Page 79 of Brutal Heir

I loved being in Paris.

I loved Europe and longed to see more of it.

In a way, I was proving my mother right. Returning to the safety of her home because the big bad world got too scary for me.

A warm hand pressed down on my thigh.

Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how badly I’d been shaking my leg.

I stared at Sebastian’s hand, a testament to strength and control.

His olive skin, warm and sun-kissed, carried subtle undertones of gold and bronze. The veins wound beneath the surface, a faint, steady pulse of life beneath his skin. Faint calluses roughened his palms and fingertips.

I could still feel them against my skin from this morning.

“Talk to me, dolcezza.”

I turned to look at him. His eyes were unreadable. Although he leaned back in his seat, there was no mistaking the tense readiness to his form, as if he were waiting for me to suddenly jump out of the car while it still moved.

He was right to worry.

The thought had crossed my mind.

He was a dark star, consuming everything unfortunate enough to drift into his gravitational pull.

I broke eye contact. “Nothing. I’m just sad to leave.”

His thumb stroked the side of my thigh. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

While I might have been uncertain about leaving Europe, I was still steadfast in my refusal to work for him.

I shifted my leg away from his touch. “Yes, it does.”

We drove on in silence for some time as the dim lights of Paris receded into the distance.

When we approached the Charles de Gaulle Airport, I checked my phone to see what terminal I would need. “I’m flying United out of Terminal One.”

The Mercedes breezed past the terminal exit.

I twisted in my seat to stare out the back window. “That was my terminal.”

“When is your flight?”

I bit my lip. My first impulse was to lie to him, but then I thought better of it. “I don’t have one. Yet. I have an open-ended ticket. There are constant flights to New York.”

He nodded.

“My terminal?”

He turned and smiled. It did not reach his eyes. “If you don’t have a dedicated flight, then there is no harm in us talking further.”

A massive barbed-wire gate slowly opened after a pair of security guards armed with AK-47s waved our car forward.

I reached out to clutch the car door handle as I stared at the lock. “Where are you taking me?”

“This is the VIP terminal dedicated to private planes.”

Another pair of guards pushed open the metal doors to a hangar on the left. Warm light spilled out onto the black tarmac, revealing a massive Boeing 787 Dreamliner. But it was unlike any plane I’d ever seen.