“No,” I answer, before Theo beats me to the punch. “No, we’re not together. Yes, I’m leaving London as soon as possible.”
Theo stands and crosses the aisle. “Switch with me,” he says to his brother.
“Is that an order, Your Majesty?” Henry jokes.
At least I think it’s a joke until I see Theo’s jaw clench.
Henry raises his eyebrows at me. “That’s the trouble with my brother. If it were me—”
“Sod off,” Theo says gruffly.
“Attaboy! Way to take charge!” Henry bows and sweeps his arms out to the side, dramatically giving his seat to his brother.
Theo sits and buckles himself in and motions to his brother. “In case you doubted that he was better for the job…”
He’s too close. I stand up. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Safety hazard,” Theo says. “The pilot never cleared us to take off our seat belts.”
“I’ll risk it.” I step toward the aisle, but his arm reaches out, blocking my path.
“I have it on good authority that you’ve been known to hide in the loo. You wouldn’t be planning on doing that again, would you?”
I close my eyes against the memory of him and me in a public bathroom on the Eurostar: I counted the number of times his legs touched mine by the giddy spikes in my pulse. When the world was on the brink of disaster, everything else was simple. There were no consequences to worry about or futures to plan. It was just him and me, bumping knees and hiding smiles.
Fate had to play out exactly right for us to have ended up on that train together, in a situation we couldn’t run from, but I sure as hell am running now. I wrap my fingers around Theo’s wrist (a grave error in judgment), momentarily frozen, when the pilot makes an announcement.
“We’re expecting rough turbulence ahead. Please stay seated with your seat belts fastened.”
One side of Theo’s mouth hitches up in a wry smile. I can’t tell if he’s being flirty, or if he’s just happy to be right. I dropinto my seat and buckle my seat belt, my eyes firmly on the window.
“I think I’m missing something,” Theo says to the back of my head.
I want to ignore him (well, I want towant toignore him), but doing so would be the opposite of unbothered. “I don’t think so,” I say coolly, turning to look at him.
“I’m sorry I left last night.”
“I’m not upset about that.”
“But youareupset?” he prompts.
Great. Two seconds into my unbothered act and I’m already failing. “Nope!” I turn my gaze back to the rain-speckled window.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
I whirl on him. “I can’t!”
His jaw clenches in frustration.
I lean back with a sigh as the plane hits turbulence and jostles me against him. I quickly lean away, removing all points of contact between us, only to be thrown back into his side. My hand lands in his lap. “I didn’t mean to!” I quickly withdraw my hand.
“You’renotresponsible for the turbulence?” he asks in mock surprise.
The plane hits another huge bump, and he grabs my hand and squeezes hard. I look at our intertwined fingers in surprise before glancing up at him. “I didn’t mean to,” he says sarcastically.
