Escaping Reality (The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #1)(8)

It will stop. No more. I’m done playing friendly seatmate. There is a reason I stay away from men like Liam, men with experience and confidence. Men who make a girl who already can’t remember her name forget her name.

They do see too much. And they make everyone else see too little.

I snatch a roll from my plate that I don’t want and tear it apart, then set it back down.

Teacher. What does that even mean? And why am I making myself crazy wondering, anyway? It doesn’t matter. He’ll be out of my life in a few short, or not so short, hours. And true to that assessment, the next few minutes feel like an eternity. I tell myself the silence is good. We are slipping into a typical passenger-to-passenger travel arrangement. We don’t have to talk. It’s better this way. Talking means giving away facts I need to suppress. It’s logical. It’s right, and yet, I am so ultra-aware of Liam beside me that I can barely taste the few bites of food I force down. Any woman—heck, any human being—would be. There’s nothing more to it.

He’s gorgeously carved, like a fine work of art. That’s all it is. Isn’t it?

“You didn’t tell me why you’re going to Denver.”

The question surprises me and my fork freezes in the rice I’d been pushing around. In sixty seconds flat, I go from relieved that he has broken the silence to panicked at the idea of sharing my new lies. I’m not ready. I don’t ever want to be ready.

I cut him a sideways look and my pulse leaps when I find him watching me. I’m rattled at how easily he draws a reaction from me, and I’m almost snappy as I counter with, “Why are you headed to Denver?” And darn it, there is a tiny quaver to my voice I hope he doesn’t hear.

“So that’s how it is, is it?”

My brow furrows and I set my fork down. “What does that mean?”

“You give what you get,” he replies, and there is no mistaking the challenge etching his words.

No, I think. That’s not how it is. That’s not ever how it has been. Not in my world.

“Wouldn’t life be better if that’s how it truly was?” Another quaver ripples in the depths of my question. I really need to stop talking.

This time he sets his fork down, turning to face me more fully. “You do know that for a ‘give what you get’ philosophy to work, that someone still has to give first, right?” And there is something as intimately inappropriate to the way he looks at me, and how he says the words, as there has been when he’s touched me.

“And you want that to be me,” I state, intentionally leaving off the question mark. I try to leave out the breathless quality of my voice, too, and I fail. I don’t like that I fail. It’s another sign I have no control over myself.

Worse. I think I might like it if this virtual stranger had control over me, which tells me how emotionally on edge I really am.

“I’m in discussions to be part of a downtown Denver building project,” he surprises me by saying. Giving before he “gets”.

“What kind of building project?”

He just looks at me. So much for being done with friendly banter, I think as I cave to his silent demand I “give” a part of me. “I was laid off and my old boss got me a new job in Denver.

And before you ask, it’s nothing exciting. It’s administrative.”

He tilts his head slightly. “So you’ll be staying in Denver.”

“For a while,” I say, and the satisfaction I see in his eyes surprises and pleases me far more than it should. I ask the obvious question, telling myself it’s simply because it’s expected.

“How long will you be in Denver?”

“It all depends on whether I take on the project.” The flight attendant proves she has brilliant timing again by picking right then to take away our plates, leaving me with an incomplete answer I want completely. By the time we’ve been offered coffee and dessert that we both decline, I have no idea if he would have said more, or how to get things back on topic without seeming too interested. And I am too interested. He’s a risk. He could be a mere stranger or he could be an enemy. Worse. I’m too risky for anyone to befriend. I put them at risk, and with that blistering thought, I know there is nothing more to ask him. Nothing more to say but “have a nice life”. I cannot ever be close to anyone. No one. Ever.

I snuggle under a blanket the flight attendant has left me, and surprising me, Liam reaches into the seat pocket in front of mine and removes what looks like a sketchpad, which I hadn’t noticed until now. He pauses halfway between my seat and his own, glancing at me, and he is close, his mouth within leaning distance. It’s a great mouth, sensual and full, and I wonder what it would feel like on mine.

“If you want to sleep,” he says, “I promise to keep Godzilla at bay for you.”

He couldn’t have said anything more perfect and I know right then what it is about Liam that makes him so irresistible. Men have been scarce in my life, namely because of my fear of getting close to anyone. The few times I’ve broken that rule have not turned out well, and I admit that in a few lonely, weak moments, I’ve indulged in my share of Cinderella fantasies where my Prince Charming swoops in and makes life better. Liam is good looking, confident—he radiates control in a way my fantasy Prince Charming would. But more so, I believe Liam would fight Godzilla if he had to. Maybe not for me, but for someone he cares about.