My Brother's Billionaire Best Friend - Max Monroe Page 0,107

cranberry, ten percent lemon juice. Don’t try to cheapen it with less vodka, okay, sweetheart? Take care of me here.”

Jesus Christ. I guess it’s Merry Douche-mas in July to us today.

I closed my eyes again without looking over, not at all interested in the play-by-play of this self-acclaimed sweet talker.

But a female voice was not what I was expecting, especially one that vibrated in my chest like it was physically scraping against me. It had a delicate rasp, almost like she was losing her voice to sickness, but the end of every word came out soft and smooth like silk.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t have any lemon juice on board. I’d be happy to make the cranberry and vodka for you, though.”

Simple and to the point, she did her best to remain professional, and like some kind of hypnosis, it pulled my eyes open again—both of them.

Her skin was like a glass of hot chocolate, the mocha swirling smoothly over the surface. Its only imperfection was a tiny smattering of dots—brown freckles sprinkled like cinnamon across her nose—and the deep brown of her eyes worked to look warm despite the dickhead they were pointed at.

Je-sus, she’s pretty.

All of a sudden, comb-over in 2B’s use of sweetheart made a lot more sense. He was on the prowl.

“Fifty-fifty then, babe. But you should really talk to your superiors about catering to your VIP passengers more specifically,” the guy said with a derogatory undertone. Like somehow making her feel less worthy was going to get him somewhere.

I couldn’t seem to pull my eyes away from her face to look at him, but I had a feeling if I’d been able to, the smug bastard would have looked like he actually thought he could talk to her like that and get in there.

In my experience, being a condescending asshole and calling women you’d never met babe never helped in the flirting game.

She smiled minutely—an expression I could tell was forced but I suspected he couldn’t—and gave the asshole what he wanted, if only in an effort to get the fuck out of there. “No problem, sir.”

“It’s Luke,” the guy said, giving her his name but not bothering to get hers. She nodded, her creamy pink-tipped fingernails squeezing into the leather of the headrest in front of us reflexively.

Somewhere deep in my mind, I had a moment of disappointed reflection that I wouldn’t be seeing any more than necessary of the beautiful woman in front of me this flight. Lucas Dickhead Doucherson had made sure of that.

Her eyes came to me then, and I pulled my headphones off, settling them on my neck to better hear her as she spoke. “Can I get you anything, sir?”

I glanced down at my phone to check the time. It was already 7:55 p.m., and we were supposed to be wheels up in ten minutes. Anything I asked of her would take too much of her time before takeoff.

I searched out her name tag, finding it a few inches down from her shoulder, nestled in the crisp white fabric of her shirt, and then met her eyes, trying to make my face as remotely friendly as possible, and shook my head. “No thanks, Catharine. I’m good for now.”

She smiled again, this time big enough to empty the flesh from the dimples in her cheeks, and her nonverbal gratitude ran through me like a current.

God, why does her smile feel so personal?

A quick glance to Luke told me he was completely oblivious to the fact that I’d just addressed her by her actual name and received a warm smile in return.

Some fools can’t be taught.

I forced myself to put my headphones back in place and close my eyes as she walked away, but my imagination finished the image for me as clearly as though I’d actually seen it. The sway of her hips, the lines of navy that seamed together her hose along her calves, and the perfect sweep of her dark hair across her back—all of it burned on my eyelids and trickled into a special bank of memories.

A place behind a lock and key—and then a coded keypad for good measure—where I kept inappropriate things hidden away from public discovery.

That’s right, Quinn. Take that sexy little montage to the grave.

I’d done this flight—on my way home to Boone Hills—what felt like a thousand times, usually via one of the major airlines and out of Newark rather than JFK, but it was all the same. Usher herd of