself rigid. “I told your Aunt Marge you didn’t need to come. I’m fine.”

  She halted her steps, keeping her arms at her sides. “I know, but I wanted to see you for myself.”

  “I’m fine,” he repeated as his eyes shifted to stare at the man behind her. “Who’s this?”

  She half-turned towards Evan. “Dad, this is my f-fiancé.” She only stumbled a little over the introduction.

  “Fiancé?” her dad practically growled. “How long have you been seeing him? You never told me you were serious about a man. Hell, you never even mentioned you’d been dating since you got to New York.”

  Cassie bit her lip, working up the courage to present the falsehoods of her relationship.

  Evan stepped forward with his right hand extended. “Mr. Maynard—”

  “That’s Master Chief Maynard,” her dad interrupted.

  Oh God, he was going full Navy mode on Evan.

  “My apologies, Master Chief,” Evan smoothed over. “I’m Evan Mitchell. It’s an honor to meet you.”

  Her dad glared at Evan’s extended hand for a moment before he reluctantly grasped it and gave it a firm shake. Cassie was impressed when Evan didn’t grimace at the squeeze she was sure her dad had given as a message. It was always this way when she brought home a new boyfriend. She should have warned Evan, but she’d had too much on her mind.

  “Well, you’re here,” her dad rasped. “You might as well come in for a bit.” He turned to lead them into the living room to the left. Over his shoulder, he asked, “How long are you here for?”

  Cassie didn’t need a cipher to decode her dad’s signals. He didn’t want her and Evan staying with him. “We’re just stopping by for a quick visit, Dad. We have to get back to New York soon.” She sat with Evan on the worn plaid sofa, across from her dad’s favorite leather recliner.