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He starts removing his pants.
“I said no.”
He laughs. “Then, get out. No one is stopping you. I’m going to drink a couple of glasses of scotch to deal with the pain-in-the-ass wound you created in my shoulder, and then I’m going to sleep until we get to Italy. And I happen to sleep in the nude. So, either join me or get the fuck out.”
I jump off the bed, intending to get out of there as quickly as possible, but I stop at the door. I don’t know why. He’s letting me go. I can spend the rest of the flight planning what I’m going to do once we get to Italy. How I’m going to escape. But, instead of leaving, I want to stay.
He’s right in thinking that I want him to fuck me. I shouldn’t. It’s the absolutely wrong thing. I just married another man. But I can’t get the last time we were together out of my head. I can’t forget about the rope tied around my wrists. I can’t stop thinking about how he controlled me. How having no control made me want him more. I can’t stop thinking about that damn night.
It’s just because that was the night my life changed. That was the night I had to start running instead of living.
“Go, Nina,” Arlo says, standing in nothing but his underwear. “You don’t want this. Save yourself, like you promised.”
I open the door and disappear back into the main part of the plane. But I can’t get the sadness and pain that I felt from Arlo out of my head. He cares about me. I know that. It’s why he saved me. But everything else, I don’t understand.
Save myself.
That’s what Arlo wants me to do. He’s given me chance after chance tonight to save myself. I could have let Heath go in my place. I could have shot and killed Arlo twice. And I got to leave his bedroom instead of letting him fuck me. I’m still alive and unhurt. Other than ripping Heath out of my life, Arlo really hasn’t done anything that bad to me.
Save myself.
That’s what he wants. But what if, by leaving his bedroom, I just lost an opportunity to save myself? Because I think the best way to save myself is through Arlo. He’s the key to my freedom. I need to make him fall in love with me, and then he’ll save me.
15
Arlo
Nina is too easy to seduce. She’s still too obsessed after all these years. She loves Heath. That’s clear, but it would have been all too easy for me to get into her pants if I had truly wanted to last night.
She is going to fuck up all my plans before we even get home at this rate. I can’t let that happen.
I haven’t seen her in hours though. For all I know, she’s found a way to put us both out of our misery.
We are landing soon, so it’s time for me to get off my ass and go figure out what to do with her. I roll off the bed to start to get dressed. I should shower, as it would make me feel better, but I don’t. I don’t want to feel better. Maybe, if I let the pain consume me, I can do what I need to do.
I put my pants back on and then grab a clean shirt from the closet. I begin to put it on and feel the stabbing pain in my shoulder as I slip my arm in the sleeve. She got me good in the shoulder. It will take me several weeks to fully heal.
Good. I need to remember that she’s no angel. That she’s a fighter even if she is a terrible shot. I’ll have to remedy that situation soon.
I finish getting dressed, and then I step back into the main part of the airplane to face her.
I expect her to be asleep or planning her revenge on me and my family, but I find her doing neither.
She smiles at me brightly.
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” she asks with a smile still plastered on her sweet face.
“Don’t pretend that everything is okay when it isn’t. Stop smiling. You shouldn’t be smiling.”
“So, now, you get to tell me that I can’t even smile? I don’t think that’s fair.”
“Life isn’t fair. Get used to it.”
I walk toward the front of the plane to check in with the pilots to figure out when we are landing. When I return, Nina still has a bright smile on her face.
“Buckle your seatbelt. We will be landing soon.”
