“Say it,” I say again firmly, staring her down.
“I–I’m bigger than my fear of flying,” she repeats back, her voice barely a whisper as the words leave her lips.
“Say it louder, Raina. I don’t quite believe you yet.”
“I’m bigger than my fear of flying,” she recites louder this time, but as she does, a single tear rolls down her cheek.
Releasing one of my hands from the hold I have on hers, I brush the tear away with my thumb, and as I do, I can feel the final stages of the plane evening out. “You did it.”
Staring at me through tear-soaked eyes, her bottom lip trembles slightly. I should let go of her hand I'm still holding and reposition myself, but there’s a current between us—thick and heady, and I can’t pull away even if I tried.
My gaze dips to her lips, and the urge to kiss her softly overcomes me so intensely, I feel my body lean forward more, but I know this is a line I can’t cross.
I shouldn’t cross.
And more importantly, I don’twantto cross.
This woman sitting next to me—this beautiful, bullheaded, bright light of a woman sitting next to me is the last person I need to bring further into my life.
So, I clear my throat and release her hand, placing it back on her own lap before I face forward in my seat and try to settle in and ignore my racing heart.
Raina Lancaster needs to stay at arm's length—exactly where I’ve always kept her.
She’s my sister's best friend.
Someone I’ve successfully avoided any sort of relationship with—friendship or otherwise—for years.
But more importantly, now she’s myclient.
Which means I have a whole fucking code of ethics to abide by.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Waking up, I roll my neck along the side of the soft pillow and yawn, trying to reacquaint myself with my surroundings. The plane’s cabin is dimmed by the type of darkness that isn’t really darkness at all, just thick plastic blocking the light. My eyelids are heavy as I blink and glance at my watch. I’ve been asleep for five hours.
Closing my eyes again, I pretend like I’ve gone back to sleep. It’s better than facing Luciano. I’m not ready. I’m still embarrassed from earlier, replaying the way he looked at me with pity in his eyes as he had to talk me off the edge of a panic attack like I was a small child who’d never been on an aircraft before.
It’s silly, really. My fear of flying is the most unnecessary fear a person could have. Statistically, more people die in car accidents than in plane crashes and the chance of a plane going down is slim, but still I’ve never been able to get past it. Usually, I combat my fear with a hefty dose of anxiety meds mixed with a lovely sleeping pill, but stupidly, I decided to go cold turkey for this morning’s flight.
Wrong decision.
The only right decision I feel like I’ve made in the last couple of weeks has been to take a damn nap after my certified freak of a meltdown.
“Morning, sunshine,” Luciano’s voice peppers over the sound of typing. Giving up the ruse, I crack an eyelid and see he’s on his computer.
“Working on the case?” I ask through a yawn, stretching and scooting more upright. As I move, something on my lap begins to slip and reflexes have me catching it.
A sharp intake of air lodges in my throat as my fingers clasp around a navy blue leather jewelry box. Luciano stops typing and turns his head toward me.
Frozen, I stare down at the box in my hand like it could cause me physical harm if I move it. Like it’s a bomb, ready to detonate with the twitch of my fingers.
Seconds turn into minutes, then into hours, and I’m being dramatic because really only a couple seconds pass by before Luciano says, “Well, open it.”
Biting the inside of my lip, I carefully open each side of the Harry Winston box to reveal the exact ring I fell in love with a few years ago and have dreamt about ever since. A gorgeous, three-carat diamond sits in a platinum setting bordered by a halo of smaller round diamonds, surrounded by an array of marquise and pear-shaped diamonds. The ring is unique and timeless—something you’d see on the finger of an old Hollywood starlet who married the love of her life at eighteen years old.
This is the type of ring you pass down through every generation of your family.
It’s certainly not a style anyone would predict I love, which is exactly why I became so enchanted by it. You’d have to really know me to know I love this ring…
