I glance at Ella, who’s happily munching on a piece of melon. Twelve hours on a plane with a toddler. She’s doing well now, but we’re only ten minutes in. With a kid her age, hell can break loose at any moment
“Mama!” Ella’s voice pulls me back to the present. She’s finished her fruit and is trying to unbuckle herself from the car seat.
“Hang on, baby.” I free her and lift her onto my lap. She immediately tries to grab my phone.
“No, that’s Mama’s. Here—” I pull out one of her favorite books from the diaper bag. “Let’s read this instead.”
We settle in, and I start reading about a caterpillar who eats way too much food. Ella points at the pictures and babbles along, and I try to focus on her instead of the handsome, cold billionaire in the front cabin.
An hour passes. Alana brings dinner. The salmon for Lois and me, and a perfect toddler meal for Ella with pasta, peas, and tiny pieces of chicken. Everything is delicious, of course. I’m starting to think this woman is a magician.
After dinner, Lois crashes in her seat, an eye mask on. Ella seems headed in the same direction, and I get her settled in one of the beds along the wall, but she starts getting fussy. She’s tired but too stimulated to sleep, overwhelmed by the new environment. I walk her up and down the cabin, bouncing her gently, singing softly. She’s whining, on the edge of a full meltdown.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay, baby. I know. I know it’s weird being on a plane. But you’re okay. Mama’s here.”
She buries her face in my shoulder and starts to cry in earnest.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I sigh.
I hear footsteps and look up to see Calvin standing in the doorway between cabins. He has noise-canceling headphones around his neck, and his expression is carefully neutral, but I can read the subtext.Can you please make that stop?
“Sorry,” I say over Ella’s wailing. “She’s tired. New environment. I’m working on it.”
“Right.” He nods once and disappears back to the front cabin.
A moment later, I see him through the doorway. He’s put the headphones back on and returned to his laptop.
Great. Wonderful. This is going to be a fantastic six months.
Ella finally exhausts herself into sleep about twenty minutes later. I settle her in the car seat, carefully buckling her in, and collapse into my own chair.
My movement startles Lois, who whips off her face mask, suddenly awake. “I’m up!” she shrieks, then blinks at me. “Are we there?”
“No,” I laugh, though it comes out as a half sob. “We still have about ten hours to go.”
“Oh.” She presses her hand to her racing heart. “My. I don’t like flying very much.”
“Neither does Ella. She only fell asleep because she’s so exhausted.” I glance at the front cabin, my lips pursing.
“What is it?” Lois follows my gaze.
I lower my voice. “Calvin came back here and gave me a dirty look because Ella was crying. What does he expect? Babies cry. It washisidea to bring her along.”
“He’ll adjust,” Lois says confidently. “Men like that are used to being in control. Babies are chaos. It scares them.”
I snort. “If a crying baby scares him, he’s in for a rude awakening.”
As I settle back in my seat, I can’t help but feel a pang of worry. What have I gotten myself into?
I’m about to spend half a year in the middle of nowhere with a man who can’t be bothered to make conversation, let alone handle a fussy toddler. A man who’s gorgeous but cold. Successful but isolated. Rich but apparently alone.
A man who is, in other words, exactly the type I should stay far, far away from.
It’s going to be a very long six months.
CHAPTER 4
CALVIN
