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She folded her arms and gave me the look.
I shrugged. “Should I go back to being blunt?”
24
ELIZABETH
Mrs. Glass wasn’t kidding about the five-star hotel. We were staying in the Emery Rose hotel, which was some new behemoth of a building with an unobstructed view of Central Park in Manhattan. Mrs. Glass, in her infinite wisdom and willingness to meddle, had booked Travis and I one room to share. I tried to force him to get his own room, but the hotel was completely booked out. I even desperately looked online for anything else nearby, but found the whole city was loaded with tourists for the start of the Christmas season. Wonderful.
“You know,” Travis said. He was lounging on our oversized bed with his hands threaded behind his head and his feet kicked out in front of him. “I have to admit you’re a confusing one. We’ve bonded. We’ve shared our secrets. We’ve slept together—wonderfully, I should add—and yet you’re still acting like this whole trip is some sort of disaster you’ve got to solve.
“Because it is,” I said. “Mrs. Glass is testing me. I know it.”
“Testing you?”
“Yes. She’s trying to find out if I’m strong enough to avoid temptation. She wants to put me in the ultimate test of my willpower and see if I come out of it in one piece.”
“Then I promise I won’t break any parts of you off. You’ll be fully intact when we get back to North Carolina.”
I shook my head. “This is a test. She’s trying to figure out if she should give the company to Rand instead when she retires.”
“Who says she’s retiring, anyway? Your whole plan is to inherit the company when she moves on, but she doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere to me. She’s only, what, like eighty?”
“Sixty-eight. And she has said it herself. She’s going to retire as soon as she’s confident she has the proper replacement ready. That’s going to be me. Even if it takes ten years.”
I paced around the room, straightening random objects that didn’t need straightened. I went to the window and started trying to scratch off a smudge with my fingernail. I could feel my chest going tight and my thoughts spiraling into anxious nonsense.
Travis slid his arms around me from the back and rested his chin on top of my head. “Hey,” he said softly. “I think you’re imagining things. Mrs. Glass likes us together. She’s not doing this as some sort of scheme. She just wants to see us give this thing a shot. This trip is a good thing. It means you don’t have to choose between your lovely, charming boyfriend and your dreams of world domination. You can have both, Lizz.”
“This would all feel a lot more sincere if your erection wasn’t pressing into my ass right now,” I said, grinning because I knew he couldn’t see my face.
“Oh,” Travis chuckled. “One of my many talents is the ability to be sincere and rock-hard all at the same time.”
I turned to look up at him. “You’re ridiculous. You realize that, right?”
“And you like it. You realize that; don’t you?”
I sighed and thumped my forehead into his chest. It felt good having him hold me like this. I could almost let my thoughts muddle enough to believe what he was telling me—that this really was okay. But it still felt like I couldn’t make myself fully let go. Accepting my feelings for Travis was like some sort of fall or a leap and no matter how much I tried to work up the courage, I could sense that I was still dangling on a precipice. I was worried there’d be no turning back, and I might regret what I was leaving behind.
Except the more time I spent with him, the crazier it felt to protect what I’d called a life before he came along.
Someone knocked at the door. “Oh, good. They’re here.” Travis gave my ass a little smack, then went to the door.
“Why am I afraid to ask?”
“Because you’re getting to know me,” he said with a grin over his shoulder. A man in the hotel uniform was waiting at the door with a stack of conspicuous crates on a dolly. Travis handed him a very large stack of money, clapped him on the shoulder, and unloaded the crates. Once the door was closed, I heard the first familiar squawk of a parrot, followed by a cat’s meow.
“Please don’t tell me there are animals in those crates.”
“There aren’t animals in these crates.” He popped the lid off one. “There’s family in these crates.”
A parrot flew out of the crates, circled once, and then dropped a bright white volley of poop on the fancy hotel carpet.
“Your family just shit on our carpet.”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling contentedly. “Reminds me of Thanksgiving with Uncle Bob.”
