British Black Sheep #2
Brie wondered what he did for a living. Something fancy, or intense. He wore an expensive tailored suit and even the rough, yet artfully-styled look of his hair screamed money. Was it the alpha vibes he was putting out that was attracting her? How did men do that? Just sit there and ooze sexuality?
He noticed her watching him, turned slowly to look at her and raised a brow. God, the man could do so much with his eyebrows. She felt like she’d just been caught watching him undress or something.
“Sorry,” she muttered and focused on her book again.
This time she did manage to get lost in the story, at least until the plane started rolling down the runway.
At that point, she abandoned her book and gripped the armrests in a white knuckle hold and closed her eyes.
This was happening. This was really happening.
Hours and hours of flying way too damn high over nothing but ocean.
“Are you all right?” A deep British accent asked. She opened one eye to see her seatmate watching her. That voice had been exactly what she would have expected from him: deep and sexy as hell.
“Er…nope,” she whispered. “I just hate flying. Like any sane person.” She spoke in short bursts, too afraid to keep talking about her fear. It would only make it worse.
“You’re going to be fine. Just don’t think about it,” the man replied. His British accent was going a long way to distract her. He could read a grocery list and it would sound amazing.
“Can you keep talking, please?” she asked, closing her eyes again as the plane began to rumble faster down the runway.
“You want me to talk to you?” He sounded half-amused and half-annoyed by her request.
“I’m sorry, it’s just…your voice is nice and distracting.”
The man chuckled. “You know, most people would just pop an Ambien or Benadryl and it’s lights out.” He snapped his fingers.
“Most people might, but I’m not about to do that. Fall asleep on an airplane headed to a foreign country? No chance. My cousin works as a paralegal for a law firm that defends airlines. You wouldn’t believe what she tells me happens to some female passengers.”
“Color me intrigued,” the man said.
Brie was about to speak but the plane chose that moment to power up and her body was flattened back against her seat as it gained momentum.
She tried not to look out the window to see how fast the runway was zipping by.
In fact, she shut her eyes as tight as she gripped her seat, which was pretty damn tight.
After a minute or so, the rumble lessened, and the sense of acceleration dropped.
“We’re in the air,” the man said more quietly, his tone gentle. She opened her eyes to see him leaning back in his chair, watching her with an unreadable expression.
The plane now shifted in the air, dipping down enough to send her stomach roiling as she recognized a few seconds of them freefalling. The horizon dipped out her window. They were making a turn.
“I really hate this. We’re stuck in a huge metal deathtrap.”
“Let me guess.” He steepled his fingers as he continued to look at her. “You don’t travel.”
“Oh, I travel,” she shot back, her temper flaring. She didn’t like that he was implying she was a coward. “I just hate planes.”
He made a low noise in the back of his throat that sounded disbelieving. She wanted to argue with him, but he leaned over and pulled the romance novel out of her lap and flipped it over to see the cover. He burst out laughing the second he saw it.
“Do you mind?” She pried one of her hands off the armrest to grab the book, but he swatted her hand away.
“This trash entertains you?”
“Trash? It’s not trash, you…” She bit her lip to keep from calling him an asshole. She usually had much better control of herself, but something about this guy set her on edge. Gorgeous men always did.
“Come now. All of it is bodice ripping mommy por—”
“Don’t say it!” She made another attempt to get her book back, but he leaned far enough away that she missed and her hand smacked his stomach. He had a hard, muscled abdomen, because of course he did. The man now thumbed through a random section of the book.
“Let’s see here… Heaving bosoms, a pirate lord, an arrogant naval officer who wants to marry the heroine. Yes, this is most definitely—”
Before he could finish, Brie unclipped her seatbelt and lunged at him, half landing on his lap as she struggled to free her book from his hands.
He released the book immediately to grip her hips and steady her.
If he hadn’t, she would have taken a swan dive into the first-class aisle with economy-class grace.
“Very well, take your book back Miss…”
“Honeyweather, Brie Honeyweather.”
“Brie?”
“Brie. B-R-I-E.”
“Like the cheese?” He laughed, drawing the attention of the man across the aisle. She became keenly aware that she was still sitting on the British asshole’s lap while she should have been strapped down by the window. Brie pulled free of him and sat back in her own seat, clutching her book.
“It’s short for Breanna.”
The asshole was still laughing at her.
“What’s your name? Or should I just call you Mr. Asshat?”
“You may call me whatever you like, Brie.” He emphasized her name with another chuckle. “Or you can call me Alec.”
Alec. Of course, he had a sexy sort of name. It couldn’t have been something silly like Eugene or Percy, something that would have lessened that British sex appeal.
“Well, Alec, I wish I could say it’s nice to meet you but…well…” She trailed off, feeling a tinge of guilt at her catty remark. It wasn’t like her at all.
She was not usually this rude, but this guy made it impossible to be nice. Maybe it was because he reminded her of Preston, and she was determined to see every flaw in advance. Not that she’s stood a chance of a guy like this. Not that she wanted to.
She was twenty-nine with a job that she could do from home, and she’d embraced her single life quite comfortably.
She’d bet anything that this guy always dated models.
Brie knew she was attractive, but she wasn’t a model; she was too curvy to pull off that waifish look, and she was only five foot five.
She tried to focus on her book, but soon gave up.
After she retrieved her laptop from her bag, she pulled up her notes for the countess’s Christmas book and started plotting out chapters based on some of the events events that the countess said took place at Merryvale Court during the holidays.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed that Alex opened his own laptop back up.
Both were lost in their own work for at least an hour.
By the time the flight attendants came by to serve drinks and dinner, she was starving.
“Filet mignon or chicken Parmesan?” The flight attendant asked Alec with a broad smile. The young woman practically leaned on the seat in front of him, displaying her figure to her best advantage to catch his attention.
Alec’s eyes swept over her, but it wasn’t a very interested look, at least from what Brie could tell.
“The filet, please. Thank you.”
The attendant turned to her. “And you, miss?”
“The same.”
“For drinks we have this menu.” The attendant passed them a copy of the menu and Alec politely leaned left to let Brie see it at the same time.
“A Diet Coke,” Brie said.
“You’re in first class and you order a Diet Coke?” Alec muttered in disgust. Then he turned to the attendant. “A bottle of champagne, please. Two glasses.”
“Yes sir,” the attendant smiled once more at Alec, the invitation quite clear, but Alec only smiled back politely at the woman.
“You’ll try the champagne,” he informed Brie.
“Not very likely. You don’t seem like someone I’d want to share a drink with.”
“Because I took your book?”
“And made fun of it. Oh yes, I’d love to share a glass of champagne with you. You probably only read Salman Rushdie or Pulitzer Prize nominees, or Proust.” She then put her finger to the tip of her nose and pushed it up as high as it would go.
“Charming behavior.”
“Hey, you started it. Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.”
“Very well. I was simply trying to do you a favor.”
“A favor?”
“If you don’t enjoy first-class, you aren’t doing the thing properly, are you?” When he said this, it sounded so perfectly British, like she was sitting next to a modern day Mr. Darcy.
“Okay fine. Twist my arm. It’s not like I’m buying.
” This time when he smiled, he turned the full wattage on her.
He hadn’t done that with the attendant. The expression knocked the breath from her.
Damn, he had a gorgeous smile. It was slightly mischievous, as though whatever caused the smile was going to be trouble.
He was trouble and she was stuck with him for the next seven hours.