by Julia Kent
He is wondering whether my crying means he’s not getting sex today.
“Stop it,” I yell, handing him back his phone.
“Stop what?”
“Wondering if I’ll sleep with you today.”
“How do you do that?” he bellows, moving his hips just so, taking the pressure off me.
Because I’m right, he can’t argue. I thumb through my own phone. Most of the messages are from Grace, Jessica Coffin, various news stations, Mom, Mom, Mom and more Mom in there. She is on the attack, the messages varying wildly from nasty incrimination to desperate pleading, back to the nasties again.
It’s like reading a string of text messages during my fights with my ex-boyfriend, Steve, only Mom’s language is way more colorful. I think I see Dad in there, too, but after a while it’s all a blur. The buzz of the helicopter as we continue makes it hard to concentrate. Hell, the last ninety minutes makes it impossible to concentrate.
What did we just do?
I select one from my sister, Carol, figuring that should be safe.
Thanks for replacing my Worst Wedding Ever. Mom and I are bonding over this, she wrote. Please get married by a Liberace impersonator in Vegas. Mom hates Elvis, but she hates Liberace even more.
“DECLAN!” I shout, pointing to my phone in horror. “THEY KNOW ABOUT VEGAS!”
Side note: I’m so glad to perform an important emotional function for my sister. Huh.
Dec grunts, the sound full of angry chagrin, and stares out the window, thinking.
Our secret lasted a whopping thirty minutes. It’s a record.
I grit my teeth and move on to one from Josh.
Can I have all your centerpieces? he wrote.
Delete.
Greg’s text says, Hey! Heard you’re going to Vegas. We have some mystery shopping clients there and if you happen to—
DELETE. How in the hell did they find out?
Amanda. Amanda’s my bestie. Her messages will be a supportive balm that will get me through this time of crisis. Plus, she’ll tell me who told Mom. I’ll bet Andrew cracked. I open the most recent text from her.
Jessica Coffin is here at your abandoned wedding reception telling three different cable channels all about #poopwatch, Amanda texted. Your wedding hashtags are now #smartgroomwhew #poopwatchbride and #runawaybillionaire
Text messages are so overrated.
Vegas. I’m numb. Mom knows we’re going to Vegas.
“Shannon,” Declan says, pulling the headphone off my left ear, whispering in a husky voice. “Until ninety minutes ago, my day was pretty simple. Wake up. Take care of business in the shower so I don’t turn into Two-Minute Husband on our wedding night—”
“What?”
“Never mind. It’s not important.” He frowns. “Scratch that. It is important, but that’s not what I want to talk about now.” He shakes his head quickly, then resumes his list, ticking off each item with a finger. “Shave. Go to Farmington Country Club. Wiggle like a space worm being poked by harpoons to get into the damn kilt. Remove underwear. Put on socks and shoes with laces. Add man purse and tux jacket. Grit teeth while Andrew laughs at me. Wait for Andrew to stop laughing. Gently punch Andrew’s arm when he won’t stop pointing and laughing.”
He runs out of fingers and starts over.
“Really punch Andrew’s arm. Kick Andrew out of the wedding party room with a snarl and a glare. Find you. Find you screaming at Marie. Insert self between you and Marie. Listen to your escape fantasy—”
“That is not how the day went—” I protest, but he cuts me off.
“Make the escape happen.” His words have such an anguished finality to them. “Here I am. I did it. I succeeded. Victory is mine. Then why do I feel so hollow?”
“Oh, Dec.”
The earpiece crackles as the helicopter pilot says a series of disjointed syllables that sound like someone with heated marbles in their mouth trying to sing The Star Spangled Banner.
“She’s what?” Declan says, holding his earpiece tight against his ear. He looks down at me and mutters, “Your mom called the FAA and tried to report this aircraft as a hijack.”
“You understood that?”
“You didn’t?”
“No.” Declan’s words sink in. “My mom did what?”
“Tried to ground us and have me arrested.”
