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“We’ll be landing soon.” I don’t know if I imagine it, but he looks at Thayer as if he wishes he could make him disappear.
I wonder what he’d do to me if we were alone.
I am his, after all. Signed, sealed, and delivered. He’ll pay a good amount when all is said and done.
But I wonder… will it be worth it? Will I be damaged beyond repair? What will happen to us in the end?
In his eyes, I’m nothing more than a prostitute he hired. I’ve given myself away time and time again, so often that it feels sometimes as if I’ve left nothing for myself. Sometimes I wonder if the ends justify the means.
Maybe I’m not worthy of whatever I’ve imagined he feels for me.
“Nicolette.” The deep sound of his voice startles me. I give a start and look quickly to him.
Leaning over, he presses one of his warm, firm hands on my knee. “Relax. I’ve got this under control. Our bodyguards are stationed at all entrances to the airport, and my men will question those they were able to capture.”
“At the airports?”
“Yes.”
I shudder to think of what “questioning” would mean to a man like Fabien. If he killed the man who tried to hurt me—my mind comes to a screeching halt.
“Wait. Fabien. Do you know anything about the man you—” I look quickly over to Thayer.
“Go on,” Fabien says. “We don’t hide anything from each other.”
“The man who attacked me. The one that you killed. Do we know anything about who he was?”
Could it be that the attack on us was in some way reciprocity for that man’s life?
“We do. It was the first thing I had my men research. The information was easy for us to find. He was a recently divorced tourist here on business.”
“What business?”
“Tourism. He worked for a travel agency.”
“Alright. Scratch that, then.”
“We’ll find who did this, Nicolette.” He draws in a breath and blows it out. “This is what we do.”
I nod, though I don’t really understand at all. I can at least go along with this. I have a job to do, and I can do it for the money he’s promised. He wants the talisman, and I’m the means to that end. He’s obsessed with the talisman, not me, and it’s ridiculous that I’ve allowed myself to—Oh, God, I realize with a sudden surge of emotion muddled with shame. I’ve allowed myself to fall for him.
I can’t do this. The absolute worst way for me to approach this is to develop actual feelings for the man who’s bought me. We all know this, every single one of us that work together knows this, that allowing emotion to have anything to do with sex will destroy us.
I have to stop myself before I reach the point of no return.
But the way he touches me…
The way he protects me. I may be a strong woman, one who’s made it this far on her own, but I’d be lying to myself if I believed for a minute that a small part of me doesn’t want to be worthy of the protection of a man like him.
The way he thinks, the way he talks, hell, the way the man walks…
“Prepare for landing, please,” our flight attendant tells us. We sit up straight, and I look out the window.
What will meet us when we land? Whoever it is that’s after us… did they have enough time to assemble another team or whatever the hell they call it when they found we weren’t actually landing where we said we were?
I pull myself out of my brain and focus on the present.
Here to do a job.
Being paid amply for it.
It’s a simple matter of following through.
A human can do anything for a few hours or days for that kind of money, I reason. Hell, I’ve done a lot worse for a lot less.
Not that I’m proud of it.
“Nicolette?”
I look over to find Fabien staring at me. “Yes?”
A look of concern washes over him. “Are you alright?”
I brush off his worry. “Yes, of course. I was just thinking about my sister. I haven’t talked to her today and we talk every day.”
“Why don’t you call her? You should have a signal by now, and if you don’t, you can use my phone.”
Now that he is bandaged up, he’s getting dressed again.
I look down at my phone. Yep. I’ve got a signal.
I dial Savannah. She doesn’t have class for another hour, and this is a good time of day to connect.
It rings and rings and finally goes to her voicemail.
How strange.
“Hey, it’s me. Call me when you get this.”
Frowning, I send a quick text.
Hey, honey. It’s me.
No response.
Maybe she went out with friends last night. She decided to sleep in, maybe… I can't give myself any more excuses and can't worry about this right now. She’s too far away from me to check in on her.
