Page 9 of Unravel You

Derek shouted a few more instructions to his admin while he held my hand. I glanced across the courtyard to my office window. The life of a billionaire was still something I could not wrap my head around. This morning, I’d woken up thinking I would spend my day in the confinement of four walls, putting out the usual fires, attending meetings, and trying to make progress on my projects.

Instead, I was on my way to lunch at ten in morning with Derek Cole. I climbed into the back seat and let him buckle me in and adjust the headset over my ears. Flying made me nervous, but most of my jitters dissolved when he slipped his hand under my skirt a few inches, enough to reach the bare skin beyond my thigh-high stockings. He pressed his lips to mine. Tied down the way I was, all I could do was touch my palm to his freshly shaven face.

“Have you ever been to Vail?” He settled in the seat next to me and expertly worked the five-point harness around his chest. He’d flown in this chopper a million times. To him, this was nothing.

“No.” I shook my head.

Did he not realize how far apart our worlds were? To Derek, lunch in Vail was just lunch. To me, a small-town girl, it was a new place, an adventure I’d never even considered. The biggest move I’d done on my own had been from Casa Grande to Tucson for school. When I was little, Dad took us to the beach a few times. We never went anywhere that wasn’t within driving distance. Helicopters or private planes didn’t exist in my world.

“That’s my fault. I should’ve thought of this a long time ago.”

“A long time ago? We’ve been together officially for a month.”

Mom had called it “a whirlwind romance.” In the span of four weeks, Derek went from being my landlord to the man of my life. In truth, the move into his mansion hadn’t been that big of a leap since the rental Derek offered me at the beginning of the summer was nestled at the end of his property. A grin pulled at my lips at the memory of his first kiss in that cottage. I had never been kissed like that.

I sank into the plush leather as the pilot maneuvered us off the building. The courtyard and the buildings slowly disappeared beneath us.

Derek squeezed my fingers, and his deep voice boomed in my ears. “Would you like to see the house from up here?”

The house? He meant his mansion. “I would love that.”

He nodded to the pilot, and my stomach dropped from the sudden change in direction. Cool air blew in my face as we easily glided across the blue sky. The static from the headsets and the close confinement of the cockpit made this feel like Derek and I were the only two people in the world.

“There it is.” He pointed out my window.

Yeah, there it was. The pilot slowed down, then we tilted and made a wide circle around the grounds, soaring overLas Nubes.The Clouds was the name of Derek’s mansion. Our home?

The Catalina Mountains provided an incredible view from the terrace outside his room, but from up here, they were part of the whole: the fifteen-thousand-square-foot home laid out in a bigUseemed to wrap itself around the mountain. Miles of desert landscape stretched past his lush backyard, the infinity pool, the soccer field, batting cages, and the cottage at the edge of the property.

I smiled down at the small house Derek had offered me when we first met. When I was desperate to find a home for my son Max. When would he realize I didn’t deserve any of this?

He tapped the window again. “You see the part where the ravine starts?” I nodded. “That marks the end of the property line.”

“Jesus, you basically own the whole mountain.”

He chuckled. “Part of it anyway.”

“You’re doing it again.” I met his gaze.

He gave me one of his intense looks. If I hadn’t been strapped down, I would have melted into the floor. When he glanced at the pilot, static followed by a quiet pop crackled in my ear. We were alone. Or at least, our conversation was now private.

“What am I doing?”

“You’re using your billionaire wiles to get me to do what you want.”

He laughed, not at all offended by my accusation. “Is that what I was doing?” Heat flushed across my skin, and I wiggled under the harness. “I wish I’d thought to bring you on a chopper ride before. You can’t escape me here.”

The pilot veered right. Our view switched between the flat desert below us to a blue sky spotted with white fluffy clouds.

“You’re not playing fair,” I said.

“I’m okay with that.” His smile said he wasn’t going to back down until he got what he wanted.

“You really want me to go with you for a whole month?”

“I have three reasons for that. First, I have another trip to Atlanta that will require me to stay there for a month.”

A month? Two weeks had been hell. I wasn’t ready to go through that again so soon. “I could visit.”

---