“Arrested? For hijacking?”
The pilot says more mumbo jumbo.
“And kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping? Is she insane?”
“She was insane long before she tried to have the FAA down this copter.”
I grunt, the sound decidedly unfeminine, and whack him in the chest. So much for romance.
“You’re hitting me because I’m telling the truth about your mother?” he asks, incredulity flowing like melted butter at an all-night Vegas lobster buffet.
“Yes.”
“Maybe the insanity is genetic.”
I reach under the kilt, knowing what I’ll find, and grab something. He sits up so fast, and so straight, that he bangs his head on the helicopter ceiling. I have a death grip on his joystick.
“That’s um, quite a hold you have on—”
“This can go two ways. That is the wonder of our world. We’re yin and yang. Good and evil. Black and white,” I shout above the noise. “Pain and pleasure.” I squeeze, giving him a taste of both. “Love and hate. I know you hate my mother right now. A part of me does, too. But the constant negative comments about her are getting old.” I give him an icy glare. He gives me a smoldering look.
I may be breathing hard against his lapels, and my hand may cover his throbbing manhood, heat pouring off it like a glowing fireplace poker, but emotionally, I feel like the San Andreas fault just cracked open between us.
Divided by my mother.
The chopper dips suddenly and I roll into Declan, my seat belt harness tangling with the arm that’s under his kilt, the pull of my kinetic readjustment making him yelp.
He takes the opportunity to reach under the tartan and clench my hand, which is not going anywhere.
“Shannon,” he says in a voice of warning. I can’t tell whether he’s turned on or in pain.
Maybe both?
“My mother shouldn’t be calling the FAA, and certainly shouldn’t sic the bloodhounds on you—”
“Reporting a lie to a federal agency is a bit more than that!”
Our first Christmas as husband and wife is going to really suck if Declan’s in federal prison. The man has a point. Mom shouldn’t have done that.
I take a deep breath through my nose, and as I’m about to speak, the air becomes a swirling mess, our descent imminent. My veil goes in my mouth, a piece hitting the back of my throat, and I gag, so overcome I let go of Declan’s joystick.
The helicopter rights itself. It’s almost like I was flying the damn bird when I was holding him.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he says coldly.
“Do what?” I know he means grab his, um, central processing unit, but...
“Grab me like that when you don’t intend to do anything about it.”
“Can’t do anything about it here!” I insist.
He stares me down. “Remember our second date?”
“You want me to stab you with an EpiPen?”
He flinches, clears his throat, and clarifies. “Third date.”
I scan my memory. Sex in a limo. Something extra in the helicopter. Ah. Yes.
That clears up my earlier confusion. He’s aroused.
All four chambers of my heart feel like they’re full of concrete.
“I’m sorry.” My hand goes to his knee. “I’ll make it up to you later.” One of the most endearing qualities in Declan is his bluntness. He has no emotional attachment to how others perceive his words. For some people, that would be a source of distress, but for Declan it’s how he functions. When he wants an emotional attachment, he seeks it out. Cultivates it. Makes it a part of his soul.
&nb
sp; The rest of the world, though?
Meh.
I don’t want to be meh to him. I stroke the soft inner thigh, the skin responding to my fingers, heavy muscles tensing.
“I’m really sorry,” I whisper.
“Shannon,” he says, his voice low and suggestive. “You don’t have to apologize for groping me. Ever.”
As he starts to say more, the pilot cuts in. Sprinkled in between unintelligible words I hear enough. The FAA has been called off. Mom’s report has been verified to be untrue.
I pat his leg, feeling him swell underneath.
As we land, I realize this adventure has only just begun.
Chapter Two
We are at a private airport I’ve never seen before. The sky is that glorious shade of blue that seems to deepen as you look up, with a smattering of clouds that draw the eye to them. It’s a perfect, idyllic July day in Massachusetts.
A great day for an outdoor wedding.
