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PROLOGUE
Thirty minutes. Only thirty minutes until we touch down. You can do this.
Darla Mortenson looked up from her wristwatch. Her feet ached as she walked down the narrow aisle of the private jet, checking to make sure everything was in order for the upcoming landing.
All good.
Save for a little catnap in Lyon, she’d been on her feet for twenty-four hours, and now the lower half of her body was bordering on numbness. Her vision crossed, and she gripped the wall, dizzy, as she sucked in recycled airplane air.
She would have sat down, taken a load off, but her employer was here now and he didn’t like that. Franklin Tate may have played the kind-hearted, generous, idiotic jokester, but he expected the people on his payroll to be at their best, even when he wasn’t.
And right now, he clearly wasn’t.
Bastard,she thought bitterly, imagining the size of the blister that was forming at that moment on her heel.
As she walked down the aisle, the bald head of the bastard came into view. She cringed at the thought of passing by him.
He’d been drunk from the moment he boarded. All the men had been. Every one of the past fifteen times she’d walked by to make sure he had everything he needed, Franklin Tate had made it a point to reach over the armrest of his plush captain’s chair and squeeze her butt.
Every. Single. Time.
It was like a game to him. Everything was. He lived to play games. She’d only worked for him a few times, but Darla knew that well.
At first, he’d pretended it was an accident. He’d given her an innocent,Who me?look. After that, though, as the squeezes got harder and harder, until the point she was sure she’d be black and blue, it became pretty hard to pass it off as a mistake, and her patience had begun to wane.
But Franklin Tate didn’t make mistakes.
Just ask him.
He’d been part of this round-the-clock jet-setting expedition since yesterday, when they’d set off from Lyon. But she’d flown with him plenty of times before. Supposedly a wealthy entrepreneur, though she really had no idea what his business was, his life was all about traveling from casino to casino with a who’s-who list of the rich and self-important, blowing obscene amounts of money.
That, and chasing after women.
So, of course, she was a little surprised that when she passed by this time, his hand didn’t snake over the armrest, ready to grab a handful.
Darla took a step backward and ventured a peek at the older man. His head had slumped against his shoulder. Out like a light.
Good. Maybe he’d stay that way for the rest of the flight.
She took that as an ideal opportunity to sweep in and clean up his space. She took the glass with his breakfast drink and carried it back to the sink. Taking the trash bag in one hand, she picked up food wrappers and used napkins that littered the area around him. Sadly, she’d just done this same task an hour ago, before he asked for his disgusting breakfast pick-me-up. God, he was a slob.
The plane dropped slightly, making her ears fill and pop. She dipped her head to look out. The deep blue Adriatic Sea sparkled beneath the clouds, and beyond that, Venice.
Venice. More wealth, glitz, and glamour for a privileged few. How fun.
Sometimes, she missed her hometown of Omaha so much, she wanted to cry.
She blinked back the childish tears that threatened to escape her eyes, blaming them instead on the haze of cigar smoke that hung in the air.
Don’t worry, another twenty-four hours and you’ll be on a plane home. You can rest the whole flight.
Then she trudged to the back of the jet, where the large conference room was. After the long, alcohol-fueled party they’d had last night, the place smelled like smoke, male sweat, cologne, and a sickening mixture of all the now-spoiled expensive appetizers they’d ordered. A couple of drunken men still slept on the floor, and there was a brown circle of vomit in the corner.
Lovely.
Sighing, she was about to step out the door when she noticed Erin at the other entrance, shaking her head in dismay.
“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” she said in a loud whisper that did nothing to make the room’s dead-to-the-world occupants stir.
