Amy Bensen 01 Escaping Reality (2 page)

Flipping open the folder, I find an airline ticket. I’m going to Denver

and I leave in an hour. I’ve never been anywhere but Texas and New York.

All I know about Denver is it’s big, cold, and the next place I will pretend is

home when I have no home. The thought makes my chest pinch, but fear of

what might await me if I don’t run pushes me past it.

I turn off my cell phone so it won’t ping and stuff it, with everything

but my new ID and plane ticket, back into the envelope. I have my own

money in the bank and I’m not about to get rid of my identification and

access to that resource. Besides, the idea of using a bank card that allows

me to be tracked bothers me. I’ll be visiting the bank tomorrow and

removing any cash I can get my hands on. When I’d been eighteen, naive

and alone, I’d blindly trusted a stranger I’d called my guardian angel. I

might have to trust him now too, but it won’t be blindly.

Making my way to check in, I fumble through using the ticket

machine and my new identification and then track a path to security. A few

minutes later, I’m on the other side of the metal detectors and I stop at a

store to buy random things I might need. All is going well until I arrive at the

ticket counter.

“I’m so sorry, Ms. Bensen,” the forty-something woman begins. “We

had an administrative error and seats were double-booked. We—”

“I have to be on this flight,” I say in a hiss whispered with my heart in

my throat. “I have to be on this flight.”

“I can get you a voucher and the first flight tomorrow.”

“No. No. Tonight. Give someone a bigger voucher to get me a seat.”

“I—”

“Talk to a supervisor,” I insist, because while avoiding attention

means I am not a pushy person, and despite my initial denial of my

circumstances that might suggest otherwise, I have no death wish. I am

alive and plan to stay that way.

She purses her lips and looks like she might argue, but finally she

turns away and makes a path toward a man in uniform. Their heads dip low

and he glances at me before the woman returns. “We have you on standby

and we’ll try to get you on.”

“How likely is it you’ll get me on?”

“We’re going to try.”

“Try how hard?”

Her lips purse again. “Very.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I have a…crisis of

sorts. I really have to get to my destination.” There is a thread of

desperation to my voice I do not contain well.

Her expression softens and I know she heard it. “I understand and I

am sorry this happened,” she assures me. “We are trying to make this right

and so you don’t panic please know that we have to get everyone boarded

before we make any passenger changes. You’ll likely be the last on the

plane.”

“Thanks,” I say, feeling awkward. “I’ll just go sit.” Definitely flustered,

I turn away from the counter. Ignoring the few vacant seats, I head to the

window and settle my bags on the floor beside me. Leaning against the

steel handrail on the glass, I position myself to see everyone around me to

be sure I’m prepared for any problem before it’s on me. And that’s when

the room falls away, when my gaze collides with his.

He is sitting in a seat that faces me, one row between us, his features

handsomely carved, his dark hair a thick, rumpled finger temptation. He’s

dressed in faded jeans and a dark blue t-shirt, but he could just as easily be

wearing a finely fitted suit and tie. He is older than me, maybe thirty, but

there is a worldliness, a sense of control and confidence, about him that

reaches beyond years. He is money, power, and sex, and while I cannot

make out the color of his eyes, I don’t need to. All that matters is that he is

one hundred percent focused on me, and me on him.

A moment ago I was alone in a crowd and suddenly, I’m with him. As

if the space between us is nothing. I tell myself to look away, that everyone

is a potential threat, but I just…can’t.

His eyes narrow the tiniest bit, and then his lips curve ever so slightly

and I am certain I see satisfaction slide over his face. He knows I cannot

look away. I’ve become his newest conquest, of which I am certain he has

many, and I’ve embarrassingly done so without one single moan of

pleasure in the process.

“Inviting our first-class guests to board now,” a female voice says

over the intercom.

I blink and my new, hmmm, whatever he is, pushes to his feet and

slides a duffle onto his shoulder. His eyes hold mine, a hint of something in

them I can’t quite make out. Challenge, I think. Challenge? What kind of

challenge? I don’t have time to figure it out. He turns away, and just like

that I’m alone again.

Chapter Two

Everyone has boarded the plane but me. I am alone in the gate area

aside from a few airline personnel, and I feel vulnerable and exposed with

no crowd to hide me. I’m already thinking through my options for the

evening if I don’t make this flight, when my new name is called. “Your lucky

day, Ms. Bensen,” the attendant says as I approach the counter. “You’ve

been bumped to first class.”

I blink in surprise, and not just at the oddity of being called Ms.

Bensen. “Are you sure?

First class?”

“That’s right.”

“How much extra?” I ask, unsure of how much money I have on the

card I’ve been given, unable to use my personal savings for fear of being

tracked. I’m not even sure the little bit my extra holiday jobs allowed me

would cover it.

“No cost to you,” she assures me, smiling and motioning to my ticket.

“Let me fix your paperwork so you can hurry along before they seal the

doors and you still miss your flight.”

“Yes,” I say quickly. “Thank you.”

I rush down the walkway to my flight, and despite my relief at scoring

a seat, the realness of leaving New York punches me in the gut. Everything

I’ve come to know as my world is here and I haven’t felt this helpless

since…a long time ago. I can’t think about what happened. I
don’t
think

about it. That’s when the nightmares start, and so does the fear. This isn’t

the time to let the terror control me. I have no idea what I will face in the

next few hours and days.

“Welcome aboard,” a flight attendant says cheerfully as I reach the

plane, and somehow I muster a half-smile before making my way to row

seven, where there are only two seats. My aisle assignment is empty as

expected, and—impossibly, after they’ve told me the airline was

overbooked—the one by the window also appears empty. Hope that I

might be alone is dashed when I note the bag stored beneath the seat,

which tells me my companion is nearby. I sigh. It would suit me just fine to

slip into my leather seat and shut my eyes before whoever it is returns, but

alas, that’s simply not an option. I have luggage to store and a file to study.

