“Okay, so maybe I wasn’t quite there yet, because climbing into your bedwasan incredibly childish thing to do, and God, I’m so sorry I disrespected you that way, I really am, but I just want you to step back and think about why you didn’t tell Mia or Alan. You know, say,Get a handle on your crazy niece, Admiral, she’s out of control.”
“Yeah, in what alternative reality would I say that?” he protested.
“The one where you disapprove of the age difference between Jake and Zoe even though you know how much they love each other,” Tasha shot back. “The one where you drew an indelible line between you and me, and wrote adult on your side and forever-a-child on mine. The one where you refuse to step back and give a hard look at thesister-sister-sisteryou’ve been whispering to yourself whenever I’m in the room. The one where the future locks tightly into the choices and decisions you made in the past, even though the present—right now—looks completely different because here we are, absolutely, both on the adult side of your imaginary line.”
He was shaking his head as he looked at her. Just a little, just a constant, persistentno.
Before he could shut her down with an argument she couldn’t debate, likeI’m really sorry, Tash, because I just don’t feel the same way that you do, she grabbed her book and scrambled back to her feet.
“Don’t say anything,” she told him. “Not right now. Just think about what I said. Sit with it. Sleep on it. We both need to sleep, so I’m going to bed.”
She beelined for the bedroom, and when he spoke—“Tasha, I just... can’t...”—she pretended she didn’t hear him and closed and locked the door in the face of whatever it was that he couldn’t or wouldn’t do.
Even though she knew damn well that his sentence,I just can’tended badly for her with the wordsforce myself to love you the way you want me to.
Until tomorrow morning, when he said it—until the moment that she emerged and let him say it to her face—she’d stay right here in her hope-filled fantasyland ofmaybe he would.
Yeah, and all she needed was a pink settee, and she’d become a Russian princess for real, too.
Chapter Nineteen
Wednesday
“What’s the deputy’s plan if Ted tries to jump the fence?” Rio asked as Dave rejoined him on the tarmac.
Dawn was starting to lighten the sky in the east—they’d been waiting that freaking long.
But now the Ustanzian jet was finally—finally—approaching the airstrip for a landing, and they were outside the hangar, awaiting the prince’s arrival.
If it was Rio who’d essentially stolen a plane to go afterhisgirlfriend who was in danger, instead of taxiing to the hangar, he’d pull the jet toward the end of the runway, pop open the door, jump out, and make a break for the forest on the other side of the chain-link barrier.
“She says the fence is electrified, and the tower reminded him about that,” Dave reported. “Repeatedly.”
“So, we expect him to just surrender?” That didn’t make sense.
“The deputy said he’s been both compliant and apologetic,” Dave said. “She told me that the prince told the tower that he’ll come out of the plane with his hands up. He doesn’t want to get shot. And he really doesn’t want to get shot down.”
The plane landed then, with a roar and a squeal of tires, and Rio looked back toward the parking lot where they’d left their SUV. “Maybe I should’ve stayed with the car.” Another seven hours of delay, driving to freaking Burlington and back, was bad enough. If they had to spend one minute more than that tracking this mofo down...
But after braking, the plane turned toward the hangar and, jet engines still whining, rolled obediently toward them.
Something was seriously wrong with all of this. Why steal a plane only to chicken out when you land?
And okay, sure. The fighter jet escort had surely been intimidating, and it was still up there, circling, to make sure the Ustanzian jet stayed on the ground.
This tiny airfield had no boarding gates—only portable stairs on wheels. As the engines powered down, a team of workers trotted one of them out to meet the jet and the door opened.
And there he stood. The goddamn Crown Prince of Ustanzia with his trademark navy-blue winter coat, vaguely reminiscent of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper phase, his black skinny jeans, and his long, dark, wavy hair...
Wait a minute. This guy on the stairs had the trademark flowing locks, but his hair was blond.
“That’s not Prince Tedric,” Rio announced, and immediately ran for the SAT phone in the SUV. “Check the plane,” he shouted back at Dave. “Make sure the prince isn’t hiding in there somewhere.”
But he knew in his gut that the prince probably wasn’t—and why this whole situation had been bugging him so damn badly.
There was no doubt about it—this smelled of diversion. Of trickery. Of total goatfuckery. Ted had given some friend or underling his jacket and an order to fly to this airfield to distract and divert anyone following, while he, what...? If it were Rio, he’d be approaching the burned out ski lodge far more covertly, by land.
Yeah.
