Escaping Mr Right

by Avril Tremayne

Which I did not want to do, so I turned my back on him (something I seemed to be doing a lot of, and which would have to stop before it became noteworthy) and pretended to listen intently to the discussion Derek was having with Barnaby about vantage points for filming general in-cabin footage. Barnaby interrupted Leila’s flirt-fest with Nick to get her opinion, and the next moment, Leila and Barnaby were leading Derek away for an aircraft tour.

  Leaving Nick and me alone. ‘What’s bothering you, Chloe?’ Nick asked, the instant the others were out of earshot.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Turn around and face me.’

  I turned.

  ‘Say “nothing” again.’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, raising a cavalier eyebrow.

  Nick opened his mouth. Closed it. Shrugged. ‘Okay then. Only a few hours until we land. See you when we get there.’

  And that was it.

  Really?

  The guy has sex with me in a public toilet, pockets my underwear, and then doesn’t have the decency to investigate what’s bothering me past one lousy question? It made me remember that completely inadequate phone message. It’s Nick. And then, nothing. Nothing!

  I blinked as I watched Nick make his way back to his seat, stopping halfway for a chat and a laugh with the well-racked brunette. And as he laughed, he dug his hand into the pocket where my knickers were. My knickers. Without even glancing my way as he did it. What kind of bastard chatted up one girl while his fingers were on another’s expensive pink silk underwear?

  There had to be a message in that.

  Yeah – don’t let guys take your underwear, numbskull.

  By the time the flight landed at six o’clock that evening, I was a mass of jumping, fragile nerves – but only on the inside. The outside of me was all serene goddess.

  During the scramble to collect luggage, when the subject of hitching a ride on the crew bus to the hotel was raised, I murmured something vague about making my own way because I had something to do en route. And if Nick dared voice one protest about that after the way he’d ignored me on the flight, I would ice him to death with a look.

  I waited for him to say something. Ready, eager, to annihilate him.

  But Nick didn’t even look at me, let alone speak.

  Right, then. Right. Right!

  One of the flight attendants suggested a group dinner at a restaurant a block from the hotel. The team, plus Nick, plus Derek – and me, if I could make it. I hedged my bets and made a vague reference to perhaps not being able to get there on time, given ‘that thing’ I had to do. And I figured Nick would surely have something to say about that, given his body parts were supposed to be all over mine right about dinnertime.

  And yes he did have something to say: that dinner was a great idea. Again, without looking at me.

  That was it.

  End result: I stood alone in the taxi line, watching the whole group laughing and chatting as they walked to the crew bus. I saw them board the bus. Saw, through the bus window, Nick take the seat beside Leila. Imagined him feeling my underwear while sitting next to that perfect, if somewhat toothy, girl.

  And I thought to myself, Well, this genuinely sucks.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Somewhere between the taxi ride and the end of my post-flight shower, I’d convinced myself that I was professionally obligated to attend the group dinner, and that that was the only reason I was going.

  Of course, that was not the reason I was donning a super short cobalt blue swing dress and towering heels, or opting for a tiny mauve clutch instead of my red-folder-holding briefcase; or layering on enough mulberry eye shadow I resembled an exotically coloured raccoon; or lamenting the lost six inches of my hair while I pinned what was left of it in a sex-me-up mess on top of my head.

  That part was about getting that bastard Nick Savage to notice me, and regret what he would not be getting after dinner.

  I approached the restaurant as though I were preparing to sashay down a catwalk, and even knowing that everyone inside would be casually dressed and probably almost finished dinner didn’t deter me from my mission. For all they knew, I’d been delayed by an assignation that made my glamour-girl outfit and overdone make-up de rigeur.

  I entered the restaurant and paused, feigning confusion over where I should head, despite it being blindingly obvious I belonged with the only non-Filipino group in the place. I wanted Nick to get the full effect of my arrival when he looked over at me. I wanted his eyeballs to leap from their sockets. His jaw to drop. His tongue to roll out of his mouth.

  Derek saw me, and satisfyingly, there was an eye-pop and what appeared to be a silent whistle that had me preening a little on the inside.

