But if the Spaniard loved her, he shouldn’t look pleased and satisfied that Eric was holding her. He’d been jealous before, even stepped between them.
The plane lurched again, and this time even Eric rocked in place.
There was a screech of metal, and the lights blinked out. There was a split second of pure darkness. And in that visual void, the plane dropped. For a horrifying moment, Eric’s feet lost contact with the plane as it fell faster than he did.
Nikolett screamed, Eric pulling her hard against his side to keep them both on their feet. Other screams echoed her cries from the adjoining room.
The emergency lights clicked on at the same time the intercom crackled.“Seats and seat belts. Head down. Seats and seat belts. Head down.”
The lead flight attendant barked the orders, their voice tight with fear.
The plane was going to crash.
Eric looked at the Spaniard.
He smiled, the expression ghostly in the dim emergency light.
Eric glanced at the door as the plane bounced and jostled around them, rattling his bones. They weren’t going to make it out of this room and into a seat in the main cabin in time.
Nikolett seemed to have reached the same conclusion because she was trying to pull him toward the seats at the back of the room. Together, they stumbled over. He buckled her into one of the center seats then kissed her hard and fast—their teeth clicking together as the plane lurched.
The flight attendant’s continuous repeated commands changed. It was no longerseats and seat belts heads down.
“Brace for impact. Brace for impact.”
Eric turned to the Spaniard.
“Eric!” Nikolett screamed, voice barely audible amid the cacophony of sound as the plane careened toward the earth.
The man was bent forward, almost putting his forehead against the floor as he tried to stay braced against the turbulent movement of the crashing plane.
Eric grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back to the seats.
“What are you doing?” the Spaniard—Gus—yelled.
Eric didn’t have the keys to the cuffs, but the chain connecting the cuffs to the ankle chain was merely clipped in place. It took four tries, given the jostling, to unlink the man’s arms and legs. Eric pulled Gus up into a seat and quickly buckled his seat belt before dropping down into the seat on the other side of Nikolett.
They might all die in the next five minutes, but he’d give the asshole a fighting chance not to get ping-ponged around the cabin by strapping him in.
“Brace for impact. Brace for impact.”
The intercom was barely audible over the sound of the air screaming around them and the clank of the rattling plane. It sounded like the aircraft was coming apart piece by piece.
The windows were all closed, and Eric couldn’t decide if it was a blessing or a curse that he couldn’t see how close they were to the ground. Except it wouldn’t be the ground. More than likely, they were about to crash into the ice-cold Irish Sea.
Instead, he looked at Nikolett. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear her. The sounds around them were now deafening. They were jostling so much, he could barely see her.
But he didn’t have to hear. He knew what she was saying. The brief clear glimpses he got of her face were enough to see a strange sort of peace in her expression. A quiet, dignified resignation to their fate.
“I love you, too.” He couldn’t hear his own voice, not even the echo of it inside his own head, but that didn’t matter. He’d go to his death believing that she could read his lips or maybe hear with something besides her ears.
“If I could choose a way to die, it would be beside you. You and I have lived a lifetime worth of love in only a few days.” He laced his fingers with hers. “It wasn’t enough. All of time wouldn’t be enough. But whatever comes after this, if I can find you, I will.”
There was a massive jolt and the seat belt dug into his lap so hard, it felt like he was going to be cut in half. A low-pitched thump preceded the scream of metal.
Another jolt and they were flung forward only to snap back. Eric’s head hit the padded back of the seat hard enough that everything went dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
