by Kira Archer
“Why did you do that?” he asked.
Her smile faded, and her forehead creased in a frown. “You were afraid of the takeoff. Didn’t have your pills. I thought I’d take your mind off of it. Seems like it worked pretty well, too.”
A little better than she’d planned. She very nearly forgot why she’d been kissing him in the first place, and her body still tingled all over.
“I was not afraid.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, and he scowled. Good grief. “Oh stop glaring at me. Are you mad because we kissed or because we stopped?”
“That was…inappropriate.”
“Well, you didn’t have to say yes when I asked.” His forehead crinkled again, and she sighed. “Yeah, I’d kind of figured you for a prude, but let’s not go overboard with it.” She sat back and folded her arms.
His eyes widened. “Did you just call me a prude?”
“Um, yeah. Kissing me didn’t seem to bother you when your tongue was halfway down my throat.”
His lips twitched though, true to stereotypical form, he didn’t let that little emotion squeak out too much. “I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it…”
“Well then what’s the problem?”
His gaze darted around at the other passengers. She did the same, finally noticing more than a few who were staring at them. Odd.
“The problem is that this is a public area, and I don’t do public displays of affection.”
“It had nothing to do with affection. Problem solved.”
“The problem is not solved,” he said, closing his eyes briefly like speaking with her was giving him a headache. “In fact, that little stunt you pulled is probably going to cause me a world of problems.”
“Little stunt I pulled? You were fully happy to participate, remember?”
He ignored that. “Most significantly, with the moron across the aisle who was having fun taking who knows how many pictures of us. I don’t like rewarding people for crossing my privacy boundaries by giving them something they can make money from when they splash my picture about in the tabloids.”
She frowned again. “Why would your picture be splashed about in the tabloids? Are you famous?”
He snorted. “Apparently not that famous. And that’s not the point. You don’t go around kissing complete strangers.”
She shrugged again. “Why not? You needed it, agreed to it, gave me something to fantasize about for the foreseeable future, and more importantly, it worked. That’s probably the first takeoff you’ve ever enjoyed. Am I right?”
His gaze grew much more heated and the half smile he gave her told her everything she needed to know about how much he’d liked it. “Yes,” he said, “but…”
He stared at her for a second like he couldn’t think of an argument to prove his obviously invalid point, and she winked. “See. My logic is sound. But, if you’re now feeling some sort of kisser’s remorse, I’ll offer my sincere apologies. For the remorse. Not the kiss. Because, damn Shakespeare, that was seriously hot. And my intentions really were honorable, I promise. You were about to claw your way out of the plane. I just gave you something a little more fun to claw at.” She winked at him again.
Before he could say anything else, she bounced out of her seat. “I have to use the restroom. I’ll be back.”
She hurried up the short aisle to the first-class passenger restroom and ducked inside. She leaned against the sink and looked at herself in the mirror, taking a deep breath. She didn’t need the restroom. Just an escape.
The handsome hunk of English repression out there had looked like he was about to have a full-on panic attack, so she’d done the first thing she could think of to take his mind off the fact that they were getting ready to takeoff. And it had worked perfectly, too.
Aside from the fact that it sort of backfired on her. She hadn’t expected to enjoy it nearly as much as she had. Another second or two and she’d have been in his lap and then whoever it was who’d taken a picture really would have gotten an eyeful.
She redid the ponytail that Mr. Denial out there had messed up when he was digging his hands into her hair to keep her glued to his mouth, straightened her glasses, and headed back out.
She sat down and smiled at him. He didn’t return the expression. She sighed. It was going to be a really long flight. She reached under her seat to her backpack and pulled out her book. Harrison glanced down and then leaned back with what she could only describe as disgust.
She glanced down at the totally harmless paperback in her hands. “I’m sorry. Do you have an issue with what I’m reading?”
His lip curled up like she’d just pulled out a tarantula and held it out for him to pet. “I don’t know how anyone could read that drivel.”
She blinked, momentarily surprised into speechlessness. She got over it quick. “Drivel? It’s only one of the best-selling books for the last two decades and has an extremely popular show based on it. I’d hardly call it drivel.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s a ridiculous book.”
“Have you read it?”
His eyes widened in shock like she’d just accused him of reading Playboy to the kindergartners for story time. “Of course not!”
“Well, then how do you know it’s ridiculous?”
“I don’t need to read it to know that. Some nurse goes back in time and marries some red-headed epitome of manhood who spends most of his time running around in a kilt? Hogwash.”
Nicole’s eyebrows rose. “You know an awful lot about it for someone who thinks it sucks.”
“Just because I’m aware of it doesn’t mean I approve.”
“I don’t know. Sounds like your issue is kind of personal to me. You said you were famous. What are you, some actor who didn’t get the job on the show?”
“Hardly. I try to avoid Scotland as much as possible.”