With a shrug, I let the oversized bag hanging from my shoulder fall

into my intended seat, then push the handle down on my new roller

suitcase. Grimacing, I discover the bin above me is full. Apparently nothing

is going to be easy tonight. Pushing to my toes, I try to adjust some bags to

make room for mine, and it’s as much a struggle as breathing is right now.

“Let me help you.”

The deep, slightly husky male voice has me turning to my left to find

myself captured in a familiar stare. My heart sputters. It can’t be. But it is.

I’ve made a fool of myself by gaping at a gorgeous man and he’s here to

make me pay in buckets of embarrassment. The man from the terminal is

standing beside me, towering over my five feet three inches by close to a

foot, and standing so close that I no longer have to guess the color of his

eyes. They are blue, a piercing aqua blue that is almost green, and they are

once again focused one hundred percent on me.

“I…ah…thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he says, a quirk to his mouth that I am once again

looking at, along with the dark stubble shadowing his strong jaw along with

his barely there goatee, which makes me think pirate. The kind that steals a

girl’s senses and ravishes her body, leaving her incapable of anything but a

whimper as she watches him walk out the door. Mr. Tall, Dark and

Potentially Dangerous reaches over me to adjust the compartment, his

t-shirt stretching over a perfectly sculpted broad chest. I don’t move—me,

a person who believes wholeheartedly in personal space. I know I should

and I mean to, but I don’t seem to have control over my legs, let alone

anything else tonight.

He glances down at me, still shifting my luggage. “Just this bag?” he

asks, and there is heat in his eyes. Or maybe amusement. And conquest,

definitely conquest, which must get old for a man like him.

The thought is enough to make me step back, probably a bit too

obviously. “Yes. Thank you.” Arms still stretched over his head, he adjusts

my bag, muscles flexing, long torso stretching deliciously, and I don’t try to

look away. Admiring this man keeps me from thinking about the hundreds

of other people on this flight that could be trouble.

“We’re all set,” he says, motioning to the seat. “You want the

window?”

“Window?” My belly tightens and I feel breathless. “We’re seated

together?”

“Appears that way.” Humor lights his eyes, and his mouth that I am

somehow looking at, quirks as he adds, “Small world.”

My cheeks heat at the reference to our little encounter in the

terminal. “Too small,” I say, and an announcement over the intercom urges

us to sit, saving me from some witty comment I don’t have.

“Last chance,” he says. “Window?”

I open myself to decline and snap my mouth shut. An aisle seat

exposes me to the other passengers, many at my back. The only person

who will ravish me while I’m trapped between this man and the wall is this

man. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Thank you,” I say, before I grab my bag and move to the seat he’s

just given up, only to remember that he’d been settled here before I

arrived. “Do you want your things from under the seat?”

He slides in beside me and he is big, and broad and too good looking

for the safety of womankind. “Why don’t I just put yours under my seat?”

he suggests.

He smells spicy and masculine, and the scent stirs a distant memory

in the back of my mind. I shove it away, frustrated that I’m back to every

little thing triggering flashbacks. Today has undone the strength I’d spent

years creating in myself, made me weak as I once was. “Yes,” I agree. “Just

let me grab a few things for the flight.” I quickly remove my file and my

purse and hand over my carry-on, and in the process my hand brushes his.

A jolt of electricity darts up my arm and I quickly turn away, buckling myself

in. Maybe being locked in a corner with a man I am powerless to control my

reactions to isn’t so smart.

“Champagne?”

I glance up to find a pretty twenty-something flight attendant holding

a tray and gobbling up my seating partner with unabashed approval that

makes me think of the bold way Chloe lives her life, and suddenly it’s hard

to breathe. I will never see Chloe again.

“Why yes, we will,” my travel partner says, accepting two glasses,

and turning to me, successfully dismissing the flight attendant.

I hold up a hand. “No. Thank you.”

“We have a designated driver.”

“I’m afraid it will make me sleepy,” I object, though I am certain the

visit from my guardian angel, or handler, has ensured I won’t rest well again

for a very long time.

“It’s a four-hour flight,” he points out. “Sleepy isn’t a bad thing.”

Sleepy.
This gorgeous, incredibly masculine man has just said

“sleepy” and it seems so out of the realm of what I expect from him, that

he has managed the impossible considering my life right now. I smile an

honest smile and accept the glass. “I suppose it’s not.” I sip the sweet,

bubbly beverage.

A glint of satisfaction flickers in his eyes, as if he’s pleased I’ve done

as he wishes, before he takes my glass from me and sets both our drinks in

the cup holders between us. The easy way he assumes control of my tiniest

actions, and seems to enjoy doing so, should bother me. For reasons I don’t

have time to analyze, it only makes him more tantalizingly male.

He extends his hand. “Liam Stone.”

My pulse jumps at both his ridiculously alluring name and the idea of

touching him. I start to lift my hand and hesitate with the oddest sense of

this moment changing my life in some way. Pushing past the crazy thought,

I press my palm to his. “Nice to meet you, Liam. I’m Amy.”

His fingers close around mine and a slow, warm, tingling sensation

slides up my arm.

“Tell me what I did to make you smile so I can do it again.” His voice

is low, gravelly. As sexy as the man who owns it. I expect him to let go of

me, but his fingers seem to flex around my hand, tightening as if he doesn’t

want to let go. I am shocked at how much I, someone who avoids people I

do not know well, do not want him to.

“Sleepy,” I manage, and my voice sounds as affected as I suddenly, or