I wait. He does not elaborate.
By the time we pass Midtown and keep going, my suspicion has gone from a simmer to a full boil.
I look out the window, then back at him. “If you’re kidnapping me, this is a weirdly luxurious approach.”
That gets the tiniest flicker at the corner of his mouth. “Not kidnapping.”
“Good. Because I’m pretty sure I’d have paperwork concerns.”
He still doesn’t explain. I hate him. I hate him even more when the car turns toward the private aviation terminal and my stomach drops straight through the floor.
No. No, no, no.
I whip back toward him. “Why are we at the airport?”
He finally looks at me properly. “We’re leaving.”
I stare at him. “We’re what?”
He nods toward the terminal ahead, all glass and security and discreet wealth. “For a few days.”
My brain stops working for a full second. “A few days?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Warm. Private. Safe.”
“Aleksei.” The warning in my voice does absolutely nothing to him.
He just watches me with that same impossible calm. “You needed time away. So did I.”
My mouth falls open. “You decided this by yourself.”
“Yes.”
“You did not ask me.”
“No.”
“You are out of your mind.”
“That’s possible.”
I turn toward the window, then immediately back to him because there is nowhere for all this disbelief to go. “You cannot just announce we’re leaving for a vacation when we are already at the airport.”
“It’s not a vacation.”
I blink. “That is worse.”
He almost smiles.
I can feel myself spiraling. The office. My apartment. The women I was texting. The dates. My side job. My mother. My entire life.
“I can’t go away for a few days,” I say. “I have work.”
“You work for me.”
