Excerpt:
“Excuse me,” Melinda said, coming to stand in the doorway. “We will be taking off shortly. Please buckle your seat belts.”
Gunnar shrugged out of his black cashmere coat and handed it to Melinda, who stood beside my seat waiting for me to shrug out of my jacket. And for a moment—a split second—I was the naked girl on the bed. Rejected and vulnerable and so embarrassed by her body. But I felt Gunnar’s eyes on me and I wouldn’t admit that he’d hurt me. Not for anything.
Not even the throne.
And fuck that guy. I was a goddess.
I stood and took off my coat, revealing the black pencil skirt and red silk shell I wore beneath it. It was rumpled and a little sweaty.
But there were more important things to worry about.
I took off the fur hat and handed it to Melinda before sitting back down.
Crossing my legs at the knee, my silk stockings whispered against each other.
“What were you going to ask?” I lifted my latte and took a sip, arching my eyebrows at him over the cup.
He, however was staring at me, mouth slightly agape, and I felt the blush I hated rising up along the bare skin of my neck revealed by the V-neck shirt.
“Your hair,” he said.
“What?” I asked, touching my hair, the intricate braids keeping all the long blond flyaways in place.
The braids were a ridiculous throwback to my Viking heritage, but I’d been clinging to them. The people seemed to like it. I did too. It made me feel strong and powerful. Connected to the fiercest part of myself. It was a crown of sorts. One I’d made myself.
“You look good, Brenna,” he said.
“Don’t—” I bit off the word before I said anything else. And then got busy clipping on my seatbelt, smoothing down my skirt, finishing my latte. Ignoring him as best I could.
“Don’t what?”
“Lie.”
I looked out the window, away from him. Wishing he wasn’t watching me so carefully so I could press my cold hands to my hot face. How was I going to sit here for the next seven hours and not fall to pieces?
“You think I’m lying?”
“I think you’re made of lies, Gunnar.”
“That summer…?”
“I need to work,” I interrupted, completely uninterested in rehashing that summer, and pulled from my briefcase my own work. All I had to do was get him home, and then I would leave and Gunnar would go back to being a regret and slightly shameful hot memory that visited me in the darkest parts of the night.
The plane accelerated, lifting off into the night. Taking us both home.
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