Okay, now she knew there was something wrong with him. “Why in the world would you want to avoid it? From the pictures I’ve seen, it looks like one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I can’t wait to see it. I’m even going to take the whole Outlander tour. Well, I was going to. That’ll have to wait a bit. It’s a little out of my price range right now. Plus, according to the website, it’s apparently booked solid for the next two years. But once I get to England I’m going to get a job and save up some money, then I’m definitely going. You even get to stay in a real castle.”
Harrison snorted. “My family owns a castle. They’re not as great as they’re cracked up to be.”
She stared at him, pretty sure her eyes were doing that cartoon bug-out thing. “Your family owns a castle? You definitely need to lead off conversations with that.”
He snorted. “Yes, because my main goal in life is to have people hanging on me for a chance to see my castle.”
She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him, although…valid point.
“You can’t just go get a job, by the way,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t go into a foreign country on holiday and then decide to stay and work. That’s immigration. Not vacation. There are proper channels you must go through for that kind of thing.”
She frowned. “I know that. I was hoping to find something under the table for a couple weeks until I’ve earned enough to move on.”
“You really haven’t thought any of this through, have you?”
Not really. Her main goal had been to get the hell out of her life. Get away from her shit-bag ex and dead-end job and do something that would make her happy for once. She wasn’t totally unprepared. She had several travel books that listed hostels and other cheap lodgings. And the brochure on the Outlander adventure she wanted to save up for that the Troy Travel company offered. Until then, she could travel cheap. She was used to living on a budget. And in the safety of her old apartment, it had sounded like a grand adventure. The trip of a lifetime.
Now, with Mr. Asshat pissing on her parade, her grand adventure sounded more li
ke a disaster waiting to happen.
When she didn’t answer, he leaned back in his seat and raised his eyebrows while his teeth scraped over his bottom lip, his eyes boring into hers. He probably meant the expression to convey some sort of “I told you so” or other superior dickhead statement. All it did was send a bolt of tingling heat straight to her core. Did guys know how freaking sexy that expression was? That couldn’t be unconscious, right? She’d once seen a GIF of Robert Downey Jr biting his lower lip like that, and she’d spent a good twenty minutes just staring at it. And she wasn’t even that big of a Downey fan.
Her attention zeroed in on those lips, and the sudden flashback to their recent make-out session had her wishing she were the one biting his lip.
She cleared her throat and refocused on her book in a futile effort to keep it together.
“As I suspected,” he said. “Well, you keep on reading your fantasies. I’ve got real-world issues to deal with.”
And there went the hypothetical bucket of ice water. Yeah, she’d like to hit his real-world self upside the head with her amazing fantasy. This guy was totally her ideal wet dream waiting to happen. Until he opened his mouth. Even that accent couldn’t save him then.
Why was she always attracted to asshole men? It was the same with her ex. Their chemistry had always been off the charts. Probably why it had taken her so long to quit him. All he had to do was crook a finger and get her back in bed, and she was literal putty in his hands. Now here she was next to the asshole of all assholes and she was already falling back into old habits. Part of her wanting to smack some sweetness into him while the other just wanted to climb aboard and go for the ride of her life.
She seriously needed help.
But that cost money, so for the moment, she’d focus on the perfection that was Jamie Fraser and pretend that a man like him really existed somewhere.
Chapter Three
Harrison stood outside Customs waiting for his assistant to show. He checked his phone again, though he wasn’t sure why he was so impatient. As soon as she showed, they would be off to his ancestral home—and his wackadoo family—for his annual summer check-in. For the last four years, he’d spent the summer checking up on his family to oversee the travel empire they had nearly run into the ground. Until he’d stepped in to get things moving in the right direction again.
And this season would be the busiest yet thanks to the popularity of that damned show whose name he refused to say.
He should probably be grateful to it. Troy Travel was his parents’ company. They’d started it when he was a teenager, probably as a way for them to have something to do together once his mother’s minor acting career had waned. His father’s job as a horticulturist had never been very lucrative but both his parents loved to travel and starting the company gave them a good excuse to put all their travel knowledge to work. And it had done well for many years, with their packages built around his family’s estates and their connections that got their tourist parties onto locations few others could access.
But with lagging economies, tourists seeking to blow money on guided tours dropped to an all-time low. Opening their castle for tourists to not only see but sleep in had gone a long way to increase business. Their first round of guests would be arriving in a month, which was another reason he was anxious. The castle hadn’t been in any shape to receive visitors last time he’d been there, and it needed to be up to par. Quickly.
Unfortunately, his father had his stubborn pride and wasn’t too keen on his son swooping in and throwing money at everything. But, as it was a family business, he couldn’t object to Harrison working for them. As he had some flexibility with his actual job working with a private space firm, he’d started taking his summers off to help get the travel company back in the black. Thankfully his father didn’t pay much attention to the ledgers, so Harrison was able to pay for a lot of the work on the castle on his own. Things were finally starting to go in the right direction again. With his family’s property being within reasonable distance to the Scottish border and all things related to the Series He Wouldn’t Name, he’d helped them build a travel package around the experience, one that had sold out within twenty-four hours of posting it. Not just sold out. They were booked solid for the next two seasons.
