The TROUBLE with BILLIONAIRES: Book 2 (13 page)

“Well, I’m glad you’re going out. It’s been a while.”

Conrad shook his head in agreement. “Yeah, well, when business is good…”

“I know how that is.” The man noticed me then. His smile spread when he did. “But I can see you found a good reason to pull yourself away.”

Conrad held out his hand to me. “I definitely did.”

“She’s in great shape,” the man said, patting the nose of the plane. “Everything checks out and her engines were purring just a bit ago. Shouldn’t give you any trouble.”

The man led the way around the plane, talking about things that went right over my head. I knew absolutely nothing about planes. But it was kind of ego-inflating to be holding hands with a man who did.

The man—his name was Will, he was Conrad’s mechanic among other things—opened the door that, just like in the movies, turned into a flight of stairs that led into the belly of the plane. It was all creamy tan leather, four seats behind the open cockpit and two there. Conrad led me to one of those seats before taking his own and pulling on a headset that he immediately spoke into to test that it was working properly.

After a prolonged conversation with Will, he looked over at me.

“Ready?”

I felt like I was in a dream. I was really on a jet about to fly into the night sky with my lover at the helm. Was I ready? Not really.

But I smiled and nodded.

No one ever talks about the extensive preparations before a plane can take off. It was fascinating to watch Conrad check all the instruments before he even turned a single thing on. And then he checked them again before moving the plane out of the building. Then, he got out and did a walk around, checking things I could never even imagine what they did, before climbing back inside and talking with some unseen person over the radio to verify the flight plan he apparently filed hours ago. Had he been planning this all day? Even after our argument? Then, finally, we were floating in the clouds together.

And I thought he had already taken me to heaven.

Cheesy, Mellissa.

“What do you think?” he asked as we cruised high over our home city.

There were no words. I had flown before—too many times on the dime of the US Marshals Service—but this was so different. The sounds were different. The feel was different. The view was different. I couldn’t take my eyes from the windows as the light faded behind the majestic Oregon landscape.

“You do this whenever you feel like it?”

“Well, as often as work and life allow.”

I glanced at him. “If I could, I would do this every day.”

Pleasure burst across his face. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

We flew for hours, but it felt like minutes. It was dark, and there was little we could actually see. But the lights of the cities were like stars in the distance. We made a game of trying to guess which of the major cities we were flying over. Since I had no clue where we were going, I was wrong most of the time—often in the wrong state—but Conrad was kind enough to allow me a few guesses here and there. A few obvious guesses.

It was almost a disappointment when we landed.

We were met on the tarmac by another man—apparently Will’s counterpart—and it took quite a bit of time for Conrad to go over the post flight inspection with him before we were finally allowed to leave. There was a four door Jeep waiting for us that didn’t look like a rental, leaving me wondering how often Conrad took this particular trip. Almost as if he could read my mind, he reached over and touched my hand.

“I haven’t been here in almost six months. But I’m glad I could bring you.”

“Where is here?”

“Home.” He laughed at my somewhat bewildered expression. “Texas,” he elaborated. “Welcome to the great city of Corpus Christi.”

That explained the ocean breeze and the humidity, even this late in November.

I sat back in the car seat, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. It was too much for one day—between Russell and Rawn and all the stuff going on at the office, and then the emotional toll of checking out the assisted living centers and signing the papers that would admit my grandmother on Monday…and then the excitement of the flight. It was all simply too much.

I hadn’t realized just how tired I was until Conrad was waking me from a sound nap.

“We’re here,” he said softly.

We were parked in front of a beautiful cabin-style building that was all glass and wood. Tall trees hung over the front walk that was made from some sort of wood chips interspersed with flower beds that were still blooming with some sort of bright red flower.

Conrad came around the side of the car and helped me out, leading me to the front door with his head bent down, almost like a shy child about to show off his favorite toy. He pushed open the front door and waved me inside. I gasped. It was…

Again that sense of being in a dream overwhelmed me.

The entryway was a step down that moved into a long, flowing room that included a gourmet kitchen, a formal dining area, and a cozy living room with a huge stone fireplace that dominated an entire wall. At the very back was a wall of glass that looked out onto a walnut-colored deck that flowed, in turn, onto an expansive beach that I kind of assumed was private. We could see the waves crashing against the pale sand from the light shining from some unseen spot above the deck.

So beautiful.

“This is your vacation house?”

“My escape. I bought it a couple years ago, just after my divorce from Aurora was finalized.”

He took my hand and drew me into the kitchen. “You must be starving.”

“Tired is more like it.”

“Would you like to just call it a night?”

I moved into his arms and answered with a heavy sigh. He chuckled a little before he swung me up into his arms and carried me down the long hallway off the living room that ended in the most luxurious master bedroom I think I’d ever seen—and I’m a fan of all those DIY house-flipping shows.

Like in his house back in Portland, the bed was a work of art. This one was made of brass, the headboard an intricate design of stars and horseshoes while the footboard was monogrammed with Conrad’s initials. The floor was a lovely white carpet that my feet likely would have sunk into if he had allowed me to walk. The rest of the furniture was a collection of brass and wood antiques that seemed right at home with another flat-screen television and state-of-the-art sound system.

Conrad laid me on the bed. I immediately turned into the feather pillows and sighed.

“I don’t know how you can get out of bed every morning when you wake up in this.”