Declan and the helicopter pilot, whose name I never caught, exchange a few words in Russian before I rib my soon-to-be husband and whisper, “Would you please speak in English?”
“Why?”
“Why?”
He just stares at me with that intimidatingly blank face.
“That doesn’t work, you know,” I tell him with a pointed sneer. Or, at least, I try to sneer. I’m not so good at the sneering thing. That’s more Jessica Coffin’s area of expertise.
He doesn’t twitch a muscle. For whatever reason, he doesn’t want me to know what he and the pilot are talking about. Fine. Fine!
But this alpha-male dominant crap—you know, the stuff I fell in love with him for—is getting on my nerves.
“Declan, please,” I concede.
No change.
The exasperated hiss that comes out of me makes my body flush with fury. “It’s our wedding day. I am supposed to be kissing you at the altar right now while the minister pronounces us husband and wife. Instead, I listened to you and went along with this crazy scheme to run off to Las Vegas and leave everyone—everyone!—behind.”
Side note: I know that’s not true. The decision to ditch my mother was mutual. But right now, I have zero leverage, and he’s giving me that granite look like he’s an Easter Island statue, so I have to find some kind of vulnerability in him.
I’m saving sex for the nuclear option.
His lips purse, jaw grinding, as he finally opens his mouth and says, “No one forced you into the helicopter.”
The words feel like knife blades against my heart, scraping lightly rather than plunging straight in. He’s right. His eyes fill with a kind of measured kindness, as if he understands I’m falling apart in stages.
I am. The Russian thing isn’t helping.
“Why won’t you tell me what you’re talking about with the pilot?”
“Because it’s a surprise.”
“Not a surprise that involves swallowing, I hope?”
His sharp intake of air makes me realize what I’ve, um, hinted at.
“I meant swallowing a ring,” I clarify, clearing my throat.
Emotion finally flickers in his face.
It’s disappointment.
He can play this immutable look game for as long as he wants. Two years ago, it worked. I’ve lived with this man for nearly a year. I know him intimately now. He knows me thoroughly (though, perhaps, not as intimately as his mother’s engagement ring knows me, but let’s not go there...).
I leave.
Turning away from him and bumbling out of the helicopter in my tartan-and-white monstrosity of a gown isn’t easy, but I accomplish the near-impossible and disembark without assistance. I’m a good twenty feet toward a metal-sided building at this tiny airport before he grips my elbow.
“Shannon, stop.”
I keep walking.
“Shannon, I said stop.” His voice is an emotionless growl. He sounds like a CIA agent barking orders.
The catcalls continue, the voices more numerous.
“Why?” I continue, giving him a taste of his own medicine. I can be cool and composed. I can show no more emotion than a cucumber. I can be neutral and blank, slack and granite, a sophisticated ice queen who gives nothing away.
He stands behind me, a wall of heat pressing against my back, hands on my elbows and stopping me from proceeding. Declan leans down over my shoulder, his lips brushing against my ear, and says:
“Because part of the back of your dress is tucked into your tartan thong.”
Oh, crap.
Someone in the distance shouts a single word in Russian. I hear hoots and hollers.
Declan tenses, his fingers finding the piece of offending material that twists in my garters and G-string. Unexpectedly, he makes no suggestive moves, his fingertips nimble and purposeful, focused only on getting me into a state of full dress again.
More Russian is shouted. Shrill whistles and come-ons.
Declan practically pulses with white-hot anger.
Maybe his fluency isn’t so great to possess all the time. Especially when a bunch of Russian pilots are ogling your not-quite-wife.
“You’re not going to punch the pilot this time, are you?” I demand as I turn around, fluffing out my skirts. My legs do feel really warm suddenly. I wonder just how much skin everyone got to see.
“When have I ever punched a pilot?” he asks, his voice filled with incredulity.
Hah. Gotcha. Made him feel.
“You punched the scamming photographer at the mall when you played Santa. The Russian mobster guy.”
“He tried to pull a gun on me!”
I have to give him that.