  I waited a fraction longer, my eyes darting to Nick, who was sitting between Leila and an empty chair. But Nick didn’t look up; he just kept talking to Leila, who didn’t look up either.

  Disconcerting, but I couldn’t keep standing there, all Mr De Mille, I’m ready for my close up pitiable, so I glided towards the table, blink-blink-breathing, adding an extra swing to my hips. Almost there, come on, Nick, almost there, time to speak up, Nick, almost there, look up now, you rat …

  But he didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid in my direction, even when I reached the table and stopped.

  There were two seats free. The one beside Nick and one beside Derek.

  ‘Here, Chloe,’ Derek said, standing and pulling out the chair beside him. ‘I saved you a seat.’

  I hesitated for a tiny moment, waiting for the dolt at the other end of the table to give me the opportunity to turn down the offer of the seat beside him.

  And at last, Nick looked up. I started to smile in a very superior way – not that Nick noticed, because he was looking past me, smiling in a not-superior-at-all way at someone behind me.

  ‘Bryce, at last,’ he called past me. ‘Come sit next to me. I want to talk to you about the flight.’

  Bryce. He wanted to talk to Bryce, not Chloe.

  I sat in the chair Derek had saved me, as though there was never any doubt that was exactly where I’d been intending to sit all along, and cast a covert glance at this Bryce, who was striding towards the table.

  And … yowzer! That’s all I’m saying.

  Okay, that’s not all I’m saying.

  I’m saying that Bryce was tall, dark and handsome. I’m saying he had muscles, but he also had elegance. I’m saying he had hair that waved perfectly over his well-formed head. I’m saying he had style.

  As Bryce took his seat, Leila leaned across Nick to say, ‘We missed you on the bus.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry. I saw a mate from Qantas at the airport and got caught up.’

  ‘We’re glad you made it to dinner at least,’ she said.

  Bryce murmured something about his own gladness, then he was looking around the table, exchanging nods and small talk with all the airline staff. He was reaching for the wine glass Nick had filled for him when he got to me. There was the slightest pause, an appreciative widening of the eyes, a very broad smile. Then, ‘Hi!’ he said, with flattering enthusiasm. Ha! That’s what I was talking about.

  And – hallelujah! – at last, Nick looked at me. No smile. No hello. Just a complete absence of expression which meant … well, who knew what it meant?

  ‘Bryce, meet Chloe Masters,’ Nick said, in a voice as expressionless as his face. ‘The journalist who’s doing the story. Chloe, this is Bryce Haynes, who flew us to Manila.’

  Be still my heart! Bryce was a pilot? The job that topped the list, year after year, of the most respected jobs in the world? How perfect could a guy get?

  Bryce smiled at me and I pictured it, pictured us. Aromatic candles in the bedroom. A strewn flower petal or two. Me, wearing a silky peignoir, my hair brushed to perfection and my favourite perfume (which is Chloé in case you’re wondering – I know, it’s borderline piteous; what would I have done if my name was Ernestine?) dabbed behind my ears, between my breasts, and high on the inside of my thighs.

&n
bsp; Bryce was a guy for whom you strategised your underwear. A guy who would appreciate the strategising. You’d know exactly where your underwear landed when Bryce removed it and tossed it somewhere in the room. Know how to swing your hair just so, even in the throes of passion. He was a guy you could dust off your technique for, choosing the exact moment for using that little tongue twist you’d read about, having the wits to adjust your pelvic floor muscles for maximum control over the pace and timing of his orgasm, using that facial expression you’d practised in front of the mirror for the pinnacle moment.

  Bryce Haynes was not the kind of guy who’d have you scrabbling around in a toilet cubicle, skipping the foreplay just to go for it, fast. There would be no uncontrolled groans, no strangled breathing, no trampling upon expensive pink silk panties in the rush to impale yourself, no hanging on for dear life, or death, or any state in between as you clawed towards the peak.

  Derek pushed assorted plates of food towards me and I helped myself to a few morsels, although my appetite wasn’t exactly at its best remembering that toilet scene.

