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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LANDON
This wasn’t me.
Wasn’tlikeme, rather. I didn’t do this—didn’t get involved, didn’t open my heart. A guy in my position simply couldn’t. It came with too much risk and too little reward, two facts I’d learned long ago, even the start of my meteoric rise in business. It was much better to keep my personal life uncluttered. Besides, I had plenty of other things to occupy my time, plenty of other demands leaving little room in my life for connection or romance.
But here I was, falling for Rebecca Owens.How messed up.
I shut down my laptop, tucked it into the case, and opened the blind covering the nearby jet window. A row of puffy white clouds illuminated the brilliant blue backdrop, a promise of a sunny, beautiful day to come.
All I could think about was how each minute took me farther away from Rebecca. Rebecca who had the slightly crooked smile, Rebecca who seemed to connect with me in ways nobody else ever had. I closed my eyes and let my thoughts turn back to the moments we shared in the hotel that morning before I bundled her into the car with promises we’d see each other the following weekend. I’d laid myself bare before her, speaking words I’d never said to anyone.
And best of all, she said the same ones back to me...
A tap on my shoulder jolted me out of my daydream. I opened my eyes to find Joan standing over me, a slight frown across her brow and a cell phone in her hand, the one we kept on the plane for emergencies. Her voice was thick and needy. “I’m sorry, sir, I hate to disturb you.”
“It’s fine.” I straightened up in my seat. Maybe my no-nonsense demeanor would let her know I wasn’t interested in anything mile-high anymore.Fuck, I regret that time with her so much.“What do you need?”
“I got a message from Robert. He asked me if you’ve...well, he says he’s trying to get in touch with you.”
“Oh. Is it urgent?”
She hesitated.
“What is it?”
“He said he tried to contact you on your cell and you’re not answering?”
Her words came out as a question, and I struggled to understand why. “This couldn’t wait until we landed?”
She shook her head.
“Fine.” I extended my hand. “Give it to me.”
Joan gave me the phone and I waited until she moved into the galley before I put it up to my ear.This better be fucking nuclear.Robert knew the drill and knew I viewed my limited time on the plane as an escape from the daily grind of running Sparks Innovation. I ‘d always liked the peaceful tranquility that came from being thirty thousand miles above the ground, and I hated having it disturbed.
“What’s up?” I asked Robert when I was alone again in the main cabin.
“Hey, I hope you’re having a nice flight.”
“I am.” The tension in Robert’s voice came through the receiver, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I knew him well enough to realize he was biding time with this small talk while he figured out a way to break whatever bad news he had to give me. “What’s going on?”
“It’s...It’s...how do I say this?” He sighed. “Have you seen the news?”
“Not in the last few hours.” I relished the spotty connection that came from flying cross-country. Quiet. Smooth. Serene. More than once, I’d been told we could easily fix it, and I didn’t have to take to the skies without a decent connection. But I’d always refused to do so because I did some of my best brainstorming while I was above ten thousand feet, out of reach. “It’s been nice to be unplugged.”
“Okay... um... well...”
“Well, what?”
“It’s bad.”
“What’s bad?” Hearing the strain in Robert’s tone, my thoughts flipped through all the places this conversation might be headed—a surprise audit from the IRS, an employee arrested for a major crime, a workplace shooting, a failed chemical test... “Just tell me. You can share anything with me. You know that.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “You’re currently starring in the most popular sex tape on the Internet.”