“What did the helicopter pilot say?” I ask.
Declan gives me a dark look, his hands on my hips, encircling my waist as if doing a quality assurance check rather than displaying affection.
“You don’t want to know.”
I burst into tears.
“Oh, crap,” he mutters, pulling me to him.
“That’s my line,” I choke out.
His crotch buzzes again.
“This is not going as planned,” he murmurs in my ear.
“You had a plan for this? We just invented the idea on the fly.” I sniff against his chest, the wool making me itchy, but I don’t care. His arms muffle the sounds of the world and I want to stay here forever, pretending we didn’t just create a massive mess back at the Farmington Country Club that will chase us for decades.
Bzzzz.
Declan’s fingers shove between us, the heel of his hand digging into a spot on me that is far more sensitive than I’d have imagined it could get. I make an involuntary sound that gives him pause.
“The plane with the private bedroom better be the one that’s here,” he grouses, his breath coming out of him with a sort of angry huff that I associate with his primal possession of me. I’ve only seen it in glimpses, micro-slices of dominance that flicker when he feels a need to protect me.
I’ve never seen Declan act like this without that trigger, though. Mostly, he behaved like this very early in our relationship, when my ex-boyfriend, Steve, was still a part of my life.
I’m musing through this as I watch him, not really paying attention to his words until they hit me. “A plane with a bedroom?”
He shrugs. “You want one with a jacuzzi tub? I keep trying to convince Andrew it’s worth it, especially now that—”
“Declan!” I squeal. “I’ve been on private jets with Anterdec before,” I try to explain. We’re standing on the tarmac, a gust of wind blowing my veil into my face as a small, single-engine plane takes off. “But never one with a private bedroom.”
“We never needed one,” he says gently, pulling the lace away from my face and kissing me. Oh, his lips are so warm and soft. As his arms wrap around me, my hands splay against the fine cloth of his tuxedo jacket, palms taking in the wool weave as I move up, my fingers finding the nape of his neck and pulling him closer to me.
The whoosh of a larger
jet flying over us cracks the air in two, but we ignore it. Our inner world trumps everything else, his mouth grounding me, hands calm and in control. I don’t even have to question his love. Two years together have given me more than a glimpse into Declan’s heart and soul. From the moment we met, I knew what I felt was more than a horny-porny reaction to a hot guy in a suit.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Bzzzz.
“I’m ready to throw my phone into a running jet engine,” Declan says against my mouth, the vibration of his deep voice making me shiver.
“Better than throwing in my mother,” I joke.
His silence makes me stomach clench.
“Declan!” I say with a nudge.
He laughs, the chuckle a tactile sensation I feel through his chest. My hands are still on his neck and back, and he’s pressing his forehead against mine.
“Let’s not talk about Marie right now,” he says.
“Agreed.”
Without effort, we pivot and return to the path toward the terminal. My wedding dress has a long train, covered in silk, tartan, tulle and what feels like chain mail. Declan seems to anticipate any potential mishap I may experience, expertly shoving various pieces of fabric out of the way so I can move with freedom and grace. Who on earth thought this monstrosity of a wedding dress was a good idea for a July ceremony in Massachusetts?
Oh. Right.
She Who Must Not Be Named.
I love my mom. I do. But I don’t love what the wedding made her become.
We enter the private airport lounge, where a large, thin-screen television is bolted to the ceiling in one corner. When I was a little girl, Dad liked to bring me, Carol and Amy to the local small airport. The place had a diner in it, and we’d order French fries and strawberry milkshakes, spending an hour or two watching the planes land and take off. If we were lucky, a helicopter would come along.
Once, a really friendly pilot let us climb in his plane.
The place is nothing like that little airport. This is where millionaires and billionaires go to avoid the TSA.
The rich really do live different lives than the rest of us.
This lounge is all clean glass and smoky brown leather. If you told me that the same interior designer who decorated James McCormick’s office at Anterdec had done this job, I’d believe you.
