“Book me a flight and send me the details.” She cuts the call. “What the fuck are you doing?” She turns her glare on me.
“Offering you a quicker way to get home, because it seems you’re in a hurry.” I shrug. “You wanna tell me what’s wrong?”
“Not particularly,” she says. “I don’t need your help, Alfie. I’m capable of looking after myself.”
“That’s why you woke your assistant up at six a.m. to book you a flight?” I laugh.
“It’s his job,” she argues. “And Angus is my best friend. I wouldn’t leave town and not tell him.”
“I’m aware you don’t need my help, Molly, but let me do it anyway.”
“Why?”
“Two reasons: I happen to like you, and helping you fly out achieves my goal of getting you out of my city,” I tell her.
“Oh, I’ll be back. I just need to do something at home. It won’t take long,” she says.
Picking up my phone, I send a message to our pilot, letting him know I need the plane ready. “Your parents in Portland still?” I ask her.
“Yeah. How…? Never mind.” She shakes her head. “You really don’t need to help me, Alfie.”
I get the impression this woman likes to do things herself and doesn’t take too kindly to being offered help. Which is why I twist this whole thing around and make it about me. “I’m not helping you, sweetheart. I’m helping myself. Besides, I was already going to Seattle today. Portland is on the way.”
“Why are you going to Seattle?” she asks.
“Business,” I tell her, picking up my suit jacket and stabbing my arms through the sleeves. Shit, I really need a change of clothes. Once I’ve buttoned up, I grab my phone and call Hudson.
“What?” he answers.
“I need you to go to my house and get me a change of clothes. Meet me at the hangar in thirty,” I tell him.
“Where are we going?” he asks. Not where amIgoing, but where arewegoing, which means he’s already up and ready to join me.
“Portland,” I tell him.
“Who was that?” Molly asks when I pocket my phone.
“My brother. You got everything you need?” I look at the overnight bag she’s managed to fill rather quickly.
“Ah, no, I need my laptop.” She runs out to the living room and picks up another bag.
I pluck my shoes off the floor and meet her out there with her overnight bag slung up on my shoulder.
She holds out a hand to take it from me. “I do not need you to carry my bags for me, Alfie,” she says in a firm tone.
“Tough shit. I’m going to because I’m a gentleman, not a fucking animal,” I tell her. “You ready?” I reach out and take the other bag from her shoulder before she can protest.
“If you’re doing this to gain favor from me, it’s not going to work,” she says.
“You have some deep-rooted trust issues, Molly Olive. I’m doing this because you’re my friend and friends help each other.”
At that, she laughs, a full-belly laugh. One I could listen to over and over again and not get tired of hearing. “We are not even close to being friends, Alfie.”
“You let me inside your vagina, Molly. Pretty sure that makes us at the very least friends.”
“Did it ever occur to you that the sex we have is so good because we’re not friends? Because we both know there’s an end date coming soon?”
“There’s always an end date, and I don’t usually fuck the same woman more than once, but you’re… addictive. Also, this isn’t ending anytime soon. You’ve said yourself you’ll be in town until you get what you want, and I have no intention of allowing the Olive Group to move into my city.”
