The Girlfriend (The Boss 2)

He raised his head and held out his hand. “Done.”

“Great. Now, tell me what to expect. I thought we’d be wearing comfy sit-around clothes the whole time we’re there. I mean, you’re going to be doing the chemo thing. So, what gives with the fancy duds?” I reached behind me for the silk dress. “What am I going to need this for?”

“Well, we’ll have to celebrate New Year’s Eve, won’t we?” he asked, slapping his hands on his thighs before he stood and returned to the hanger-laden pipe that served as my closet. “And besides, we’ll have plenty of room for all of your things. I’ve already asked the household staff in London to empty Eli—” he stopped himself quickly and corrected, “a closet for you.”

I chose to ignore the near mention of his ex-wife. “Is it as nice as your closet in New York?”

“Oh, nicer.” He frowned at my dresses. “Why am I doing this part? Why can’t I be doing the frilly underthings?”

I giggled and grabbed a handful of lace. I don’t know why I had to discriminate; I could take all my underwear, if I wanted to. When I looked up, he was gazing at me as though I were some astoundingly beautiful object he’d never seen before, and he’d frozen at the sight of me. Warmth blossomed under my ribs and suffused my entire body with a comforting, giddy pulse.

“We’re doing this.” I couldn’t disguise the awe in my voice. I really didn’t want to. “We’re going to live together.”

“We are.” When he smiled, his whole face lit up, and every bit of doubt that still remained from that awful night at the hospital evaporated completely. I met him halfway as we crossed the room to each other, and he pulled me into his arms for a long, slow kiss.

Everything in my life was in utter turmoil. I was leaving for another country. I was moving in with my boyfriend of just slightly over two months. I should have been incoherent with terror. But I couldn’t wait to go into this new part of my life with him.

There was some guilt there, too. The more I wanted to rush into living with him, the more I was reminded that it was happening only because he’d been plunged into a medical crisis. In what I’d read about the treatment, the drugs used to kill his cancer didn’t differentiate much between healthy cells and sick ones. The art of chemotherapy seemed to be in keeping a patient alive while slowly poisoning him. The side effects sounded scary, the risks even worse.

But he was fine now, his body as sturdy and familiar as before, his arms as strong around me. I clung to him, breathing in his cologne, letting him kiss me breathless, letting the reality of his condition remain some far off future. It was the only way I would stop myself from going crazy with worry.

Two days later, we ate our last dinner in New York and rode to the airport in the Maybach, my ridiculous amount of luggage crammed into a hired van behind us.

I looked out the window as we pulled onto the runway. We weren’t even going to have to go through the terminal. That boggled my mind; I’d still packed my carry-on luggage with one-ounce containers of everything.

I whistled as we pulled up to the jet. It was a G5, slender and gleaming white. A long flight of stairs reached up to the open cabin door, and warm light showed from the windows.

Neil reached across the seat and took my hand. “Are you all right? You look a bit pale.”

“I don’t like flying,” I confessed, perhaps just slightly too late. “I know you don’t, either.”

He jiggled the lapel of his coat, and from an inside pocket I heard the rattle of a prescription bottle.

“But I’m excited,” I assured him, because when someone is taking you for a trip on a plane he owns, you don’t want to appear ungrateful. “I’ve never been on a private jet before.”

“You’ll never want to fly commercial again, I can tell you that for nothing. Every time I’ve had to has been a bloody nightmare.” He paused, a slight smile tilting his mouth. “Well, almost every time.”

Tony opened my door, and I slid out, clutching my carry-on bag. “Do we get our luggage, or—”

“No, they’ll stow that for us.” The corner of Neil’s mouth twitched, and I knew he thought it was adorable that I’d offered to carry my own stuff. I stuck my tongue out at him as we walked to the plane.

I was glad I’d worn ballet flats and not heels as I took the steep stairs up. Flats or no, I’d still dressed for a private jet, in a white t-shirt with opaque white sequin detail across the chest, and a short-waisted creme tweed jacket over dark blue jeans. The misty drizzle in the unseasonably warm December air was sure to frizz my carefully straightened hair, so I got up the steps and into the plane as quickly as I could.