I move my hands, realizing I’m still plucking at the belt. Now they’re in my lap, gripping my thighs like I’m holding on to the edge of a mountainside and one wrong move will send me plummeting to my death.
No, I tell myself firmly as the vise of anxiety tightens on me.
Don’t think about death.
Don’t think about falling.
You’ve got this, Isla.
“I take it you have a fear of flying.”
“You could call it that,” I bite out.
“What else could you call it?”
I sigh, my heart pounding. “Look, if you don’t mind, I don’t really want to talk right now.”
I want to prepare myself in silence. Without his eyes on me. Without his long legs stretched out toward mine, crossed at the ankles, taking up all the space. Without his cologne invading my senses and making me remember things that are better forgotten.
Like him on his knees for me.
And then me returning the favor.
“You’re pale.”
I take my eyes off his long legs and glare at him. “I have a healthy fear of the sun.”
“Paler than usual,” he corrects.
“Leave it alone.”
I don’t want to explain to him. What happened to my family is not just brutally painful. It’s intensely personal. When the plane first went down, there was a burst of public interest. My father had been a well-known fetal surgeon. My mom was a celebrated artist. My sister was young and beautiful. The happy, smiling pictures of my family were plastered all over the news and the internet, ripped from social media and magnifying my suffering and grief.
There hadn’t been a place I could look where I wouldn’t see them or hear about them. As if having to go back to our house to find it quiet and empty, like they might walk through the door at any second, hadn’t been bad enough.
“Suit yourself.” He gives me an indolent shrug, like he doesn’t care. “Hand over your phone.”
“I’m not giving you my phone,” I deny instantly.
“I need you to have my numbers. Priest’s orders.”
“I don’t need or want your phone numbers.” For a second, I catch myself wondering how many he has.
Multiple burner phones? A regular phone? It doesn’t matter. I don’t require his digits.
“It’s not for me. It’s for Cid. In case something goes down and the cat and you need help ASAP, before he and Luna can make it back stateside. He doesn’t want Luna to spend the whole honeymoon worrying about the two of you.”
I bristle at that. “She doesn’t have to worry about me or Cid. That’s why I’m doing this, so that she can relax and enjoy the honeymoon she deserves.”
He holds out a palm, looking unimpressed. I’m not in the mood to argue with him, so I unzip my purse, fish out my phone, and swipe upward with my thumb, unlocking it.
“Fine. Suit yourself.”
He takes my phone and holds it to his. “Try me on the primary number first. If I don’t answer on that one, try thesecond and then the third. If you can’t get me, I’m giving you Lucky and Scorpion too. Do the same with them. We each have a few different lines.”
A few taps of his finger on my screen, and he hands me the phone back.
I don’t bother to look at the numbers. “Thanks.”
