Ice slides deep into my already chilled bones, turning them brittle. I can feel myself quaking inside, like some kind of internal tremble, and I can’t seem to breathe. Does he think those men were there to kill me?
CHAPTER THREE
Harper
I grip the arms of my seat as the small private plane lifts off and climbs to the higher altitudes with jolts, jumps, and shakes, with only one thought: Oh God, please don’t let us crash. I’m terrified and not because I’m an amateur flyer. I’m not. I’ve flown. I’ve even flown in bad conditions, but nothing like this, with the plane jerking, violently pulling and pushing, but I can surmise why pretty darn quickly. Pilots don’t take off in conditions like this. Eric paid this one, and I suspect paid him well, to get us off the ground. Considering the conditions, I can only assume that he felt it was far more dangerous to stay on the ground than travel in treacherous weather.
We jerk violently to the right and I stop analyzing Eric’s reasoning for taking off in this mess. I focus on praying that we survive the powerful gust of wind, tossing us around. The plane seems to hopscotch and my white-knuckled grip tightens right as we jerk sharply left and then drop a good two feet that leaves me gasping.
Eric reaches over the small aisle and grabs my hand, his touch strong and warm. The minute he tightens his grip on me, I breathe out the air trapped in my lungs. I breathe when I thought I couldn’t. This man has a way of just crawling inside me and settling there. He’s a part of me in ways I have never understood until now. It’s like we haven’t spent all these years apart.
He rotates his chair to face me when I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be locked down, not rotating. He reaches to the side of my seat, unlocks it, and then rotates me to face him. My seat tries to sway with the bumping of the plane, and he quickly holds onto it while leaning in and locking me back into place. Now we’re closer, and thanks to his long legs, our knees touch, while those blue eyes of his fix on my face. His hands settle on my knees. “I’ve flown through hell and back with a lot less skill controlling the plane. We have a military pilot in control. A man who flew in a combat mission while under heavy fire. He’s good. Really damn good.”
“Which is why you paid him to take off in really bad weather,” I say and I can’t keep the accusation from my tone.
“Yes,” he says. “Exactly.”
We rock and sway. I grab his hands, but he switches our hands and presses mine to my legs, covering them with his. “We’re safe.”
“You paid him to take off when he normally wouldn’t because you thought we’d get murdered on the ground.”
“He wouldn’t have taken off if he thought it was too dangerous. He goes down with us, remember?”
“I see how you avoided the part about us getting murdered. And as for the pilot, people do crazy things for money.”
“Money does him no good if he’s dead. He goes down if we go down,” he repeats. “Let’s talk and get your mind off the flight.”
“I’m not talking about what we need to talk about while fearing for my life.”
“All right then. We have four hours in the air. Let’s start with something simpler.”
“Define simpler,” I say cautiously, and the weather seems to answer, the plane leveling out, nice and steady.
“You wanted to know about my tattoos. Let’s talk about my tattoos.” He releases me and starts rolling up his sleeves, displaying his incredibly intricate ink as he does. It distracts me. It has my attention, right up until the moment that the plane jerks again. I jump and Eric grabs my legs again. “I got you.”
He has me. He does. I know that, but for how long? How long until this man is gone? How long until he breaks my heart? Because he will and yet when I’m with him I can’t seem to care.
“I got you,” he says again, his eyes warm. I’m warm too now. “I did a horrible job of showing you that tonight but I’ll you’ll know soon. I’ll show you.”
“I don’t know what to say to that,” I whisper.
“Say you believe me. Say you trust me.”
“Say you trust me,” I demand. “You didn’t trust me when Isaac of all people got in between us.”
His reply is to hold out his arm, displaying his powerful forearm and colorful ink. “Ask me anything, Harper.”
My gaze rockets to his and for a moment, I study that handsome, rugged face, looking for the meaning behind his offer and what I find is vulnerability. These tattoos are more than ink to him. He’s told me this. They’re his life. They’re his secrets. They’re a look into his soul. He’s offering me a window into that soul and trusting me not to abuse it.
My attention immediately settles on his left arm, on the rows of numbers banding its width, and stacking on top of each other, some with images and others without. I run my fingers over a row of nothing but numbers. “This one,” I say, looking at him again. “What does this one mean?”
“It says, ‘everyone has a price.’”
My lips tighten. “You mean me.”
“Everyone, Harper, not just you, but the truth is, that you, at least in part, inspired that tattoo.”
My gut clenches, throat tightens. He still thinks that I stayed at Kingston for power and money.