“Please tell Mama I got fat and that I’m dating a forty-year-old biker who goes by the name Rat.” Rosie sniffled, patting her nose with the wad of toilet paper.
“Okay. That will soften the blow when I tell her I’m knocked up with twins and have no idea who the father is.”
Rosie giggled, coughed and slapped her hand over her mouth, feigning an oops. “I think Mama would like that, actually.” She blew a strand of her toffee-colored hair out of her eyes. “Have fun, okay?”
“Hey, it’s Vicious. Fun is his middle name.”
“No, honey. Asshole is his middle name.”
We both laughed.
I grabbed the strap of my duffle and descended the stairs, smiling to myself. I could do this. I could survive a business trip with Vicious without letting him into my pants, and more importantly—my heart. I just had to keep my eyes on the prize.
The money. The means. The key to financial freedom.
How hard could that be?
I met him at the airport.
He wore a long dark-gray pea coat, charcoal slacks, a cashmere sweater, and his usual scowl. He was standing outside, the freezing New York weather staining his cheekbones a dark shade of pink while he puffed on a blunt.
On the sidewalk of the airport.
I was a little surprised to see he was still smoking weed. He had when we were teenagers, but he was twenty-eight now, a workaholic, and a control freak. Granted, he’d always been a control freak. He just had less things to control when we were kids.
I jogged the short distance from the limo to him, rubbing my arms against the cold. I’d thrown an army jacket on over my thin pink sweater, but my thrift shop jacket didn’t stand a chance against December on the East Coast. I stopped a few feet from him and started swaying from side to side to warm up. He noticed, but didn’t offer his coat.
“You’re getting a little old for that,” I remarked, slanting my eyes to his joint.
“I’ll remember that next time I give two shits about what you think.” He blew a cloud of smoke into the air.
I knew that the HotHoles had always viewed me as the naïve goody-two-shoes girl from the South. They weren’t wrong. Even New York couldn’t harden me all the way. I’d still never smoked weed or tried any other type of drug. I still didn’t use words like “fuck.” I still blushed and looked away when people talked about sex in an explicit way.
“You could get arrested,” I continued, nagging. Not that I particularly cared. I just knew it annoyed him, and I liked irritating him. It gave me the false notion that I had some kind of control over him.
“So can you,” he replied.
“Get arrested?” I asked. “For what? Standing next to an ass?”
He stubbed out his blunt against a garbage can, his fingers so white they were almost blue, and flicked the butt to the sidewalk. A luggage cart wheeled by and crushed the remains of the weed into the concrete. Vicious leaned down toward me, and I held my breath, my lungs burning, anything to protect me from his addictive scent.
“If I answer your question,” he said, his body close, “you’ll get all feisty again. You blush every time you look directly at my face, so I’d advise against asking me about what I have in mind. Don’t tempt me, Help. I’d be happy to help you stain your pristine criminal record with a public indecency charge.”
Good. Lord.
“For a lawyer, you seem to be begging for a sexual harassment lawsuit. Why?” I rubbed my hands over my thighs. I started to remember why I’d wanted to slap him half the time when I lived so close to him.
“I’m not sure.” His thick, dark eyebrows pulled together. He headed toward the entrance of the terminal. I followed. “Maybe because I know you’ll never have the balls to go against me. To fight me, Help.”
And it was high school all over again.
I should’ve known.
After security, we turned toward the airline’s executive lounge, with me carrying my own duffel and Vicious luggageless except for a laptop bag. I tried to keep up, but he was taller and faster, and the weight of my bag was slowing me down. He didn’t like it.
Vicious glanced at my duffel before groaning and snatching it from my hand.
This wasn’t him being a gentleman. He just wanted to make sure we caught our flight.
JFK was packed with people. Snow was settling on the runways, and there were flight delays, white letters flashing on the blue electronic screens around us. The crowd was thick, the security people tired and aggravated, but still, Christmas was approaching and the air was sweet and hopeful.
Seeing my parents this time of the year would be nice, even if we weren’t going to spend the holidays together.