Her pronouncement is spoken in a way that is almost prophetic. A shiver dances down my spine, spiralling coldness across my flesh like a breath from the North Pole.
‘Travelling and living off the family trust would be better?’ I arch a brow. ‘You know me better than that. I live for what I do. I love it. Maybe that’s the love of my life.’
Silence prickles between us. Silence that is suffocating and unwelcome.
‘Very well,’ she clips, dismissing this conversation, as well. ‘I don’t like the way they’ve trimmed those hedges. It’s so severe.’
I breathe again, but my heart is still twisting and thumping. The truth sits heavily in my mind but I step away from it.
There is no ulterior motive to my working so hard for Jack. There’s no mystery as to why I don’t feel like I’ve sacrificed a damn thing for him. It doesn’t mean anything that I am fulfilled and alive, energised every time I speak to him, see him, do his bidding. But my stomach drops. Because actually I think there probably is a meaning—just one I don’t want to appreciate.
Fuck.
* * *
His jet is the last word in space-age luxury. Cream leather armchairs on either side of the aisle, thick carpet a pale beige and lamps that would look at home in a five-star hotel make the perfect night-flight reading environment. USB docks are in every armrest to charge phones and iPads, and there are several bedrooms, a boardroom and a small cinema.
There is also a brooding billionaire sitting at the back of the plane, his head bent over a stack of files, apparently engrossed.
I ignore him. Or pretend to.
We’ve hardly spoken since I left his apartment on Friday night.
That was easy enough over the weekend. After sharing two bottles of champagne and being drilled in life’s lessons, Grandma and I shopped in the high street, selecting a new clutch purse for Grandma to take to the anniversary dinner and pretending we weren’t both dreading the damned thing.
I didn’t hear from Jack, and it wasn’t until I got back to my own place on Sunday evening that I realised I’d been expecting to. That I’d thought he’d text or call or email or something.
Those two days away from him, without seeing him, stretched interminably.
The knowledge prickled down my spine so that on Monday morning I steeled myself to be as standoffish and unaffected as possible. To fight coldness with cool unconcern, with no care.
But I didn’t see him then either. He arrived late, left early and didn’t speak to me.
And I didn’t speak to him, despite the fact I needed his signature on some papers.
I chickened out and actually hid from him when he walked past my office, ducking beneath my desk.
Crazy, right?
Not so much.
We’ve moved into dangerous territory. I don’t know if he realises it, but there are warnings blaring in my head. I don’t want to need Jack Grant like I do. I don’t mean sexually. I mean in every way.
Only I can’t imagine my life without him.
We’ve been flying for the better part of a day now, and hardly spoken beyond a perfunctory, polite ‘Hiya’ as he boarded the flight, ten minutes late and looking like sex and seduction in a ten-thousand-pound suit.
I have been telling myself I don’t care with varying measures of success. Did I expect he’d storm up to me and kiss me? Take me passionately in his arms and hold me close? Tell me he never wants to go three days without seeing me again?
He’s made it abundantly clear what he wants.
It should be what I want, too.
I shut my eyes for a moment, crossing my legs in the armchair, and am surprised when I’m woken a moment later.
‘We’re landing.’ Jack’s hands are at my hips and I bat them away instinctively.
He grabs the seatbelt and clips it across me—tight—his eyes flicking to mine. The hint of a smile on his face makes my heart flip-flop.