Page 63 of Covenant

I just wish I could stop thinking about him. How his lips felt against mine. Why it felt so right to push my leg between his. The sense of power I got from him watching me with desperation and need.

All in all, I’m strangely relieved when the honeymoon rolls around. Mostly because Matthias can’t escape me on a private island. Maybe spending more time with him will straighten out the fucking chaos going on in my brain. Maybe I can get some explanations as to what’s been going on with him.

Maybe I can reconcile the boy I once knew with the man he’s become.

One can only hope, anyway.

“You have a private jet? Of course you do,” I murmur as the car pulls into the airport tarmac. Rain patters on the roof of the car, matching my cynical mood. I went searching for him last night and didn’t find him. It put me on edge. Even my dreams were filled with images of him.

“I share it with my brothers,” Matthias explains as we step outside, water hitting my face immediately. It’ll be nice to be somewhere in the tropics where the sun actually shines. Perhaps that will put me in a better mood, or at least illuminate what’s going on with me and Matthias.

We never fought as kids, never got into arguments, or even disagreed.

And yet here we are—quiet, avoiding one another.

The driver pulls our bags out of the trunk and then wheels them toward the plane. My hand moves up to my face to clear the rain from it, but I don’t say anything else. I just walk beside Matthias under his umbrella, the sound of the rain hitting the nylon matching the rhythm of my heart.

Matthias looks tired today. Dark circles sit under his eyes and his hair isn’t as neatly combed as it usually is. He still looks put-together, but I can tell that something is wrong.

Something has not been right since that night. Apparently, Matthias’s way of dealing with it is to just…not.

Figures. He ghosted me over a decade ago when shit hit the fan. Why was I expecting different behavior this time?

Without a word, we walk up the stairs to the plane and are immediately greeted by a flight attendant—a beautiful woman with long black hair and bright blue eyes.

“Welcome, Mr. Buckingham and Mr. Buckingham,” she says.

Matthias nods, tucking the umbrella under a seat, and then he peers over at me when I look a little too long at her. Damn, she looks familiar. Like someone I met in another life. Or maybe we ran into one another years ago. It’s nothing more than that. I just want to know why I recognize her. And because of that, my eyes sort of seem to stick on her and hers on me. Maybe she recognizes me too.

My gaze flicks down to her name tag. Clarissa. But that doesn’t ring a bell. I honestly can’t place her.

“You can stop staring,” Matthias says hotly as he takes a seat, buckling himself in and folding his arms across his chest.

“What? I wasn’t staring,” I reply, my cheeks heating. I mean, I might have been, but it wasn’t intentional. It was just…I sigh as Clarissa interrupts my thoughts.

“Can I get you anything? Champagne? Water?” she asks.

I sit down opposite Matthias and nod. “Anything stronger than wine?”

Clarissa smiles, her eyes flashing over to Matthias, who is glaring at her. “Of course. What would you like?”

“Whiskey?”

“And you, Mr. Buckingham?”

“Water,” he says, finally looking away. He turns his gaze out the window, his jaw clicking.

When Clarissa leaves to grab our drinks, I knock his foot with mine. “What’s wrong? Seriously, what’s up with you?”

He doesn’t look at me, just pulls his foot back toward him, tucking it under his seat so as not to come into contact with me.

“Oh, come the fuck on. Are you just going to ignore me the entire honeymoon?”

He peers over at me and then back out the window, not giving me a response.

Well, fuck him then, I think as I huff in annoyance. He can pretend I don’t exist. It’s not like I’m not used to that from him. It’s fine. I don’t want to be in this stupid marriage anyway.

I wish I could believe that, but with every second that ticks by, the urge to make him talk grows stronger. When Clarissa brings me my drink a few minutes later, I gulp it down before she can even step away. It burns as it goes down and settles uneasily in my stomach.

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