know now, will we? As you Americans say, sorry, Charles.”
Amusement glinted in his eyes. “Charlie.”
“Pardon?”
“The saying is, ‘Sorry, Charlie.’”
I flushed with embarrassment. I didn’t appreciate being corrected by this pompous man. I had more scathing rebuttals on the tip of my tongue, but he’d sort of taken the wind out of my sails.
I played it off with a casual shrug. “It hardly matters.”
We remained silent until the car pulled into a large clearing and onto what looked to be a small airstrip. A single plane waited on the makeshift tarmac, stairs already lowered for its passengers.
That’s when it hit me.
I was about to spend eight hours confined on a plane with this man.
Only this man.
I think I’d rather have taken my chances with the bullets.
Okay, I couldn’t figure this girl the hell out.
Shouldn’t she have gone all hysterical back there after fleeing her home, where an unknown number of gunmen had been shooting up the place? Where were the tears? Where was the fearful shrieking? Shouldn’t she be scared for her life and pummeling me with questions about what the hell was going on in Moscow?
Because I’d sure as fuck like some answers.
Instead, Lexi was smiling about a trip to Croatia.
Well, she had been. Before I’d opened my mouth and smacked that blinding smile that could light up Times Square at Christmastime right off her face. Something burned in the middle of my chest when her entire face had fallen…but I told myself it was just acid reflux. I didn’t care whether she was happy or not.
This woman was nothing more than a business transaction to me.
Just like I was nothing more than a safe haven to her. A means to an end. A temporary escape until her father could handle his shit and come take her off my hands. We might have been legally tied together, but we weren’t lovers. We weren’t confidantes. We weren’t friends.
And we’d both be wise to keep those lines firmly drawn.
As I led her onto the plane and watched her take in her new surroundings, I put every ounce of my energy into ignoring how cool under pressure she’d seemed since the moment I met her. Being forced into a marriage she didn’t want, dodging bullets, and being squired away on a private plane with a man she barely knew would have been enough to send most people into a hyperventilating nervous breakdown.
I didn’t want to like that.
Didn’t want to like the fact that she was treating the entire situation as if she were just having a bad hair day. From the first angry words she’d spewed in my direction, she’d handled every scenario with an unexpected brand of steel and sass.
And I really didn’t want to like that.
After informing the pilot we were ready to take off, I fell into one of the buttercream leather seats and loosened my tie with a heavy exhale. My eyes drifted shut as exhaustion started working its way through my tired muscles. I’d wiped the blood from my mouth and knuckles in the car, barely even feeling those small scrapes. But that son of a bitch back at the compound had gotten in one solid punch to my ribs that twinged as I attempted to get comfortable. As I’d told Lexi before, I’d had much worse than a bruised rib or two. It was just going to be bothersome for the next few days.
I heard Lexi’s quiet footsteps shuffle over to the seat across from me and settle in. I didn’t open my eyes again until we’d gone through takeoff and reached our flying altitude.
But when I opened them, I was taken aback by what I saw.
Lexi sat in her seat, ankles crossed primly, fingers fidgeting in her lap, teeth worrying her bottom lip. She looked…nervous.
That’s a first.
She hadn’t even appeared nervous when the priest had been blessing our union. She’d been spitting mad then. Even when I’d found her in the hallway as gunfire exploded around her, she’d been more alert and confused, rather than nervous. Was the enormity of how drastically her life just changed finally sinking in with her? Coming down from an intense adrenaline rush could do that to a person. I knew better than anyone what that crash felt like.
So, why on earth did I feel the compulsion to put her nerves at ease?
I didn’t have an answer to that.
But I did have alcohol.
I walked over to the sidebar where various bottles that my company distributed sat waiting. I filled a lowball