She let go of the armrests completely and leaned a little closer. “Sounds like you’re the one who really loves the ocean.”
I stared at her for long minutes, her words not really penetrating my brain. All I could think about was how pretty she was sitting there with those loose blond curls framing her face and her nervous pink cheeks. But then the word love broke through the haze in my brain. I shook my head. “I don’t love anything.”
She sat back. I handed her the drink, which she took and downed about half in one great slurp. “We’re in the air,” she said.
“You didn’t even notice we were taking off.” I got up and moved across the plane to sit on a small couch over by a few small windows.
“It’s those damn jeans,” she murmured.
“What about my jeans?”
“Stupid superpower hearing,” she muttered, taking another drink.
“You like my jeans, huh?” Smug satisfaction filled my chest.
“I’d like them better if you took them into another room and stayed there.”
“You keep up that attitude, this is going to be a very long flight.”
“How long is it anyway?”
“About nine hours.”
She gaped at me. “Nine hours stuck on a plane with you?”
I grinned.
“What are we going to do for nine hours?”
“I can think of a few things.” I wagged my eyebrows. “Want to see how my jeans look on the floor?”
She spit her drink halfway across the room and the back of her hand flew to her mouth. “Ew! You are so gross!”
I scowled. “That’s not what you were saying the other night when I kissed you.”
“Do not remind me.”
“Why? Afraid you’ll want to do it again?”
Her shoulders slumped a little and she swiveled her chair toward the window. “If I get fired for this little trip, you owe me a million dollars.”
I would take her silence on the kissing subject as a yes. “A million dollars? I didn’t realize DMV employees made so much money.”
“They don’t. Most of it would be for the mental abuse I’m suffering at your hands.”
I laughed.
“I think a shopping spree on Rodeo drive will change your mind.”
“I’m not going shopping on Rodeo drive.”
“No?” I figured that was the first place she would go.
“No. I’m not spending your money.”
“But you’ll take a million?”
She looked around the back of her chair at me and rolled her eyes.
“So what’s the first thing you’re going to do?”
“Find the beach.”
“We’re staying on the beach. I have a house right on the sand.”
Her chair spun back around to face me. “Are you serious?”
“Views from every room.”
“How much money do you have?” she wondered.
More than she or I could ever spend. More money than some small countries. Killing paid well. Killing for over ninety years made a man very, very rich. I opened my mouth to answer and she held up her hand.
“Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the way you earned it.”
Irritation slammed through me. Figures she’d say that. “Money is just paper. It really doesn’t have anything to do with the job.”
“You do the job for the money,” she spat.
“I do the job because I have to,” I snapped, getting up and going to the bar. Shit, this was going to be a long plane ride. I should have just left her in Alaska and done damage control when I got home. It probably would have done me good to get away from her. She drove me mad. I poured half a glass of brandy and took a swallow.
“Because you’ll get Recalled,” she said softly.
“Yeah, and I’m in no hurry for that to happen.”
“It’s pretty terrible?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about it, love,” I said, wincing when the endearment slipped out. Again. I had no idea why I kept doing that. Calling people by anything other than their name was something I never did. “You won’t feel a thing.”
“But you will,” she whispered. I figured I wasn’t meant to hear that either so I didn’t bother to reply. I wasn’t naïve enough to think she actually cared.
“What’s the purpose of this trip anyway? I thought you were all about your Target,” she said with mock seriousness.
I didn’t bother to sit back down, but paced the cabin instead. This jet was feeling smaller than usual.
“I am all about my Target. That’s why you’re here.”
“Well, then?”
I took another drink of the alcohol and hoped it would numb my brain. She asked too many questions. “Work.”
“Is Rosalyn traveling to L.A.?” she wondered out loud. Then she said, “Couldn’t be, then you wouldn’t have cared if I was there.”
I stayed silent. I was tired of talking.
“If you’re not going for Rosalyn, but it’s still work…” She gasped. “You’re going to kill someone. Aren’t you?”
I closed my eyes. How did she make everything I did sound so awful? “It’s really not any of your business.”
“Are you kidding me?” she shouted. “You’re making me an accessory to murder!”
“Keep your voice down,” I said, glancing at the cockpit. “And you can’t be an accessory to something you know nothing about.”
She drained the rest of her drink, set the glass on a nearby table, and then spun her chair back toward the window. I guess that meant she was done bitching at me. Thank God.
We sat in silence for a long time. I finished my drink and had another, watched the sports highlights on the mini flat screen, and stared out the window into the dark. Flying didn’t bother me—I did it all the time—but sitting here left me feeling restless. She still hadn’t turned that chair around. She hadn’t uttered a word.
It made me mad that I was sitting here even thinking about her pouting. I took my empty glass over to the bar and then grabbed her chair and turned it around. She was sitting with her knees pulled up and her chin resting on top. Her arms were wrapped around her legs and she tilted her head back and looked at me. “What?”
