Tempting the New Boss(63)

Happily, the weather was calm and mild as they got to the cruising altitude, and she closed her eyes to try to sleep. God knew she hadn’t gotten much the night before. Just the memory of what she had gotten, though, popped her eyes open. Maybe she should try a magazine. There was a rack of them by the restroom. After unbuckling her seatbelt, she headed there, not even glancing at Mason as she passed him, flipping through the offerings before she chose a Newsweek.

On her way back to her seat he called out, “Camilla.”

Prepared for more bad manners, she almost melted when he said, “You okay? With the flight?”

She nodded. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for asking.”

He looked out his window. “Good. Good.”

Feeling a little better, she found when she got back to her seat that she could sleep. Putting up the armrest, she snuggled on the sofa the two spacious seats created without it, her head toward the window. Slipping off her flats, palms beneath one cheek, she drifted off.



Mason stared at the clouds outside his window, his head pounding to the faint sound of the deadhead pilots chatting away. He wished he could tell fucking Boyd or Roy or whoever to shut up. He’d only offered them the ride when Camilla put down her conditions for staying until he could find her replacement. He thought their presence might help him to keep his hands off her. The way he was feeling, though, he might just stuff them in the closet and take the sleeping Camilla in his arms and kiss her awake.

But he couldn’t. He had promised her. And she hadn’t even admitted she would want him to. What the fuck did this “taking time” thing mean? Marcia finally consented to answer his phone calls but had placed an unsettling embargo on discussing his relationship with Camilla. So who else was he supposed to talk to about this? Talking to Camilla herself only left him even more confused. And, fuck, kind of hurt.

The way she was with him on the plane, eventually anyway, and on the trail was one thing. And the way she had looked at him when he was covered in scrambled eggs and jam was another. And the way she spoke to him after breakfast, automatically assuming a distance he hadn’t in a million years imagined she could erect so quickly, was even worse. He had thought they were starting something together, and it turned out not only was she not so sure, she was mulling over ending it. Or that was what it sounded like to him, and Marcia was zero help.

Never had he felt like such a…failure. Her family was so loud. Overwhelmingly loud and confusing. How could a handful of people dashing off comments to each other so quickly it was like a volleyball match at his prep school make him feel just as nervous as fifty lawyers and bankers swarming around him in a conference room?

As angry as he was at Camilla right now, he was just as lost about what to do about it and just as desperate that he should find something, anything that would keep her. He didn’t give a fuck about her replacement or the deals he had on hold, including the one they were journeying to, but it was the only thing he could think of to keep her from disappearing from his life, as he had a sneaking suspicion this “thinking” thing would result in her doing. And he was very sorry he hadn’t realized that the “not sleeping with her” rule would come along with her remaining on the job. But if that was the only way she would stay with him for now, he could handle it.

Or he thought he could. Until he saw her smiling at the pilots, at them, like she should have been smiling at him.

Fuck, this should be one interesting couple weeks, but at least he would have time to figure out what to do. Because one thing he knew, he did not want to let her go. Being with her had been the only time in his life where he had felt at home in his skin. Where he didn’t mind whoever he was, different as that may be, and he didn’t want to lose that sensation. He didn’t want to lose her.

He fingered the pearls still in his jacket pocket.

Was it wrong of him to wish the plane would crash again?





Chapter Ten

They landed in London, and she checked into her hotel while Mason went to his apartment. He didn’t press her to stay overnight with him, and she appreciated it.

Maybe, just maybe, some crazy version of this arrangement could work.

The next morning she met him at the solicitor’s office, less flashy than Bannum and Strauss or any of the other New York law firms, no two-story lobby or winding staircase, only a small reception room. They were both early and told it would be a few minutes. The conference room they were led to was all polished oak and built-in bookcases and a gray marble table that would seat a dozen or so.

Mason fidgeted with some papers he’d brought relating to the proposed deal. He hadn’t looked at her since they met in the lobby. Dressed in fresh clothes, he was still considerably underdressed, jeans and a T-shirt, no slogan on it this time, just pure Florida orange juice bright, with yet another hideous jacket, green wool, to complete the outfit.