Chapter 7
Brady
As the wheels of the plane lifted into the air, I leaned closer to Dominick and said, “You want to hear something wild as fuck?”
“Always.” He took a drink of his scotch.
“Do you remember, a while back, when I was flying to Edinburgh for the first time to look at property? I was on the plane, and you called right before takeoff, and I was telling you there was a flight attendant on board who I was going to taste before we landed?”
“The one who showed up at your hotel room, right?” He didn’t wait for a reply before he added, “Sounded like you were impressed with her. Which is the only reason I remember her—because impressing you, my man, is no easy feat.”
When I’d returned to LA and had drinks with Dominick, he had asked about her. That was the only reason I’d told him a few of the details. Otherwise, no one else knew.
I wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who held it all in. But for some reason, I’d shared very little about Lily.
“That’s the one,” I told him. “And she happens to be your flight attendant, which shocked the hell out of me when I got on your plane.”
He smiled, his head shaking. “I wondered how you knew her.”
“How the fuck did she get this job?”
He cuffed the bottom sleeve of his button-down, moving to the other side to do the same. “We have three planes—you know that—and each plane has a full-time crew. Aubrey, the lead flight attendant for this one, was going on maternity leave. She came to us and said she had the perfect replacement while she was off, someone with years of experience. Aubrey trained her, and she’s been flying with us for a few months.”
“A few months,” I repeated.
All this fucking time, Lily had been this close, and I’d had no idea.
Although we’d only had small bits of conversation in my hotel room, I knew LA wasn’t her home base; it was Atlanta. Which meant she must have relocated to the West Coast.
But why?
“What else do you know about her?” I asked.
Dominick craned his head back to look at me, a grin slowly crossing his lips. “Why are you asking?”
“Just curious.”
“Bullshit,” he shot back. “You’re never curious about the chicks you hook up with. You’re asking because she was the one woman in your life who you didn’t leave—she left you. And that’s one of the reasons you’re intrigued by her.”
“Nah.” I shook my head for emphasis. “You’ve got it all wrong.”
His brows rose. “I do? Tell me how.”
“You’re looking too deep into it. It’s not that complicated. I just asked a question. You’re acting like I fucking want to marry the woman.”
He laughed, banging my arm with his elbow. “Here’s what I got for you: I know nothing aside from her name and that Aubrey vouched for her. But to be employed by our firm, she has to have a file with HR.”
“I don’t need to see it.”
He smiled again. “I wasn’t offering to show it to you.”
“Jesus,” I groaned.
“Question: now that you know where she works, what are you going to do about it?” He crossed his legs, holding his glass near his chest.
“I’m not going to do anything about it.”
He chuckled even harder. “You mean to tell me you’ve thought about this woman for the last however many months, and you’re not even going to talk to her?”
What the hell?
Was he inside my head?
“Maybe I’ll talk to her,” I said. “But if you think I’m going to ask her out or do anything beyond a simple conversation, you’re wrong.”
“For the second time, I’m calling bullshit.”
“You can call it whatever you want. You know how I am about women. I’m not looking for a happily ever after. In my world, that doesn’t exist, nor do I want it.”
He nodded toward my glass as though he wanted me to take a drink. “You don’t think you’re being a little hardheaded?”
I turned in my seat, preparing to end this conversation.
It didn’t matter what Dominick thought. I wasn’t going there with him. Because nothing was going to happen with Lily.
But, goddamn it, she looked so fucking gorgeous—even if there was a Dalton logo above her tit.
Regardless, she’d made her decision. She’d walked out of my hotel room.
And whatever could have happened didn’t.
“Unlike the rest of you motherfuckers, I don’t want to get married, so there’s zero chance I’m ever going to settle down. You’re fighting for something that’s never going to happen. Besides, she’s the one who left. Maybe she realized she didn’t want someone like me or she couldn’t handle me. But if she wanted something, she would have left her number.”
If she had, would I have reached out?