“Are you going move in the next eight hours?”
She sighed and unfolded herself from the chair. “Where’s my bag?” she asked.
I motioned to the back of the cabin to the large closet where I put our bags. She pulled open the door and yanked out her bag so it was practically on top of her feet. Then she glanced at me and pointed to the garment bag hanging inside the closet. “Seriously? You put your clothes in a garment bag? How many pairs of trousers did you bring?”
I wondered what she would say if she knew there was a body in that bag and not my trousers. A body I stole from the Grim Reaper. And what the hell was wrong with trousers? They were classy. The way she said it, you would think I was running around in sweatpants. “If I had known you liked me in jeans so much, I would have brought more of those instead.”
Her cheeks turned pink and she bent down to rummage through her bag. After a few minutes, she made a sound. “Didn’t you bring me a sweatshirt?”
“We’re going to California. It’s hot there.”
“But this plane is freezing.”
“There’s some blankets in the cabinet over here.”
She abandoned the duffle and walked over to where I was pulling several blankets out of the cabinet. When she reached out for one, I noticed the goose bumps prickling her arms. I guess I should have packed her a sweater or something. Packing for a woman wasn’t something I ever had to do. I snatched the blanket away and her eyes widened.
“Hey,” she started, but she fell silent when I yanked the shirt I was wearing over my head. Then I swiftly pulled it down over her.
“You’ll warm up faster this way,
” I said.
“I’m not going to freeze to death,” she protested even as she pushed her arms through and fixed the hem. The white fabric fell mid-thigh. “How come men get all the good body heat?” she mumbled, reaching around me for the blanket and taking it over to her chair.
“What do you know about men and body heat?” I felt my eyes narrow as I watched her shapely behind move beneath my shirt.
“That they have more of it.”
She yawned loudly and wrapped the blanket around herself.
“You might as well get some sleep. I have a feeling once you see the beach you won’t want to go in the house.”
“Good idea.” She leaned her head back against the chair. If she slept like that she was going to get a neck cramp.
“Here, this would be more comfortable.” I told her, grabbing a remote and pressing a button. The couch I sat on earlier slid out of the wall, widening so it was the size of a double bed.
She stared at me for a few minutes before getting up and going to the bed. I handed her a pillow. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I just didn’t want to hear you whine about your neck from sleeping in a chair.”
She made a rude noise and lay down, draping herself with the blanket and rolling away from me.
I hesitated a minute before dropping down so I crouched right beside her. “At first it was hard,” I said softly. She would know I was talking about the killing.
She rolled over to look at me. The blanket was pulled up to her chin and her face was just inches from mine. “How come it stopped being hard?”
I glanced at her lips, distracted by their pink fullness. “Because I stopped living.”
Her blue eyes stared at me as something danced between us. It was completely invisible to the eye, but it was impossible not to feel. I think the word for what I felt was chemistry. It was equal parts push and pull and it created a charge in the air surrounding us. I wanted to touch her. I wondered if she would pull away if I did.
Slowly, I reached out, and I watched her face as my hand drew closer. She stopped breathing for a moment. Everything about her paused, except for that unseen energy around her. That energy seemed to hum.
I skimmed the back of my knuckles down her cheek and then rolled my hand over and cupped her face with my palm. My thumb made lazy circles around the apple of her cheek.
Her eyes fluttered closed.
She drew in a deep breath.
Without opening her eyes, she replied, “Maybe it’s time you started living again.”
Her words caused something inside my chest to splinter apart. Kind of like a mini explosion that only I could feel. I crouched there beside her for a long time, my thumb still brushing over her skin. She fell asleep like that, her breathing turning even and deep.
Only after my legs and feet had gone numb from my awkward position did I get up to go sit down. All I could think about was what she said.
All I could think was that maybe she was right.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Ocean - the entire body of salt water that covers more than seventy percent of the earth's surface.”
Frankie
The sun was just lifting into the sky when Charming slid his cherry-red Audi R8 Spyder convertible through the security gates of what looked to be a super exclusive beach neighborhood. It was already so warm here that we were able to put the top down as soon as we left the airport. (Apparently, when you have your own plane, you get a mini hanger to put it in, and that’s where his car was). We drove for about a mile when he slowed, turning into the driveway of a large modern house that was literally right on the beach.
I tried not to gape at the clean lines, large glass windows, and tropical landscaping. I admit it had always been my hope to snag a rich doctor and have a nice lifestyle, but not even I could fathom Charming’s world. It was overfull with crazy expensive cars, private planes, houses on the beach… and that was just the stuff I knew about.
But he was alone. He didn’t have anyone to enjoy it with. I don’t think all the money in the world could make up for that.
He parked in the garage next to a fancy-looking motorcycle and climbed out. I yanked my bag from where I jammed it beneath my feet and slung it over my shoulder while he gathered his bags (I thought it was amusing that I was the girl, but he had more bags than me).
