Chapter 1 #2
Alicia nodded. Feels weird being beside her again.
The last time they interacted, her father threatened her, and her mother – or at least she was pretty sure that was Mrs. Moreau – stole into the back of Alicia’s car and warned her to stay far, far away from Danica and her ilk.
I didn’t listen. Alicia thought she would.
After she returned home, she was almost determined to throw away anything the woman had given her and stop returning her messages. Then…
Then Ms. Clayborn showed up to take Alicia and Candice shopping.
How could Alicia willingly turn this lifestyle down, or at least until she gave it the ol’ college try?
I would be a damn fool. Of course Danica’s father didn’t like Alicia.
Why would he? She was a nobody from County Poor People compared to that family.
As for the mother? Even if that was her and not some crazy vagrant, she was clearly from another planet. No wonder Russell divorced her.
This was what Alicia told herself as she willingly spent Danica’s money and dressed herself up for her approval.
(Her own as well, of course. Alicia wouldn’t present her with something unless she thought it great first!) Now she stepped onto Danica’s plane to go to Chicago for almost a week.
A week of what? Sex. Let’s be real. Alicia hoped for some proper touristing in there, but she had a feeling that she was at Danica’s scheduling whim.
Why would she want to go see some sites when she could keep Alicia in bed? Not like I’m complaining…
The captain, a middle-aged man with a clean-shaven face, knocked on the door before stepping in. “We’re all good to go, Ms. Moreau. We’ll be taking off in about five minutes.”
“Excellent. Give us the signal when we’re free to move about the cabin.”
“Absolutely.” The door closed again.
“I’ve never flown like this before,” Alicia confessed. “I didn’t even know jets like this existed.” She realized how stupid she sounded the moment she said it. “I mean… of course they exist… just… they never existed in my world before?”
Danica’s arm snaked across the back of the couch.
She was not in a hurry to touch Alicia, however.
“There’s a lot for me to expose you to, it appears.
” She chuckled. “I take so much of this for granted. The planes, the shopping, the food… sometimes I forget it’s not mundane to other people. It’s all I’ve ever known.”
Were they moving? It felt like they were moving. Only not really. Maybe that was Alicia’s stomach doing somersaults. “You had a plane like this when you were a kid?”
“To be fair, technology has improved dramatically since I was a child. Though yes, we had the top-of-the-line private jet for that day.” She must have meant the early 2000s. What were planes like back then, anyway?
“You’ve really lived a life of privilege.”
Danica stiffened. Was she put out that Alicia was bringing this up? “One of my first memories is traveling on a plane,” she said quietly. “I used to be scared of it.”
“Really? You? Scared of anything?”
Danica neither frowned nor smiled. “All children are scared of something. I was afraid of crashing. I remember my mother piling a ton of blankets on top of me and suffocating me until I felt safe. She spent a whole three-hour flight like that.”
“You remember how long it was?”
“I remember we flew from here to somewhere in Ohio. Random details like that stick with you.”
“Speaking of your mother…” No. Alicia wouldn’t bring up that. For some reason, she knew, in the back of her thickening head, that such a thing was a terrible idea. “Do you still talk to her? You’ve made it sound like she’s out of your life.”
Danica leaned away, nose crinkling. “I haven’t seen her in many years, no. After the divorce, my mother disappeared from my life. I couldn’t even tell you where she lives now.”
“You haven’t gone looking for her?” Even if Alicia hadn’t known about some crazy allegations, it was at least strange to her that a grown woman with the means and money hadn’t gone searching for her mother.
“She left my life for a reason. I don’t have the time or resources to go looking for someone who clearly doesn’t care about me. My father… no, never mind.”
What if I told you otherwise? Her father? Alicia had a hunch that whatever Russell was telling his daughter was nothing but a bunch of lies. Yet how did a woman tell her girlfriend, whom she barely knew, that her father was akin to a shitweasel?
“I’m sorry to hear about that.”
“Your parents are still together, right?”
That question caught her off guard. “Yes, they are.” Alicia’s father still took her mother on surprise trips every birthday and anniversary.
Sometimes, they weren’t much, but even staying in a hotel a few towns away and pretending to be tourists was better than sitting around home and waiting for something fun to happen.
“I’m rather envious of that. Most of the couples I know who are my parents’ age have either divorced or only stay together out of propriety.
There’s nothing like respect there, whether emotionally or physically.
What I mean is that there is a lot of infidelity,” Danica was quick to explain.
“I don’t want that in my life. I want someone I can see myself being happy with forever. I would divorce before I cheated.”
The plane was definitely moving. Alicia wondered if she should buckle up. For takeoff or what Danica was saying? Who knew? “You have a lot of honor in your relationships.”
“Honor? I suppose so. All I know is that I don’t want to go through the hassle of marrying someone and keeping them by my side unless I was willing to make it work.
Ironically, I’ve met quite a few women like me lately.
Perhaps there is a surge of lovesick wives emerging who can’t imagine anything but their monogamy.
” Was that a smile tugging at her face? “It would be nice to think about. That even the biggest player can meet the woman of her dreams and settle down to eternal happiness.”
Things were seriously starting to come together.
The wistful longing for “the one.” The plans to create a happy home through a happier marriage.
The constant talk of honor and dues. Danica Moreau, for all her intimidating qualities, wanted the same things Alicia did.
They both wanted a loving, long-term monogamous relationship that would culminate in them creating the family she never got to have growing up.
Forget all the conspiracies regarding her mother – in the end, it was about familial happiness. And sexual happiness, Alicia supposed.
“You take everything very seriously,” Alicia pointed out.
“Yes, I do.” Her arm curled around Alicia, fingers stroking her bare shoulders as they poked out from her red top. “I invest seriously. I love seriously. I make my plans seriously.”
Alicia grinned against her chest as Danica took her over on the couch. “What are your current plans, Ms. Moreau?”
She smiled against Alicia’s throat. “My current long-term plans are to secure more business transactions for my family and to make you my wife. Every business decision I make right now has you guiding it, whether you know it or not.”
There goes that marriage talk again! Alicia didn’t know whether to laugh, full of fanciful daydreams, or to tell her to slow the hell down. “What are your short-term plans?”
Danica’s hand clasped her girlfriend’s thigh. “To get into these blasted pants of yours.”
What Danica wanted, she frequently got. That included getting into Alicia’s pants as she inducted her into the Mile-High club, with no bindings or blindfolds involved.
As for getting her as her wife? Alicia would entertain those fantasies for a while longer.
Like her, however, she took such deliberations seriously.
Even if Danica got down on one knee right now and asked Alicia to marry her, she wasn’t sure she would say yes.
There was still too little she knew about her. Too much at stake.
Chicago would be a good opportunity to get a better look at the mind and soul of Danica Moreau. Until then, Alicia would have to be content with getting more acquainted with the physical side of things. At least the flight would go by quickly!