  A quick glance at the other end of the table showed Bryce declining a similar offering. Like me, he wasn’t here for the food. Then Nick said something to Bryce, and Bryce laughed. An open, joyous, uncomplicated laugh. I strained my ears, channelling out the conversations taking place on either side of me so I could tune into that one very particular conversation.

  ‘… no danger – and don’t pretend a little turbulence scared you.’ Bryce.

  ‘Actually, I enjoyed the earlier patch of turbulence. Even though I was stuck in the john.’ Nick, with the most infinitesimal glance down the length of the table – making me choke on my wine.

  ‘That was the worst of it,’ Bryce said, thankfully clueless. ‘The flight was smooth as silk otherwise.’

  ‘Silk, huh,’ Nick mused, and looked at me again as his hand dipped under the table. Oh. My. God. He had his hand in his pocket with my panties. A moment later, Nick’s hand was back up, flat against his heart, and my own heart was jumping around in my chest like a flailing fish, because I was remembering him holding my hand there like that when he told me I’d be safe.

  Bryce was talking, but all I could hear was my pulse whooshing in my ears as that word ran through my head. Safe. Somehow that word was connected with exactly that sight. Of Nick’s hand on his heart. Like a promise. Cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die.

  Then Nick removed his hand from his chest and reached for his wine, and I could concentrate again. He turned to Bryce. ‘I was checking our in-flight progress on the IFE system. It’s not my imagination is it, that we that we diverted in that last hour? Because it looked like we were off plan, tracking to the west, and descended to a non RVSM Flight Level.’

  Um … hello?

  Bryce gave Nick a playful punch on the shoulder. ‘Yeah, but no biggie, tech-head.’

  ‘What happened?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Mount Apo near Davao erupted and we had to divert to avoid a volcanic ash plume.’

  ‘That explains the diversion upwind with the prevailing westerly winds. Is there any danger – for us, I mean?’

  Bryce shrugged. ‘Only if the orphanage were within twenty kilometres of the volcano, which it’s not, so we’re good.’

  ‘It seemed a rather big dog leg. Any problems with ATC and crossing airways?’

  ‘It helped that ATC gave us descent to a nonstandard RVSM Flight Level.’

  ‘I hope our TCAS was working!’

  Bryce laughed. ‘We’re here, aren’t we?’

  More incomprehensible discussion followed about flight paths, as I tried to come to terms with the fact that Nick not only understood pilot talk, but could also speak it.

  As in – who in the name of all that’s holy knew?

  Nick, talking like a pilot? Nick?

  I couldn’t quite reconcile that side of Nick with the side of him that had said, I want you to imagine what I’m going to do to you in Manila tonight, when we have a bed at our disposal, and I can use my tongue on you.

  And somehow, Nick using his pilot-talking tongue on me was a little too easy to visualise. Me clutching at the cool sheet as Nick slid down my body, his tongue tracing a line right down the middle of me, past my belly button. Whispering to me in between kisses, You’re it, Chloe. I want you, want you, want you, only you. And then … arriving. That first hot lick, and I would be screaming …

  I caught myself halfway to hyperventilation and shifted on my seat to try to ease the humming ache between my thighs. As I forced myself back to reality, I found Bryce looking at me expectantly.

  I gave him an ‘oops’ smile. ‘Sorry, I missed that.’

  ‘I was asking if you were planning on being here for the whole week,’ Bryce said, pushing at his hair, which had flopped sexily across one eye.

  ‘That depends,’ I said. ‘You mean, if we wrap it up early you’ll head home?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Then let’s hope we don’t wrap up early,’ Bryce said. He smiled, and raised his glass as if toasting me, and I decided to supplant Nick with Bryce in that hot little fantasy I’d been having. Bryce, a real pilot, with hair long enough for you to actually grab onto, sliding his tongue … His tongue … His … Ah, dammit! The picture wouldn’t form. Maybe it needed … needed … Flower petals. Roses. Red rose petals, the colour of passion. And … and those candles – vanilla, perhaps – surrounding the bed.