“It’s not always easy,” he admitted, as he leaned close to kiss me before he began unbuttoning my blouse. I touched his wrist, and he shook his head with a soft chuckle. “I’m not going to try anything. Not tonight. I’m just as exhausted as you are.”

I let him undress me then and happily curled up into his arms when he finally stretched out beside me.

***

Madison

“When do you leave for California?”

“Already have.” Rawn sighed. “It’s been a long week, and it’s only half over.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, rolling over in the bed as I imagined Rawn sitting in one of those captain’s chairs in his jet. “I wish I could take some of it off your shoulders.”

“You are just by talking to me.”

“You’re such a charmer, Mr. Jackman.”

“Me? I’m not the one who approached a stranger in a park and—”

“Can’t we forget that little piece of our history? It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Not to me.”

I smiled, my thoughts going places they probably shouldn’t while we were hundreds of miles apart. But I couldn’t help myself. I craved his touch like I used to crave chocolate cake when I was younger.

“I talked to Mellissa today,” Rawn said, changing the subject and pulling my mind out of our secret room. “She’s pretty pissed at me for getting Conrad arrested.”

“I guess the two of them are getting close.”

“Seems so.” Rawn was quiet for a second. “I hope it’s a good thing. The guy’s had a rough time these last few years.”

“You guys are really good friends, aren’t you?”

There was another silence. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Well, if it sets your mind at ease, I don’t think Conrad is the inside person anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

I rolled onto my back, Rawn sitting up and staring intently at me in my imagination.

“I remembered something today. The guy who came to the house where they were holding me, the one who told them who I really was? It couldn’t have been Conrad.”

“And you know that how?”

His tone was deep, controlled, but I could still hear the hint of hope underneath.

“Because the man wore glasses.”

“I thought he was lost in shadows and you couldn’t really see him.”

“I couldn’t. But I ran into an old friend today—long story—and when he went to push up his glasses, I remembered seeing that man make a similar gesture. I’m pretty sure he was wearing glasses.”

“Conrad doesn’t wear glasses.”

“No.”

“Shit,” Rawn uttered under his breath. “I’ll talk to McFarren in the morning and try to get this thing cleared up.”

“I’m sorry, Rawn.”

“No, I’m glad you remembered. If you remember anything else—”

“You’ll be the first I tell.”

***

Mellissa

I woke early the next morning as the sun poured through the glass doors across from the bed. I rolled over and watched Conrad for a minute, studying the way his face looked when it was completely relaxed, the way his chest barely moved with each breath, the way he sighed as though he were having the best dream an imagination could muster.

I wished I had years of doing this to look forward to, watching the years mark his face. The lines the laughter we would share would mark the corners of his mouth. But all I had was now, and some other woman would have the joy of watching him grow old.

It was a sobering thought.

I pulled on his discarded shirt since neither of us had thought to bring our luggage in last night—not that he had given me an opportunity to pack. I wasn’t not quite sure what he expected me to wear for the next three days—and made my way to the kitchen. I was starving now.

The refrigerator was stuffed with everything from cheese to fresh fruit to expensive looking slices of prosciutto. I threw together a fruit salad and carried it out to the back deck, curling up in one of several chairs situated around a glass table. The water was calm this morning, just a bit of a breeze ruffled the collar of Conrad’s shirt. It was cold, but the air felt good against my overheated skin. It crossed my mind to call Christy and check in on my grandmother, but I wasn’t quite ready to allow reality to seep in.

I found myself hoping that wherever the Marshals Service sent me next would be somewhere warm and near water. Somewhere like this.

The uncertainty of everything was like this heavy stone wrapped around my heart, weighing everything down. I had thought the first time was the hardest. I watched them march my uncle out of the courtroom after his sentencing—ten to fifteen years—and was taken directly into the custody of the Marshals Service. I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to my friends or explain what was happening. I didn’t get the chance to have some sort of closure in the home where I had lived since I was a toddler, to touch my things one last time, or to put away the embarrassing diaries and pictures of boy band members that hung on the wall. I often lay awake the first few months after we left and wondered who cleared out my things, who emptied the house of all our belongings and handled the sale. I hoped it wasn’t some stranger who didn’t care about us or what those things meant to us. But, again, I hoped it was.

That should have been the hardest.

When we left California, we had only been there a little over a year. I’d made a few friends at school, but no one I counted as a best friend. It was still hard to leave the books I had begun to collect and the vintage t-shirts I scoured several secondhand stores to find. But it wasn’t anything like leaving behind Amy, my best friend since kindergarten.

Arizona was a little harder. We were there three years. I had a good job working in a bookstore just off the university campus. There were good friends—Tamara and Mindy—and the professor who took a special interest in me, offering me an internship that allowed me to work one summer as his assistant at the advertising firm his wife owned. I was making a good life there, a life that could have led to so many wonderful things that might have been close to what I dreamed of as a teenager.

It hurt to have to leave there.

But none of it promised to be as painful as this.

“Happy Thanksgiving!” Conrad came out onto the deck in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that he wore as well as he did a suit and tie. He swept me out of my chair and took my place, settling me on his lap. “You sleep okay?”

“Like a baby.”

He kissed my neck lightly before reaching over and stealing a big, ripe strawberry from my bowl. “Hey,” I said, smacking his cheek lightly. “Go get your own.”