Page 35 of Runaway Bride and Prejudice

And I have every intention of keeping his trust. I’ll go with Amelia and watch out for her. Be her friend, though I’m always the guy arguing against guy-girl friendships in the long-term. This is short-term. Special circumstances.

Totally fine.

But as I hang up, Amelia suddenly appears on the other side of the sliding doors. She pauses and glances at me—firstin confusion and then with a wide smile. I have to swallow hard. Wondering exactly what Coach’s trust entails. And if I’m breaking it right now staring at Amelia’s smile the way I am.

I stride through the doors, passing a few feet from where Amelia stands, still smiling up at me.

“Hey,” I say.

“Why are you here?” she asks. “Miss me already?”

Oddly, I did.

“Is the offer still open?” I ask, crossing my arms. “For the free vacation?”

Her eyes brighten. “Seriously? You want to come?”

I nod, and then she’s launching herself at me, practically hanging off my neck. “You won’t regret this,” she says.

Somehow, I think she’s wrong about that.

CHAPTER 6

Amelia

Flyingfirst class really is top-notch. But our seats and the exorbitant price Van paid to get us in them is not why we’ve had suchexcellentservice. We’ve barely taken off and the flight attendant has been hovering better than any helicopter mom at the playground.

“Are you sure you don’t need anything?”

I’m all set to tell the toothy woman looking only at Van that no, for the third time, we don’t need any overpriced airplane food or beverages. What we—okay, I—needis for her to stop trying to flirt with the famous hockey player she recognized the moment we stepped on the plane.

But she hasn’t been getting my hints. Or Van’s hints, which consist of leaning against the window pretending to be asleep. She’s the reason I took the aisle seat to begin with—to keep Van out of reach after she kept trying to help him find his clearly marked seat when we boarded.

Before I can tell her again that we don’t need anything, Van gives a dramatically loud yawn and stretches. Leaning away from the window and giving me a wink, he puts one big hand on the seat in front of me and the other behind my head until I’m caged in.

A proprietary move. One that has my stomach cartwheeling toward a cliff.

He’s close enough to give me a slight buzz from whatever cologne he’s wearing. And to get a peek at the tattoo on his chest, which is a little easier since he undid two more buttons on his dress shirt. I suppose this is his version of travel casual when you came straight from a wedding: black pants, belt, and a shirt unbuttoned halfway to his navel.

I still can’t see the whole tattoo, but now I know the lines curling up out of his shirt collar are flames. Black outlines; no color. But as for the full image, I’m still not sure.

“We’d like two glasses of champagne, please,” Van says, his eyes never leaving mine.

I normally hate when men order for a woman. If they ask first—sure. Or if they want to make a recommendation, that’s great. Maybe in those cases, a womanmightfind this romantic. But most of the time, it just comes across as the pinnacle of mansplaining. Like,I’ll help the little lady out because reading a menu is hard work and decisions such as this are best left to the men-folk.

I’m not sure why Mr. Misogyny speaks in my head with a cowboy’s drawl, but he always does. No offense to cowboys.

Drew ordered for me all the time. And what’s worse—I let him. It should have been written down in a list of red flags. Instead, it was one of many things I tried to ignore through a gritted-teeth smile.

Somewhere along the way, I told myself that love was about compromise … which I guess only applied tome, since Drewnevercompromised.

Somewhere along the way, I also told myself I was in love. An even worse mistake.

Just as I’m about to protest out of principle—even though champagne sounds perfect right now—Van’s fingers land lightly on the back of my neck. He cocks an eyebrow as he glances at me.

“Unless you want a different drink?” he says. “Maybe something harder?”

Earlier in the car, Van said he didn’t need lines to pick up women. I think he was trying to be funny, pushing a certain narrative that may not be accurate. But it’s clearly based insometruth. Because I, for one, am practically ready to eat out of Van’s hand.

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