  But before the image would form, Nick was throwing a bundle of notes down and pushing back from the table, and then everyone was standing, gathering their things. As we all left the restaurant, I maneuvered myself closer to Bryce. He smelled like sandalwood. I loved sandalwood. So, a quick re-set of the bedroom in my mind … Crisp white sheets – check. Rose petals – check. Sandalwood candles instead of vanilla – check. Bryce between my thighs, looking up at me through that lock of silky-soft hair … I imagined … imagined …

  Salt – that’s what I could smell. Spiky hair – that’s what I could feel. And black eyes, shooting sparks, that’s what I could see. And no freaking rose petals, that’s for sure. Just clothes in disarray and skin and straining muscles. Clearly, something had gone seriously wrong inside my head.

  We reached the hotel, and almost immediately Bryce disappeared, pleading fatigue, and I was too annoyed with my disordered brain to care about that. But when I realised Nick had also disappeared, a red haze started to form before my eyes.

  When I got to my room, it occurred to me that I had probably already been Ruby-fied. Traded in for a new model. A flight attendant model. The brunette with the boobs? Leila of the too-white smile? One of the others? All of the others, together, orgy-style? My hands were so tightly fisted at that thought, there was a risk I’d have to break a finger to unclench them.

  Or perhaps I could just go to Nick’s room and loosen them up by punching him.

  I envisaged myself knocking on his door. Him opening it, shirt off, hastily donned jeans slipping down his hips. And behind him, an assortment of naked, tousled flight attendants lounging on the bed.

  And, although I am not proud of this, I actually screamed before I could stop myself.

  I ripped the carefully placed pins out of my hair, scrubbed off my make-up, set up my laptop on the desk, connected to WiFi, typed Bryce Haynes, First Officer, AustralAir, into the search engine, and hit the return key.

  When I’d finished searching for Bryce, maybe I’d see what I could find out about the Vibrating Rock Chick. They might be available in Manila, mightn’t they? Not for my own personal use. But to shove up Nick’s –

  Knock.

  Once.

  Hard.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Well, wasn’t that just great? My careful make-up had been demolished, my fancy underwear was stowed away, I was wearing the hotel’s unsexy white terry towelling robe, and I had no Vibrating Rock Chick shaped object to hand.

  But I was getting ahead of myself. Just because that was the most macho d
oor knock in the world didn’t mean it was Nick.

  And if it was Nick? Well, I didn’t care what I looked like. In fact, it was much better for him to see that I was not all dolled up and waiting for him, ready to open my arms and legs.

  On that note, I wiped my palms (which had decided, inconveniently, to sweat) on my robe, took a deep breath, layered on a veneer of unconcern, and walked regally over to the door – which I opened cautiously, while cleverly knuckling one eye as though I’d just woken up.

  Yep. Nick. Smiling.

  And swinging my pink silk panties from a fingertip!

  I gave up the sleepy nonchalance act in a heartbeat, grabbed my panties, cast a harried look up and down the corridor, yanked Nick into the room and slammed the door.

  He looked me up and down, his way-too-satisfied smile slowly fading. ‘You thought I wasn’t coming.’

  ‘I assumed you weren’t.’

  ‘Why would you assume that?’

  ‘Hmmm, let’s see. How about we start with your attitude towards me at dinner tonight?’ And although my voice was super cool, I could feel my temper about to rampage through my eyeballs.

  ‘My attitude?’

  ‘On second thoughts, let’s expand the timeframe to twelve hours ago. Which was about when we exited that disgusting toilet.’

  He raised startled eyebrows. ‘Disgusting?’

  ‘You’ve barely looked at me, barely said a word to me ever since that … that … thing.’

  ‘That thing?’

  ‘Stop repeating what I say.’

  ‘I will, as soon as you start making sense.’

  ‘I’m making perfect sense.’

  ‘What attitude did you want me to have?’

  ‘One that didn’t make me feel like a cast off groupie!’

  ‘Then stop acting like one.’

  ‘Stop –’ Choke – I’m not kidding, I really made a loud choke sound. I was practically incandescent with rage, cool be damned. ‘Stop acting like one?’

  ‘Uh oh, repeating. Isn’t that a no-no, Chloe?’

  I looked down at my hand, now fisted around those pink silk panties that I never wanted to see again. With a low growl, I stalked over to the desk where my laptop was and threw the panties into the bin underneath.