The Billionaire's Masquerade Page 0,44

she realized that she was still lying across his lap, her arms wrapped around his shoulders while her fingers were gripping his hair as if he were her lifeline.

“Sorry,” she whispered and scrambled out of his arms.

“My pleasure,” he replied and leaned back in his chair.

Rachel ignored him for the rest of the flight, uncaring that he had to adjust slightly in his seat. She was having just as much trouble getting her body back under control although her problem was a bit less obvious.

The plane flew over cities but Rachel wasn’t educated enough on topography to know where they were going. She didn’t even know if they were flying north, south or west although she was fairly certain they weren’t going east which would take them over the Atlantic. There was definitely land underneath them so that eliminated Europe.

Instead of asking, which she suspected Emerson wanted her to do, she simply pulled up her computer and worked on the report he’d asked her to create for him. She didn’t listen to him as he spoke softly on the phone although she did hear enough of his conversation to ascertain that he wasn’t speaking to another woman. Thankfully, and she didn’t question why she cared, but the topic was still business related so she was then able to tune it out and focus only on analyzing the data she’d obtained and figure out the best plan of action to recommend to him.

Not that he would agree with her, she thought with resentment. Everything she’d given him over the past month had been wrong with only moments of “non-wrongness”. At those times, he simply nodded in her direction and moved on to the next issue. No compliment, no thanks for getting the job done quickly or efficiently or accurately. Not even acknowledgement of her effort.

“Excuse me,” she said, snapping her laptop closed so she could move to the bathroom. She didn’t want him to peek at her analysis until she’d finished it so she made sure that the password was shutting out prying eyes.

When she emerged, she found Emerson standing at the front of the plane, chatting with Emily and the pilot, Darren, all three of them laughing. Unfortunately, they stopped when she came into the main section of the plane, just as had happened earlier when Emerson had been laughing with Lilly at his penthouse. She was becoming mightily sick of that reaction whenever she came around.

“We’re about to start our decent,” the pilot was saying a moment before he disappeared back into the cockpit. “We should be on the ground in less than ten minutes.”

Emerson’s eyes looked over at Rachel, evaluating how she was doing. He wished she would take a nap, get some sleep so those dark circles under her eyes would fade away. But he’d driven her too hard this past month. He just prayed that he could get her back over the next few days.

He’d been right. She could handle the life, but would she want to go back? Was she too tired to deal with working on Wall Street? Or had she loved it?

Unfortunately, he’d taught her to hide her emotions, to suppress everything but the mission, to not let anyone see any kind of weakness.

Damn if she hadn’t learned that lesson extremely well. Hell, she’d learned everything extremely well.

He watched with both concern and irritation as she slipped back into the leather seat, buckling her seatbelt as if she weren’t terrified out of her mind. He knew she hated flying and he desperately hoped that this might be their last flight. If only she would choose….

No, he could only show her. In the end, she had to make the decision herself. He suspected she was miserable, but he didn’t want to push her into something she didn’t sincerely want. No matter how much he wanted her in his life.

Ten minutes later, Darren had landed the plane smoothly and they were taxiing to the hangar. Emerson had been watching Rachel the entire time, noting her pale skin and lips, the whiteness in her knuckles. She’d done a good job of hiding it, but he knew her better, knew what to look for. The signs were subtle, but his heart still ached to hold her and help her through the landing.

He stood up, preparing to disembark. “Ready?” he asked, extending his hand towards her.

“Yes. Thank you.” She ignored his outstretched hand and moved towards the now open hatch, ignoring the look in his eyes that might