Tempting Her Best Friend(49)

She placed her hand in his and climbed in next to him as everyone else found themselves a seat. Charlie warned them to hang on and then the cart jerked forward as he put his foot to the floor. When the whining of the electric battery didn’t warn people of their approach, Charlie honked the horn and parted the crowd like Moses of the TSA. Alyssa’s heart beat a crushing rhythm against her ribs despite her slow breaths and reminding herself that it wasn’t likely they would catch the plane in time.

The showgirl twisted in her seat the best she could and said, “Hi, I’m Amber.”

“I’m Alyssa. Sorry for hijacking your ride. What did you do to your ankle?”

Amber glanced at it with a disgusted look on her heavily made-up face. “Rolled it. That’ll teach me to buy knockoff heels.” She held up the offending shoe in one hand and its spiked heel in the other.

“Yikes. I hope you recover quickly.”

“Thanks. Me, too.” Amber looked wistfully at Alyssa’s gown. “I love your wedding dress, by the way. You look beautiful.”

“Oh, um, thanks,” Alyssa replied awkwardly, “but this isn’t a wedding dress. I was going to a masquerade ball. It just happens to be white so…”

Amber’s eyes narrowed as though she were thinking hard or trying to recall something. “Are you sure? Because my cousin got married about three months ago, and even though I had a lot of champagne, I’m almost positive she had the same dress.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake. Why did everyone care what kind of dress she wore? Right then and there Alyssa vowed to never wear a white dress again until her actual wedding day. If that day should ever come to pass. “Really? Huh.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess anything is possible.”

Over the last minute, the density of travelers had thinned considerably until now their cart had no obstacles whatsoever. Alyssa searched for signs of airline life—flight attendants ushering on the last few passengers, people dragging their carry-ons behind them as they disappeared into the gangway, anything that would tell her she still had precious seconds left to get to Dillon—but there were none.

The only thing she did see was Dillon’s plane pulling away from the gate to taxi its way into position for takeoff.

Charlie pulled the cart to a quick stop. Alyssa ran to the wall of windows, the flat of her hands slamming against the glass as her heart got stuck in her throat. Logically, she knew it wasn’t the end of the world. She knew that she would see Dillon eventually and that she could tell him how she felt then. That she could and would apologize for being so blind, so afraid, and hurting him like she had. It was only a little matter of the world turning several more times. Not very much at all.

Except that wasn’t how it felt.

As tears streamed silently down her cheeks, she closed her eyes and thought of how strange time was. It ticked away in exact increments, never changing no matter where you were in the world. Whether in Rome, Italy or Rome, Wisconsin, a day was twenty-four hours long. One thousand four hundred and forty minutes. Eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds.

And yet, for something that was so mathematically sound and scientifically constant, time could feel so relative.

Alyssa had spent the last twenty-four hours with Dillon as lovers. Long spans of time had been eaten up as he explored every inch of her body with his hands and mouth, learning what she liked and what drove her positively crazy. But that day passed in the blink of an eye, gone before she’d even had time to fully appreciate the magic of what they’d shared.

Unfortunately, the day she now had ahead of her wouldn’t go nearly as quick. Instead, the hands on her watch would drag with each passing hour until the minutes barely crawled and the seconds mocked her with stutters and pauses. And it would only get worse until she finally saw him again.

“You okay, sweetie?”

Trent’s words and arm wrapped around her in a compassionate embrace. Alyssa wiped the tears from her face and blinked the rest back. She turned to see the whole group fanned out around her with concern for her—someone they’d only just met—etched into their features. If she’d ever doubted in the kindness of strangers, it would have been eradicated in that moment.

“Thank you, all of you, for putting your lives on hold—and maybe even your jobs on the line—to help me. I’m just sorry it was all for nothing.”

Marilyn reached out and gathered Alyssa’s hands in hers. “Everything will work out, honey, you’ll see. The most important thing is that he loves you. The rest is just details.”

Alyssa gave the woman a quick squeeze before letting her go. “I’m fine,” she said. Looks of doubt or outright disbelief met her gaze. “Really, I am. I’ll just tell him everything another time.”