Shit.
This isn’t how I wanted to start my new life.
She smirks at me again and leaps off the floor like she’s not wrapped in a too-tight black cocktail dress that now has cobwebs stuck to the ass. “I’ll fix you coffee. A little caffeine, and you’ll see the bright side to this arrangement. For instance, I’m a very good driver.Verygood. I had the best instructor ever. Re-instructor, I should say. When I learned how to park well and not speed so much. And I like the idea of how mad my father will be when he finds out you’ve wrecked all of his plans for merging the companies so much that you can rest assured of my silence so long as you take me where you’re going and don’t piss me off.”
Her phone buzzes in my underwear, against my dick.
And my dick is a dick.
It’s not smart enough to be horrified by Daphne’s phone giving us a woody, or by the fact that she managed to turn it on before I got it back from her, potentially sending her location to someone.
And on top of all of that—she’s right.
She might be useful, and she might be the only person in the world who wouldn’t take reward money for bringing me home.
Not if spilling the beans would mean making her parents happy. And if she hates her parents as much as the vibe she’s giving off suggests she does.
Fuck me.
Just fuck me.
4
WE MAKE QUITE THE PAIR
Daphne
Oliver isa serious killjoy on a road trip.
Not that I can blame him.
I’d be pissed at me too.
Probably crossed a line with the wholeI can survive the wilderness and foil all of your plansthing.
Even if it’s true—during daylight hours, anyway—I didn’t need to rub it in his face.
And honestly?
I’m sad.
Devastated, actually.
He’s running away. He’s leaving the country.
People who are going to work on Monday morning to continue the good work they’ve been doing don’t run away.
“Have you ever been on a road trip?” I ask him as he steers the Camry down the dirt road away from the cabin and the Mercedes SUV. When we got in the car, he studied the dash and all of the buttons and knobs so thoroughly, I wasn’t sure we’d be leaving today.
I’m still in my cocktail dress.
He’s changed out of the suit he wore last night and is now in a buttoned-up red flannel, boat pants, and Carhartt boots.
Yes, boat pants. The white linen pants that stop above a guy’s ankles. Super popular with the yacht crowd.
And yes, a red flannel.
In August.
