Page 1 of You Complicate Me

Chapter One

In retrospect, the Valium probably would’ve been enough to soothe Grace Montgomery’s nerves on the flight from Los Angeles to Indianapolis. The wine was most likely overkill.

As was the tequila.

It had all started innocently enough. “Take one pill an hour before the flight,” her doctor had told her, “and one an hour into the flight. You’ll be completely relaxed. Valium is magic, I swear.”

“The kind of magic that keeps planes from falling from the sky in a ball of fiery death?” Grace had asked.

Her doctor’s answering smirk should’ve been a warning. “The kind of magic that makes you not care on the way down.”

And she hadn’t. Cared, that is. The magic Valium had done its job.

Until take-off, at least.

As soon as the plane started rolling down the runway, as soon as she felt the rumbling of the engine in her belly, she started panicking. The man sitting next to her in seat C2, no doubt having noticed the white-knuckled grip she had on their adjoining armrest, had suggested a glass of wine, which she’d requested from the flight attendant as soon as she’d been allowed. But even though she gulped it down in two swallows, the wine was absolutely no match for her anxiety, because she soon started hyperventilating.

C2 had pressed an air-sickness bag into one of her hands, and a mini bottle of tequila into the other. After breathing deeply into the bag for a few moments, she’d unscrewed the tequila and downed it, too. One swallow that time.

Grace was nothing if not a quick learner.

It was then she’d made what she thought was a tragic error. She’d asked for a second bottle of tequila, which she used to wash down her second Valium. The calm that had quickly washed over her was amazing. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so relaxed.

And warm. She was suddenly really, really, warm. So it only made sense that she’d strip off her sweater, right?

Sadly, while she was shedding layers, she elbowed the guy next to her in the eye.

“Jesus Christ,” he’d muttered, holding a hand over one eye.

That was when she got her first good look at C2.

Maybe it was the Valium, or maybe it was the alcohol, but holy hell, he was beautiful.

His inky hair was long overdue for a trim and fell in messy disarray—the kind of messy disarray that hot men achieved naturally and women paid big bucks to a salon to fake—to just above the collar of his white button-down shirt. With his knife-edged cheekbones, strong jaw, and olive complexion, he looked like he could be Hugh Jackman’s younger brother.

Grace had watched Wolverine four times, and not because the storyline was stellar (or even remotely plausible, really). Her mouth immediately went dry. Other parts of her…not so much.

“I’m r-really sorry,” she whispered.

He lowered his hand and she winced at the elbow-sized welt forming under his eye. “Are you always like this on a plane?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“Fucking crazy?”

She frowned at him. “I’m a nervous flyer, okay? Lots of people are nervous flyers.”

He shook his head and ran his hand through that amazing hair of his. “This isn’t nervous. I’ve seen nervous. You’re a train wreck, lady.”

He wasn’t lying. Didn’t make his comment any less insulting. “I’m sorry if my fear of falling from the sky and plummeting to a fiery death is inconveniencing you in any way.”

One black brow winged upward. “Fear all you want. I couldn’t care less. But when you try to blind me with your fucking elbow while you strip down to your underwear…well, that’s when I start to care.”

Grace glanced down at her white layering tank top. It wasn’t see-through. Minimal cleavage was on display. Perfectly respectable. “I said I was sorry about elbowing you, okay? And I’m not in my underwear.”

His gaze dipped down. “I can tell that you’re cold.” He smirked as his eyes met hers again. “Or turned on.”

She so wasn’t cold.

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