Chapter 1
Dane Blaise leaned back in his business-class seat in the first row of the Virgin Australia airliner.
After handing Shana George her champagne, he accepted his first drink from the flight attendant.
Likely his first of many. This second leg of their trip would be a long haul from Los Angeles to Sydney. He leaned close to her and whispered.
“You’re going to ruin our badass reputation with that sissy drink.”
Shana laughed, her mouth soft and her eyes sparkling, untroubled by a worry in the world. For no reason other than that too-good-to-be-true notion, his chest tightened. She was too good to be real and he was a lucky no-good bastard to have her. Too lucky.
And there was no rational reason, no logic in why his heart tapped faster than it ought to—not unless you counted his escalating age.
Shana clinked her champagne flute against his tumbler of tequila on the rocks.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight followed by a chill, raising goose bumps on his arms. The seeping dread slid like a glacier through his insides.
For no goddamn good reason. He kept a mask of contentment in place, but he felt it slipping.
“What’s the matter?” She gave him her usual skeptical squint without losing her smile. “We’re off the ground and on our way to Australia. You can’t change your mind now.”
He smiled, hiding the frisson of dread though he’d promised himself—and her—he wouldn’t hide anything.
It had been a rash promise. In his defense, he had no idea what he was hiding, so it made more sense to figure out what the hell his problem was before raising alarms and talking about the boogeyman hovering in his head.
Looking at his glass of booze—damn good booze—he figured this was a good time to take a big gulp and calm his paranoia.
But with his senses on high alert, he noticed a movement in his periphery that stopped him.
When he looked up, he saw the cabin door to the cockpit swinging open.
A man dressed like the pilot or copilot stepped out.
Dane didn’t stare, but watched the presumed pilot from his periphery while he sipped less than a teaspoon of tequila.
The man spoke to the business-class flight attendant, Wendy, and they exchanged whispers.
Satisfied that the view of the Atlantic coast fascinated Shana, he turned back to Wendy and the man from the cockpit.
His eyes met the man’s head-on. He studied Dane for a beat as if he suspected him of something unscrupulous.
Dane’s heart took a leap forward to the kettledrum stage, not because he was guilty of anything unscrupulous, though he was, but because something wasn’t right. And it involved him.
The man—whose name badge, when Dane squinted, read Captain Emory Lane—took the few steps to stand directly in front of him.
Dane said nothing while he waited for the pilot to speak, but went into professional mode, slowing down his thoughts, preparing to keep irrational emotions at bay, keeping the adrenaline rush from spooking a crazy reaction.
He played it cool while Shana’s attention turned to the pilot.
“Come with me, Mr. Blaise. I need to speak with you. In the cockpit.” The pilot turned without waiting for a response, no animosity, but not much in the way of politeness either. Without hesitation, or a word, Dane unbuckled his seatbelt and stood to follow him. Shana stood too.
“You wait here,” he said, doing his best to sound authoritative but without much hope that she’d comply. She’d never been known for being compliant, and was much less so now that they were planning to marry.
She gave him a look. The look spoke volumes, mostly swear words and cusses if the spark in her eye was any tell. He took a deep breath of resignation and she followed him. They crowded inside the cockpit, which was clearly not designed for a couple of spectators. The pilot handed him a headset.
“The Governor of Massachusetts wants to talk to you, Mr. Blaise. Evidently he contacted the airline and got them to patch him through.”
Dane didn’t bother thanking him. Emory appeared to be too annoyed to bother about social niceties.
He took the headset and put it on, adjusting the ear pads to fit snugly.
He was grateful that Shana wouldn’t be able to hear whatever his friend Peter John Douglas had to say.
One thing was for certain: Peter wouldn’t go through the trouble to get patched through to the airliner in mid-flight to talk about the weather.
He stood while the pilot sat back down, presumably to fly the damn plane.
Shana stood facing Dane, watching his face as if she were reading a book.
It would have been unnerving if he was the kind of guy who got unnerved.
He wasn’t. Didn’t stop Shana the Beautiful from doing her best to try, one of those quirks he loved about her.
She was no quitter. Kept him on his toes.
“Governor,” he said once he’d adjusted the headset microphone.
“Get off that plane before you land in Sydney.”