Page 45 of The Enemy of My Enemy Is… My Fake Boyfriend?

Once we finished, Ethan sat back—finally relaxed that I was in safe hands?—a contemplative look on his face while the music changed, making me wonder at his thoughts.

"This song..." he said, not finishing his sentence.

It was an older song, one I hadn't heard in years. "What about it?"

His expression was suddenly serious, and I sensed something different from his usual flippant demeanor. "I... I..." He sighed like he had trouble voicing whatever it was that haunted him.

Was it an ex? Some long-lost love that he'd never forgotten? I knew how a song could take you back instantly to a particular moment in time, sometimes one you'd give anything to reliveorforget forever.

I put a hand on his knee and squeezed. "What is it?" Maybe I shouldn't have been so curious, something I'd been accused of in the past many times. But I just liked to know, acute curiosity something that had plagued me since childhood.

He inhaled deeply, then finally spoke. "So I don't know if you know this. But my parents died when I was little."

I nodded because I did in fact know that. "I'm so sorry."

"Thanks." He smiled just a tiny bit, then returned to his somber expression. "And my favorite thing I had left of them was a mix tape my dad made for my mom when he was trying to win her over."

Oh, that was sweet. And unexpected. I swallowed against the sudden emotions rising up in me, especially when I realized he'd used the wordhad. Like past tense. "You don't have it anymore?"

"No. It's gone." His voice was flat, completely devoid of any feeling.

"What happened to it?"

The question hung in the air between us, still ringing in my head, loud and insistent. Had I somehow crossed an invisible line by asking it? While the moment dragged out, time slowing down, the song continued to play, and I wondered if I should change it.

Beneath my palm, I could feel the tenseness that had gripped Ethan, like some internal battle waged inside him. Was it that he didn't want to confide in me? We really didn't know each other all that well yet. This whole thing was a farce after all.

Maybe he'd destroyed the tape in a fit of rage, and just didn't want to admit it to me. Or maybe it'd burned down in a fire that he'd started because he was really an arsonist. Or some other kind of psychopath. Maybe my dad was right about Ethan being shady.

Just when I was about to remove my hand from his knee, the music changed, and Ethan laid his hand down on top of mine, his muscles relaxing along with his features. And just like that, the moment was over.

"Sorry about that." His strong grip on me tightened. "There's one other thing I came over to tell you."

Okay. So we were just going to move on from the whole mix tape thing and forget it even happened? What the hell? And this was exactly why I was done with boys.

Thanks for the reminder, Ethan.

"What?" I asked.

Moving his hand away, he turned to face me fully, the sunlight coming in the window lighting up his features. Or maybe it was excitement. Ethan was difficult to read. But whatever it was, there was definitely a buzz building up between us.

"Since our soft launch was so successful, I think it's time for our hard launch. And I know just the place to do it."

Anxiety took hold in my stomach. "Where?"

"How do you feel about Paris in springtime?"

Fifteen

Ethan

I clutched the armrests, my knuckles turning white, the sound of the engines coming to life. Doing my best to breathe through it, I tried to focus on Aria squirming in her seat next to me.

Splurging for a private jet had seemed like the right thing to do, but maybe we would have been better off in a larger commercial plane. This was plenty big enough, really, but I knew I'd feel every bump and strange noise even more during this eight hour trip, the thought of hurtling through the air in a tin can 30,000 feet above the ocean making me want to vomit.

Aria bounced next to me, rocking my seat. "Oh, my God, I can't wait to go to La Belle Boulangerie. Just wait until you taste the pain au chocolat there."

"Hmm," was all I could manage to say as we started off down the runway.

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