Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
ISABELLA
The flight back to New York is as quiet as the one out of the city several days ago.
The cabin hums around us, that low, pressurized silence that makes everything feel both contained and inevitable.
But what choice do I have but to come back to face the Dragunoviks?
They want me at the meeting, and there will be no peace in my life, no future, if I don't face the consequences of my actions.
I hope my future is with Anthony if we survive the next several days, but there's no guarantee. At least everything is settled with Ivy. There’s a plan in place, and she’ll be raised well and in love.
Anthony has been quiet since finding out that Richard was Rodin, and somehow, it makes the next steps I need to take feel a little more manageable.
I know Richard, and while I don't know him as well as I think I do, surely that gives me some insight into his moods and his silences.
Gives me a little more hope I might come out of this meeting alive.
The Romeros may go down and cease to exist if I have to leverage every contact I have to survive, but at least I get to live in peace with my daughter.
I think of Ivy. She’s the reason I can’t afford to lose.
I look across the small table separating Anthony and me.
He's looking out the window, leaning on his hand, a deep scowl between his brows.
He's worried. I know he is, even if he hasn't said a word of it.
I'm worried too, and all I can do is hope that with the Morettis behind me and the leverage I can offer the Russians, it’s enough.
I lean across the table and reach for his hand.
He startles, as if he'd forgotten I was sitting across from him, before he relents and turns his hand over to hold mine.
"Let's pretend for this flight that we're not heading back to New York, but going somewhere else in the world.
That we're not tangled up in our difficult and problematic families and their business practices and that we're just normal people. "
A small smile lifts his lips, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "But we're not normal people, Bells. We never have been."
I slump back into my chair and sigh. "Come on, Anthony. I need to distract myself from what I've got to face in the coming days."
"Six days to be precise."
I narrow my eyes, having not needed the exact timeframe spelled out for me. Let me live in denial for a little longer. "Thank you for updating me. I feel much better now."
Anthony sighs and runs a hand through his hair. "What do you want to talk about then?"
I study him. I had missed his face even when I hated him.
That particular architecture of chiseled jaw and cheekbones, dark eyes that I’ve never entirely been able to scrub from my memory, no matter how hard I tried.
Now that I know we were both innocent in our breakup, I realize I never stopped wanting him.
Even when I was furious at him for the entire five years.
"If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? " I ask.
"Where I've always said I've wanted to live. On a lake, in a cabin, with kayaks and jet skis tied to the dock. A fire pit and a hammock so I can laze the days away with you in my arms. We may not have seen each other these past years, but my dream home hasn't changed."
Something tightens in my chest. I smile.
His dream home resembles the one I've created for Ivy.
I know that's what Anthony always dreamed of. I’ve merely made it come true sooner for our daughter.
The urge to tell him burns up the back of my throat, sudden and fierce and almost impossible to swallow back down.
To tell him that I own such a cabin. That we could be a family.
Be happy together, away from the underhanded world we circulate in.
That we could fly there immediately and leave everything behind.
Would he hate me for lying to him about Ivy? Oh hell yes. He’ll be furious. But he can barely blame me for it. Not when I’m acting off a lie we both believed.
"I like the idea of your dream home."
"You always wished to live in a Spanish villa. What changed?" He leans forward and brings my hands to his lips and kisses them.
"I have a Spanish villa," I admit. "I have several properties around the world that I use often, none of which my family knows of. It's how I remained hidden for so long."
His features harden, and he leans back in his chair. "I hate that a lie kept us apart." He picks up his whisky and downs it. "Alex will be at the meeting. Are you prepared for that?"
"As best as I ever will be." I keep my voice even. I have years of practice keeping my voice consistent. Not that I could kill him there, but I will one day. His time is limited after what he put me through. He’s supposed to be blood, supposed to have my back, but he has proven over and over again he has no interest in honoring our family. He’s a traitor, and traitors have to go.
I wiggle out of my chair and come around to where Anthony is sitting. I crawl onto his lap and straddle him. "Enough about what's going to happen in New York. I don't want to talk about that any longer."
"Oh no?" He grins, his hands clasping my ass and grinding me against him.
I'm thankful I wear pants today. "No. I want to kiss you instead. I have to make up for all our lost time."
He slips his fingers into my hair and fists it, pulling me close. "I can oblige, I'm sure." His deep, gravelly voice sends heat to scoot down my middle. His lips cover mine, and I'm lost. His tongue sweeps into my mouth before he's standing and setting me down onto the small table in front of him.
"I need you out of these pants, Miss Romero."
I chuckle as he fights with my belt before ripping at the buttons and zipper and pulling them down.
He sits back in his chair, as I sit before him on the table, wearing nothing but my shirt and thong.
I glance toward the front of the cabin, hoping that Jane is seated near the cockpit and will give us time to finish what I started.
"She's on her break, even though it’s time to eat."
"Eat?" I question, frowning.
A wicked mask falls over his face, and I bite my lip.
I shouldn't have asked. He runs his hands along my thighs and pushes my legs apart.
He presses me back, and I lean on my hands, gripping the edge of the table behind me as he dips his head.
His tongue teases me through my silk lingerie.
I gasp at the feel of his hot mouth on me.
I'm wet, the days in Hawaii doing nothing to dull the effect he has on me.
If anything, they make it worse. Aching and needy and impatient all at once.
He suckles me through my underwear, and I moan. He feels so good, his clever tongue knowing exactly how to please me. "Undo your pants, Anthony. I need to fuck you."
"Miss Romero. So naughty." He bites my thighs teasingly before leaning back in his chair, working his zipper open, his cock springing up against his stomach.
I kneel over him again, desperate to have him inside me.
He chuckles and rips the crotch of my underwear, leaving it in pieces.
I run my hands over his arms, feeling his muscles tense beneath my palms as he holds me.
I feel safe. Desired. And something else beneath both of those things that I won't name.
Not yet, not here, not when naming it feels like tempting the universe to take it away again.
I guide myself onto him. "Anthony," I groan, relishing the delicious ache he evokes in me.
I clasp the armrests on either side of his head and meet his eyes.
They're burning hunger and heat and something deeper underneath that makes me shiver. I rise and fall, unable to stop the moan that moves through me.
"Damn it, Bells. You feel so good."
I kiss him and take him into me. His fingers squeeze my hips, urging me down.
Already I can feel that sweet, tingling thrum building.
I never want this to end. How could I have allowed him to walk away five years ago?
I should have demanded an answer from him myself.
I should have heard the words that would ultimately break my heart directly from his mouth, not from Alex's.
But I hadn't. And Alex had known I wouldn't. He had counted on exactly that.
He breaks the kiss and proceeds to nip at my neck, the lobe of my ear. It tickles, and I smile despite everything. "I can never get enough of you,” he says.
It's the same for me. Somehow, I'm obsessed with him all over again. No longer can I see my future alone, tucked away in Canada on a lake, wondering what went wrong. Now I see Anthony beside me. My partner, my lover, my protector.
The thought should frighten me. Leaning on someone never ends well. But somewhere over the US, it stops frightening me and simply becomes true, and I run out of the energy required to fight it.
My orgasm rips through me. "Anthony," I moan. He clasps the back of my neck and brings my mouth to his. Our kiss is wild and hungry, heightening everything. He grunts, and I swallow his moan as he comes, both of us lost in each other.
I hope we stay like this forever.