I knew the inside was going to be spectacular. But when we walked in, I barely saw any of the walls, the furnishings, or the type of countertops in the kitchen because my eyes went straight to the view.
The entire back of the house was glass. The bag thudded to my feet as the view sucked me closer, beckoning me like a fresh donut hot out of the fryer. It was the most breathtaking sight I’d ever seen. Nothing could compare to the way the ocean, an endless deep blue, stretched out for miles and miles. There were no trees, no buildings, nothing to block the sight.
I stopped just short of the thick window, resisting the urge to put my hand on the glass so as not to leave a print behind to get in the way of such perfection.
The waves never stopped, rising up and rolling in, crashing over one another and then hurrying up onto the shoreline, which was nothing but billions and billions of tiny grains of sand.
“It’s a lot better than looking at snow, isn’t it?”
I wanted to argue and tell him that Alaska, my home, was better, but that would be a lie. To me, this view was more beautiful than any view I’d seen in Alaska.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” I glanced at him. “Can I go outside?”
“You can do whatever you want here.”
I stepped through the glass door and onto a wide deck that ran the entire length of the house. There was no overhang, no columns, nothing but a railing also made of glass. The wind immediately pulled at my hair, sending it this way and that way. The air smelled like the sea, salty and thick. There wasn’t a single cloud in the perfectly blue sky.
I don’t know how long I stood at the railing, just gazing out at it all, but eventually I pulled up one of the lounge chairs as close to the edge as I could get and sat down.
The sun was much higher in the sky and it was getting hot when a plate appeared under my nose. It was filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, and ruby-red strawberries.
“Please tell me you have a chef inside,” I said, taking the plate and staring down at the food. If he told me he cooked, I might fling myself off the side of the balcony. Really. Being rich, good-looking, and sexy as hell wasn’t enough for him?
“That’s the thing about eating. It required learning how to cook.”
I groaned and stuck a piece of bacon in my mouth. It was really good. I put my plans for taking a dive off the balcony on hold.
“I’m surprised you aren’t already down there,” he said, hitching his chin toward the beach.
“I can get down there from here?”
“Steps are over there.” He pointed.
I started to get up, to abandon the food, but he reached out and pushed me back down. “Eat first. The water isn’t going anywhere.”
I felt like I was seven again and my mother told me I had to eat all my vegetables before I could go outside to play. I wanted to shove them all into my mouth and then rush out the door. I scowled at him.
“You slept the entire flight. When’s the last time you ate?”
“Lunch. Yesterday.”
He shook his head like my answer made him angry. I inhaled the food, which, dammit, was really good, and then picked up my plate to carry it in the house.
He’d already finished his plate as well, so I followed him inside where we abandoned the dishes in the sink. I looked for my bag, but I didn’t see it anywhere.
“I put it upstairs in your room,” he said, seeing me search. “First door on the right.”
I wandered up the wide-open staircase, stumbling because I still couldn’t tear my eyes away from the view, and then took the door he instructed.
Of course the room was gorgeous. It
was all white—white walls, white bed, white canopy, white curtains billowing in the breeze because the sliding glass doors were open letting in the sound of the waves. The only color was from the dark hardwood floors and the view. I peaked briefly into the bathroom, which was all white marble and chrome fixtures. Not wanting to waste another minute, I dumped the contents of my bag onto the bed, scattering the clothes all around, and found a pair of loose white linen shorts and a fitted black T-shirt.
I changed quickly, only pausing for a second when I pulled off Charming’s shirt to replace it with mine, and then I left the room barefoot, padding down the hall to another bedroom, the master, and pushed open the partially closed door.
The room was almost all white too, but his bed was much bigger and the trim on his bedding was black. I didn’t bother to snoop around, I just tossed his shirt onto the bed and then hightailed it back downstairs so I could get outside.
Charming was standing by the back door, a new pair of jeans riding his hips and making his ass look like he should be an underwear model. Apparently it wasn’t just one pair of jeans he looked good in, but all jeans.
He turned when I stopped behind him. He was wearing a Lucky Brand T-shirt the same vibrant green as his eyes. A pair of aviator sunglasses were pushed up on his head and he was rocking a five o’clock shadow.
His eyes started at my toes and raked up, lingering on my legs and then settling on my face. “Where are your sunglasses?”
“I guess my butler didn’t grab them.” I sighed. “Good help is so hard to find.”
He rolled his eyes and pulled the aviators off his head and handed them over. “Here, you’re going to go blind in that sun.”
“What will you wear?”
“I have more than one pair of sunglasses.”
Well, of course he did.
“Thank you,” I said, taking the glasses. I barely knew how to act when he behaved so, so… nice. If I wasn’t careful, I would fool myself into thinking he was someone other than exactly who he was.
“I have to go out. I have stuff to do,” he said, watching me closely.
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