The answer to that scared the shit out of me, so I pushed that thought far from my mind.
“All right, my man. I’ll play along and pretend you’re right about everything you’re saying. That you weren’t drooling the second you saw Lily on the plane, and had she reached for you, you wouldn’t have been putty in her hands.” He mashed his lips together. “Only one of us in this row has his senses—and it’s not you.”
I tossed back the rest of my scotch. “I need a fucking refill.”
He pointed toward the galley. “There’re no rules on this plane. Why don’t you go get one?”
“I think I will …”
“Don’t take too long, or I might think you’re talking to her.”
Even though we hadn’t reached cruising altitude and there was a bit of turbulence as we made our way through the clouds, I got up from my seat, flipped him off, and headed toward the back.
I could have waited until Lily came into the main cabin to bring us refills. But there was something about my conversation with Dominick that had me walking toward the back of the plane.
Was he right?
Should I have a conversation with her about why she had taken off without leaving me a way to get in touch with her?
Or was that topic a waste of our time?
She was sitting in the back, along the side, the position giving her a view of the whole main cabin, holding her phone not far from her face. She was so focused on the screen that she didn’t see or hear me approach, but the moment my hand hit the counter, her eyes lifted. As soon as she caught sight of me, her chest rose much faster than a normal breath.
“What can I get you?” She went to stand and realized she was still strapped in.
“I can pour my own drink.”
Since the Daltons had the same type of jet as us, I assumed they kept their booze in a similar location, and I opened the cabinets above the counter until I found the right one.
“But that’s what I’m here for.”
She was next to me, our arms aligned as we reached into the top cupboard at the same time. The outside of my triceps rubbed against hers. I didn’t know why, but the contact, the closeness, the fucking scent that was coming off her body—that tropical oasis I just wanted to bury myself in—it was all giving me a goddamn hard-on.
“I’m happy to give you whatever you want.”
“Whatever I want?” My arm dropped, and I took a step to the side, allowing her to grab the bottle. “Don’t make that offer, Lily, when you don’t mean it.”
As she was unscrewing the top, she looked at me, the recognition of my reply slowly moving across her face. “I …” As her voice faded out, she glanced around the galley, as though my eyes had become too much for her, before her gaze eventually made its way back to mine. “I had no idea you were friends with the Daltons.”
“Why does that matter?”
“I just wanted you to know that I didn’t take this job to mysteriously put myself in your path or anything like that. I’m not that kind of woman.”
“And if you had known we were friends”—I crossed my arms—“would that have made a difference?”
“Maybe.”
My head shook as I processed her question. “You mean to tell me you’d have given up a job on the off chance you might see me? Or the opposite?”
She continued to hold the top of the bottle, which should have been opened by now, telling me she was no longer unscrewing it. “I just meant that if I had known, maybe I would have asked them for your number. You know, so I could have told you myself.”
“No. I don’t know.” I leaned against the back wall. “You left my hotel room without giving me your number. You moved to LA, where you knew I lived. Knowing my relationship to the Daltons is insignificant.” I wanted her to hurry so I could slam that scotch into my throat. “What would you have told me, Lily? Because I can’t see how an explanation of your employment would have even mattered.”
“I just …” Her voice got quieter. Smaller even. “I don’t know …”
“If you’d wanted to reach out, you could have. You knew my first and last name, and there’s this thing called Google. With all the information that’s been written about me, it would have taken no more than a few seconds before you had my email, office line, and all my social media accounts.”
She flinched, the hurt registering in her eyes before she said, “You’re upset with me.”
Upset was an emotion for the weak.
I was fucking angry.
“Pissed off is a better way to put it.” Shit, I wanted to tell her I didn’t care, but that would be a lie. “And mad—mad as hell that you didn’t want me.”
She set the bottle down. “Brady, you need to understand that I didn’t look you up on purpose.”