But he hated depending on anything so unpredictable. Sure, it was the rage of the moment, but there was no guarantee it would continue to be. He preferred to build the business around tried and true sites that would always be popular. The supposed birthplace of King Arthur, for example. Stonehenge. London Bridge. The fads faded. Already there was a drop in the tourists purchasing the Downtown Abbey experience his company offered—though for the moment, it was still a best seller, especially as they were friends with the owners of the estate used in filming and were able to gain access most other companies couldn’t. But pinning the financial well-being of a business on the fickle affections of fans did not sit well with Harrison.
He was a lover of real history and resented his true-history centered tours being turned into a circus for a bunch of people hell-bent on soaking up any tiny vestige of fictional fantasy that they could. And Scotland, while beautiful, was cold and damp and full of Scots. An odd, superstitious lot—and he should know because his grandmother was born and raised there and she was…well, a piece of work.
Plus, as part of the whole experience, while the guests were at his castle, a section of which they’d opened to the public when business dropped off, he had to wear…a kilt. Maintain the atmosphere. He hated kilts. In his mind, there was something almost sacrilegious about an Englishman wearing a kilt, even if that Englishman was a quarter Scottish. Not to mention, they were drafty and he’d always thought his knees were too knobby to pull it off. Plus, when he was in it, he was pawed at, fawned over, and had his picture taken with more overzealous fans than he could count. He did not do pictures.
He sighed. He did not get people like Nicole who willingly spent their life savings to go traipsing around some foreign country. Especially when that country was the one in which he’d been raised. And the foolish woman wanted to live there permanently. She could have it. He’d be happy when he could go back to his nice, modern Manhattan high-rise. Although two of his three best friends were currently drowning in babies and matrimony. Not something he aspired to, but he did enjoy giving them a hard time about their new domesticity. In fact, he was generally downright cheerful and pleasant to be around when he wasn’t embarking on the summer from hell.
He glanced at his phone again. “Where is the bloody woman?”
A text finally came through, and he clicked on it to find a message from his assistant. Or, former assistant he should say. At least according to the text.
Sorry. I know this is last minute. But I just can’t deal with another summer like last year and I got a last-minute job offer I couldn’t refuse. Good luck with everything.
Good luck? Not likely.
He cursed under his breath. Now what was he supposed to do? He should have known something was up when she wanted to take a vacation before they left and fly in separately. Honestly, he couldn’t blame her. If he could get out of spending the summer with his family, he would. But now he was stuck. He needed an assistant to get through the mess of his family’s business and finances, and he needed someone who wasn’t going to bolt the second they met his family. Anyone local wouldn’t go near the place. Hell, most people in the country had heard the stories of the eccentric Troy family. They were always splashed all over the tabloids. It was one reason he lived most of the year in New York.
But understandable or not, his former assistant had just left him high and dry. And desperate. Which is the only explanation for the idea that popped into his head at the sight of Nicole ambling through the Customs line.
It was a bad idea. Horrible. Would probably just make the situation worse. If she even said yes. But he had limited—make that nonexistent—choices. And, as she’d told him ad nauseum on the flight, she was available.
And an apparent expert on The Book He Refused to Name, which, at least in this circumstance, was a plus.
Now, he just had to convince her to take the job, which might not be the easiest thing to do considering how quickly her face had gone from happy to irritated when she caught sight of him.
He took a deep breath and marched to where she was standing perusing a map of London.
“So, figured out any concrete plans yet?” he asked. “Or are you still planning on wandering the country homeless and penniless?”
She glared at him and went back to her map. “I’ll do fine, thanks.”
Antagonizing her was not the best way to get her to help him. She seemed to bring his surly side out, though. He did his best to rein it in and tried again. “I have a proposal for you.”
Her eyebrow lifted at that. “An indecent one, from the tone of your voice.”
He scowled. “There’s nothing indecent about it.”
“Too bad. I like you when you’re being indecent.”
He cleared his throat, trying, and failing, to empty his mind of images of them being indecent. “It’s a job offer.”
“A job? You want to hire me? For what? Is this some sort of Pretty Woman thing?”
“What? God no! My assistant literally just quit on me with no notice. I have a great deal to get done in the next eight weeks. I need someone reasonably intelligent, quick on their feet, who isn’t afraid of hard work.”
And who wouldn’t run screaming from his crazy family, though he didn’t add that part. Nicole was a bit off her rocker herself. She’d fit right in with the loons in his family tree.
“So you think I’m reasonably intelligent, huh? You smooth-tongued flatterer. Keep up that kind of talk and I might get the wrong idea.”
He sighed again. “I meant no insult.”
“You seem to have a natural talent for it.”
He frowned. “Is that a no?”
Nicole crossed her arms and gave him a contemplative look. “I didn’t say that. Going to need a little more information before I run off with some strange guy I sat next to on a plane, though.”
