Not again.
Fighting the urge to squirm in my seat, I look away, focusing my attention on the horizon. “No.”
“Why not?” Dean asks, his tone caught somewhere between curiosity and caution.
Because two years ago, you had me. In the span of an hour I was ready to risk it all—give you everything—but when it came down to it, you didn‘t want me. You got up and walked away and the next time I saw you, you were Paige’s date at my sister’s wedding.
Ignoring him I press the button embedded in my arm rest that activates the intercom that communicates directly with the pilot. “We’re ready to land when you are.”
“Roger that, Ms. Blackwell,” he answers back. “We just received word from the tower that we’re clear to come in.”
When it becomes clear I have no intention of answering him, Dean makes a rough, frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “You know, I still don‘t know where we’re going,” he says to the side of my face. “I don’t even have my passport.”
“You don’t need it,” I tell him with a flat smile. “We’re still technically in the U.S.”
“Okay…” Looking out the window, Dean shakes his head. “You mind telling mewherein the U.S.?”
Before I can answer him, the pilot does it for me.
“Prepare for landing—” His announcement is accompanied by the faint whir of the landing gear being deployed. “welcome to Hawthorne Cay.”
TWENTY-TWO
Hawthorne Cay.
The private island where Wentworth Fiorella built the crown jewel of his Hawthorne International empire—an ultra-exclusive, ridiculously expensive, all-inclusive resort, in the Caribbean Sea.
It’s been open for less than a year now and from what I’ve heard, the waitlist is about a mile long. Millie must’ve booked a reservation the second Allister popped the question.
As soon as the plane rolled to a stop, Millie threw off her seatbelt and hightailed it off the plane, barely taking the time to collect her overnight bag from the flight attendant before practically launching herself through the opendoor. Bythe time I get my belt undone and make my way off the plane, I fully expect to find myself stranded on a deserted tarmac.
Instead, I find a white town car with the Hawthorne’s logo stenciled on the door and a chauffeur standing next to it, waiting for me to get my ass in gear and get the hell off the plane.
Focused on the pair of legs waiting for me inside the car, I mutter a quick thanks at the driver before climbing in, a moment before he slams the door behind me. Millie is sitting on the other end of the plush bench seat, pressed against the door furthest away from me, her entire body turned toward it while she speaks quietly into the phone she has pressed against her ear.
“It’s okay,” she says with a fast head shake. “No… please, don’t. I’d never consider asking you to do something like that… yes, I’m sure. Thank you for your help.” Ending the call, she drops her phone into her lap with a sigh while the driver starts the car and shifts into drive.
“All booked up, huh?” I say on a shitty laugh because I know what she was trying to do. She was trying to figure out a way to get rid of me. “Not even the mighty Blackwell name could free up so much as a broom closet to stuff me in.”
“Actually, she offered to cancel several registrations to accommodate me,” she says, offering me a brief, brittle smile before she looks away from me again. “But as much as Idon’twant to spend the next two weeks trapped on the same island—let alone in the samehotel suite—with you, I find myself unwilling to ruin other people’s vacations, just because I was stupid and impulsive enough to ruin my own.”
“Ouch.” I give her a shitty smirk to cover up the fact that knowing she’s spent the last several minutes actively trying to get rid of me stings a little bit more than it should. “Tell me how you really feel, Princess.”
“Alright, if you insist—” Turning in her seat to look at me, hazel eyes sharp. Her cheeks flushed with temper. “I’m not interested in spending the next two weeks of my life being teased and made fun of, simply because you’re bored or need an ego boost or whatever it is that drives you to relentlessly poke at me, so how about we make a deal—you stay away from me and I’ll stay away from you, okay?”
“Tease you?” I say it like I have no idea what she’s talking about, even though I do. “You think I’ve beenteasingyou?”
“Yes, I do,” she seethes at me, shoving the words at me through clenched teeth. “Because you have. That’s all you’veeverdone. Since the night we met, you’ve done nothing but?—”
“If memory serves, you gave as good as you got that night,” I remind her, leaning into the space between us, just enough to wipe that prim, holier-than-thou expression off her face. “And for the record, allyou’veever done is insult and belittle everything about me, from the second you set eyes on me. Nothing about me was good enough, and it still isn’t—not for perfect, Princess Millie.”
Jerking back, her eyes go wide like I just slapped her in the face. “That’s not true.” Mouth open, she shakes her head. “I—” Whatever she was about to say, she thinks better of it, stopping herself before she can give it a voice.
“You what?” I say, my tone sharp enough to jolt her in her seat. “You what, Millie?”
“Nothing.” Easing herself away from me, she sits back in her seat and looks out the window, dismissing me completely.
Fuck.