I did everything in my power to force my feet to start moving and walk back to my seat, but instead, I found myself not able to. And to make matters even worse, I replied, “Because?”
There was now a war happening in her eyes. A level of emotion I hadn’t seen from her before.
“Because I’m not in a position to talk to anyone in that way.” She focused on my right eye, gradually moving to my left.
“You told me you were single.”
She nodded. “I am. And I was.”
“Then, what the fuck are you talking about?”
She turned completely around, so we were facing each other. “I’m not in a place where I can get involved. Emotionally. Physically. And I was afraid that if I reached out, you would think?—”
“That I wanted more?” I laughed. “No. That’s not me. You’ve got the wrong guy.”
She searched my eyes, but this time was different from before. This time, she was looking for an answer. “If that’s the case, why did you want me to Google you?”
“I didn’t say I wanted you to. I said you could have.”
Her hands fell to her sides. “I don’t want to argue.” She tightened her fingers and then lifted her arms to wrap them around her stomach. “I’m sorry.”
If she called this arguing, her past confrontations must have been weak. Neither of us was even raising our voices.
“Why are you apologizing, Lily?”
“Because that’s what I know how to do.”
I noted her response and assured her, “But you don’t need to. We’re not fighting.”
“Things were left a little unsettled. I mean, I darted out without even saying goodbye. We both obviously have feelings about that, or we wouldn’t be talking about it now.” Her arms looked like they were tightening around her. “I just want you to know it’s not you. You were … perfect.” She drew in some air, holding it for several seconds before she said, “More perfect than I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
What had happened to this woman? Where was the pain in her eyes coming from?
If she was single, why was she in a place where she couldn’t get emotionally or physically involved?
And why did I feel the need to get the answer to that question? Why the hell was it eating at me?
“I’ve never met anyone like you, Brady,” she continued. “No one has ever made me feel the way you did.”
Her admission hit me.
Not just a tap.
It fucking slammed into me harder than I had been ready for.
“Lily—”
My voice cut off as the plane dipped down several feet. A couple of heavy bumps of turbulence followed, and while she grabbed the counter to steady herself, I reached for her waist.
God, she felt so fucking good in my arms. She molded right to me, like her body had been carved from my outline, and while I held her against me, I let nothing separate us.
Not even air.
Her eyes immediately widened as my dick pressed into her, and as our stares locked, she licked across her lips. Not in a way that was sexual—although it was impossible for Lily not to look seductive while she was doing anything—but in a way that told me she was buying herself some time to come up with what she wanted to say.
Her hands moved to my chest, flattening over my pecs.
Holding them, not pushing them.
“Brady …”
I lowered my hands, stopping right above her ass, an area of her body I shouldn’t be touching. Fuck, I shouldn’t be touching her at all. I’d told her I didn’t care, and my actions were showing her the opposite.
I needed to let her go.
But I couldn’t.
“Yes,” I replied.
The war was back in her eyes, but this time, the emotion was replaced by something else.
Something that looked all too familiar.
It stayed there, deepening, until there was a vibration in her pocket, the nearness causing the pulse to beat through me.
A notification from her phone—it had to be that.
But as soon as it happened—that simple alert that could have been spam mail—everything changed.
Her eyes.
Her face.
Her posture.
She pulled her hands away and clamped them around the edge of the counter. “I’ll get you that drink, and I’ll bring it to your seat.” Even her voice turned a little sharp.
What the fuck?
The woman standing before me wasn’t the same woman from a few seconds ago. The two of them told very different stories.
The previous one had had a look in her eyes that told me she wanted me to take her into the bedroom that was one door away and fuck her.
And the one looking at me now was regretting that expression had ever come across her eyes.
My palms slipped to her sides, and I watched her intake the longest, deepest breath. Her lips parted, her neck became covered in tiny goose bumps, her back arched as my fingers spread.
She fucking wanted me.
But something or someone was stopping her.
My hands dropped, and before I walked back to my seat, I said, “Make it a double.”