Page 29 of Edge of Desire

“Three and a half hours.”

“You know something? You make it really hard to like you.”

“I’m not asking you to like me. I’m asking you to let me save your life.”

She whipped her head around and her perfect eyes latched on to mine. I felt like she could read every thought I had about her. I watched her throat working as she swallowed.

Nodding, she said, “I’ll give you that much. For some reason I trust you. I don’t know why, but I do.”

I buckled her harness as the plane’s engines roared to life. It wasn’t long before we were airborne. She started digging through the food I’d bought and then asked for something to drink. “I’m so thirsty.”

“Here,” I said, handing her a purple Gatorade.

“Thanks.” She unscrewed the cap and guzzled the entire thing down. She made it look so good, I had to have one for myself.

“God, I’d pay good money for a toothbrush right now.”

“How about some sugar-free gum instead?”

“For real?”

I handed her a piece and felt like I’d just given her a diamond ring. She beamed.

“Tell me about yourself. You know all about me while I know nothing about you.” I didn’t want to share all the gory details, so I skirted some of them. Like my time in prison. I told her how the DEA recruited me. I’d majored in criminal justice with the intention of going to law school. That never happened. I ended up working for them straight out of college and my life went to hell right along with it. Some things had to remain private, especially in a military aircraft surrounded by soldiers, but I did tell her what I could.

After I was done, I asked about her. She thought I knew more than I did. I learned she was extremely bright, had an MBA from Harvard, and worked in finance. Like her brother, she came from big money but didn’t act it. Could’ve done anything in the world but wanted to work.

“All the guys in my family went into medicine and I wanted to do that too, but Mom wasn’t pleased and told me all she wanted was for me to find a man and get married. I think she wanted grandkids more than my happiness. My mom used to be this really cool person but lately she’s become selfish. I don’t know. Anyway, she wasn’t very helpful in deciding a career. One day I wanted to go to med school, and the next I wanted to study business. I finally landed on finance. My family is part owner of Middleton Enterprises, which is a large corporation that has its hands in just about everything. Mom wanted me to work there forever. I had different ideas.”

“Obviously, you two disagreed.”

“Yeah, you might say that. I started with Middleton Enterprises, but then left to work for another company. Then this job opened in Seattle. She was not happy about me leaving Charleston. I had to, though. I was stuck in a nightmare of a life. Especially after my former boyfriend beat me up and tried to rape me.”

My entire body tensed as she told me that story. It’s a good thing I wasn’t close to this guy, or I would’ve beat the shit out of him.

“Please don’t look at me like that. I know I’m lame, but I didn’t think he was like that.”

Jesus, did she really think she was the loser? “Avery, I’m looking at you like this because I’m angry someone would try to hurt you.”

She raised her brows and just said, “Oh.”

I was getting a variety of strange signals here.

“I think it’s wrong on every level for a man to hurt a woman.”

“Oh.” She nodded. “Well, Little Dickie got his due from Melissa.”

“Why do you call him Little Dickie?”

She let out this loud bubble of laughter and it was the greatest sound I’d ever heard. Then she giggled some more, held up her pinkie finger, and wiggled it. Next, she took her forefinger and thumb of her other hand to indicate an inch and held it against her pinkie.

“No way,” I said.

“Way. And he was wielding that thing at me or trying to anyway. It was so funny that I laughed at him, but that’s when he became violent.”

“Are you exaggerating about his size, or lack thereof?”

“No, I even have a picture. You wanna see?”

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