“How about getting on a plane with a stranger to a weird country I can barely pronounce, let alone heard of, to meet my so-called grandparents? That’s not making smart decisions. And, seriously, you really believe this royal thing?”
“Only one way to find out.”
“This seems really irresponsible. We don’t know these people.”
“They know you.” He heaves out a heavy sigh and grips my hands. “Listen to me. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and if you don’t end up going, you know you’re going to regret it for the rest of your life. So, let’s grab your suitcase, fill it up, and get some rest. You’re catching a flight tomorrow morning.”
“Will you stay with me tonight? Drive me to the airport tomorrow?”
“You know I will, baby girl.” He kisses me on the head, then takes my hand and walks me to my bedroom. “Time to get packing.”
* * *
“So... how long is this flight?”I ask, tapping my fingers on the lavish armrest. There are gold flecks in the wood. Could be real, could be fake, but I’m on a private plane with royal emblems everywhere, so my guess is it’s real. Naturally, I took a picture of the gold flecks so I can send it to Timmy when we land.
Straight across from me sits Keller Fitzwilliam—the man with little personality and a whole lot of muscle. I’m not one to gawk, I grew up in Miami for crying out loud—shirtless, muscled men are everywhere—but the three inches of skin revealed above where his buttons stop is doing more for me than the muscle-bound men on the beach. I am slowly gaining an understanding of the appeal of cleavage to a man.
Too bad the brain inside the brawn is a total dud.
Dude hasn’t said one word to me since we took off into the sky.
He’s buried in a book that has a protective cover on it so I can’t see what he’s reading. The only people I know who use protective covers are old ladies at the beach, and you don’t need to see the cover to tell what they’re reading—their cheeks are flush. Grandmas into smut are my favorite kind of grandmas. Hmm, I wonder if my grandma is into smut?
“Eight hours,” Keller says, speaking up before flipping a page in his book.
“What’s that?” I ask, forgetting my initial question.
He peers up at me with eyes a shade of blue that I’ve never seen before. They’re dark, like the ocean at night, with a singular ring of gold around the pupil. Intimidating. “You asked how long the flight is. It’s eight hours.”
“Ah, right.” I smile. “So, should we play the get-to-know-you game? The only thing I know about you is that you sort of act like an ass, so things aren’t boding well for you at the moment.” I hold my arms out. “But, hey, you have eight hours to change my mind.”
His eyes flit back to his book. “I’m good.”
Brimar—the suit, I learned his name when I stepped onto the plane—coughs, pulling Keller’s attention. They exchange a look, and to Keller’s chagrin, he shuts his book and says to me in an annoyed tone, of course, “What do you want to talk about?”
“Well, as you seem so overjoyed to have a conversation, where do we even begin?”
Brimar chuckles quietly to himself right before Keller shoots him a withering glance. I think we can all assume who wears the pants inthatrelationship.
“Listen, Miss Campbell—”
“Please, just call me Lilly. ThisMissshit is really not settling well. I’m only twenty-seven, and I don’t think I’ve earned that sort of respect yet. So, Lilly, please.”
He purses his lips together. “Lilly, it is not my duty to get to know you, it is my duty to bring you to Torskethorpe, and from there, we’ll see what happens. Until then, I think it might be better if we don’t speak.”
“Sheesh, what crawled up your behind? Is there some sort of indigenous ass-crawling mouse in Torske—uh, Torskethrope I need to worry about?”
“You should worry about your constant swearing.”
“What... is it not legal there?” I ask. “Because, boy oh boy, will that be a problem. I have quite the potty mouth.”
“I’ve noticed.”
I scoff. “As if you’ve never saidfuckbefore.”
His eyes lift to mine again. “Fuckis my favorite word.” Oooo, it sounds like it is. The way he pronounces theF, all breathy and erotic, yeah, that was nice on the ears.Unlike Torskethorpe.“But I am allowed to say it, whereas, you are not.”
“Oh, hell no. Is this country some misogynistic place where women are repressed? If so, hand me a parachute now, because I’m out of here.”
