I glanced up at his eyes, and he was staring at me. A coy smile pulled at his lips. He gazed at me for a long time, and my heart stuttered, my entire body shimmered with giddy delight. This feeling was so wrong. He was a married man, and there was nothing to swoon over but the idea of saving my store.
We moved back in our seats at the same time.
“I bet you got a lot of ‘wipe that smirk off your face’ growing up?”
Andrew smiled. And damn it. The cabin was chilly a second ago, but now I needed a fan.
I knotted my hands on my lap. “Is there anything you want to ask me?”
He tilted his head and zeroed in on my fingers. “How did you meet your fiancé?”
“This isn’t real.” I pointed at the ring. “I mean, it’s a genuine diamond, but there’s no fiancé attached. I got a bargain during a jewelry store closing sale.”
“Why?” Andrew’s eyebrows pulled together.
“I bought it to reduce unwanted sexual advances from strangers. It’s my man repellent.”
“And it works?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t do an extensive study by going out with and without this ring. A magazine article suggested it. I guess it works sometimes, but some men are pure pigs and ignore it.”
“Why did you buy a diamond instead of cubic zirconia? You could have gotten a bigger stone. The size of it would intimidate men.”
I laughed and spun the ring on my finger. “Believe me. Size doesn’t matter. They just don’t care.”
“What if this ring keeps away your true love?” he asked, his voice deep and earnest. His sincerity went straight to a void in my chest, stirring the familiar ache, but I ignored it and laughed again.
“Call me a cliché,” I held his stare as I spoke, “but I don’t believe in love. I did once, but not anymore.”
Andrew frowned. I could have explained my reasons and defended my motives, but did I care what he thought? Nope. After this two-day trip, we’d go our separate ways. I dumped the last of my trail mix into my mouth. Once I was done chewing, I lifted my right arm, which had the bracelet. “Am I keeping this once we’re done with the chest?”
He arched an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
“Its strange beauty has grown on me. I’m afraid I might actually miss it.”
“It should unlatch at the same time as the chest unlocks.”
The plane jerked, then banked, jolting my heart. Andrew squeezed his eyes shut. The aircraft leveled itself, and I slowly blew out a breath.
“You know,” I said, my body tightening, and I struggled to keep my voice calm, “they have drugs you can take before a flight. It takes your mind off the fear.” I wouldn’t mind having some myself.
Andrew nodded. Sweat visibly built up on his forehead again. “It works on flights for over seven hours, and I need a clear mind when we land. The medication makes me drowsy.”
“Good thing England has a great train system. You can get from London to pretty much anywhere in Europe.” I crumbled the empty snack wrapper and hid it in a side pocket of my bag. The aircraft dropped again. What the hell? I knew it was a bad idea to get on this piece-of-shit plane. Andrew’s nostrils flared as he breathed in and out.
“Do you want me to stop talking?” I asked and hoped he would say no because I felt atadanxious about this flight and needed to ramble.
He shook his head, deepening the crease between his eyebrows. “Keep talking.”
“Okay…” I tapped my fingers on my thigh. I could give him a pitiful childhood story about how our father had left us when I was seven, and we grew up basically without a mother because she was busy dating men like she was training for the Olympics. Or I could talk about my old job.
“How about wine? Do you want to learn about it?” I gently bumped Andrew’s knee with mine, and he looked at me. The line between his eyebrows disappeared, and his eyes focused on me. I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. He watched me with that almost smile, in a way that no other man had ever looked at me before. Not a predatory peer that gave me an unsettling feeling, not a piercing or judgmental stare that made me feel like dirt. His eyes reflected a curiosity as if he had just noticed me for the first time. My skin grew warm under his regard.
He blinked. “Sure.”
I launched into a history of wine production, starting with ancient tribes from China making fermented rice and honey and fruit wine. For Andrew’s sake, I kept it brief, and then I dove into a deep explanation of vinification. I loved talking about wine production, educating people about types of wine, and how to become better at choosing one. Most people grew bored with me and changed the subject after fifteen minutes, but even after an hour, Andrew wasn’t strapping himself to a parachute and searching for an exit door. He was a hundred percent engaged in this discussion, listening with rapt attention and asking questions I gladly answered.
Toward the end of our flight, without volunteering details about why the contract with my investor had fallen through, I shared my business idea and how, because of the Colombian trip, I could now look for a new investor and hopefully avoid having to execute a painful decision to sell the building. The more I talked about my store, the more I became grateful for meeting Andrew. Of course, I wasn’t sure if he felt the same way. He was losing money by dragging William and me on this trip, and we were liabilities, too.
