“You’re trying to seduce me in a moving vehicle.”
I shrug. “I’m trying to relax you.”
“Well, it’s working.” She sinks deeper into the seat, kicking off her shoes and curling her legs beneath her. “This is insane.” She gives me a side-eye that’s all sass and no heat. “Do you always travel like this?”
“Pretty much.”
“Do you always packbriefor the car ride?”
“Only for women who make me read their smutty romance novels in bed.”
She pops a grape into her mouth and smirks. “Youlikemy smutty romance novels.”
“Iloveyour smutty romance novels.”
The music swells as the car glides through the city, leaving behind traffic lights and noise. The buildings blur into palm trees and open sky. Olive rests her head against the window for a moment, eyes drifting shut, hand still in mine.
She looks calm now. Soft. Like the storm of this past week hasn’t followed her here.
The driver turns toward the private airport entrance, and I lean closer to her, whispering in her ear:
“Next stop: paradise.”
She hums without opening her eyes. “As long as there’s more brie, I’m in.”
We pull up right beside a gleaming jet—no terminals, no security lines, no screaming babies—and the flight attendant is already at the bottom of the steps, smiling like this is just a Tuesday for her. It is.
For Olive? Not so much.
She stares out the window of the car with her mouth slightly open, and I can practically hear the gears in her brain short-circuiting.
“That’s… ours?” she whispers, as if the plane might hear her and fly away out of spite.
I squeeze her hand. “All ours, baby.”
She shoots me a look. “Ash… this is a lot. Can you even afford all this?”
I grin, half amused, half charmed out of my mind. “Are you asking if I’m bankrupting myself for our engagement moon?”
She gives a sheepish shrug. “Kind of, yeah.” She fidgets, then straightens a little. “Let me contribute. This must cost more than I can even imagine.”
That catches me off guard. “What?”
“My stipend,” she says. “The one your manager set up. I haven’t touched it yet. If you’re spending this much, I want to help.”
I just stare at her—not because I’m surprised by the offer, but by the sincerity behind it.
She means it. Her eyes are wide and earnest, cheeks flushed with nerves. I can tell how hard it is for her to even suggest it, and it makes me want to pull her into my lap and kiss the worry away.
Instead, I reach for her hand. “Olive. "No."
“But—”
“No,” I say gently, tracing her knuckles. “You’re not paying me to pretend to love you. And you sure as hell aren’t funding this trip.”
Her throat works as she swallows. “I just don’t want you to think I’m using you.”
I give her hand a light squeeze. “You’re not. You never were. Olive, I could fly us around the world three times, book a yacht, throw fireworks every night—and I’d still have money to burn.”
