Mile High (Up in the Air #2)(89)

I felt myself flush, but tried to maintain my composure. “For your information, we are living together, and I haven’t quit because I like my job. So what if he makes more money than me? I still have to work. I’m not going to sit around all day and wait for him.” I realized even as I made the argument that that would never be the case, whether I had this job or not.

I didn’t need to worry about waiting around for him all the time because I just wouldn’t do it. And he knew me well enough to know not to expect it from me, either. What would I do if I could do anything I wanted? I wondered, kind of stunned that I was even letting myself think that way.

I remembered that I was in the middle of a conversation with an obnoxious woman who seemed to think she knew something about my life. “And why on earth do you assume that you know anything at all about either of us?”

She had the nerve to give me a conspiratorial smile as she reached into her flight bag. She handed me a rolled up magazine. “I’ve been keeping up with all of the drama,” she said, as though it were an accomplishment.

I cringed as I saw the cover of the gossip mag she’d handed me. It was a picture of me wearing a transparent white slip and standing in my driveway, looking stunned and confused. You could just make out the outline of my ni**les in the thin slip. At least it wasn’t obvious that I hadn’t been wearing panties.

James was behind me in the shot, obviously striding towards me, but giving the man taking the shots a positively murderous look. He looked absolutely gorgeous wearing only his boxers, even his hair perfectly disheveled. My own hair looked like it had just been through a wind-tunnel.

When I was done working through my own feelings about the horrible pictures getting out, my mind went to James. He must know about it by now. He probably had people who brought it to his attention. If I was this upset, I knew he would be livid.

“He’s so hot. Do you have any idea how hot he is?” the strange flight attendant was asking me. I really needed to remember her name.

I gave her a very direct stare with lots of eye contact. “As a matter of fact, I know exactly how hot he is. Trust me when I say that you don’t have any idea just how hot he is.”

She made a motion as though she were swooning. “That is awesome,” she said with a sigh, and I realized for the first time that, though she didn’t have any manners at all, she meant no harm. In fact, she didn’t seem to have a malicious bone in her body as she stared at James on the cover of the magazine.

“Good for you, girl. He’s a total dreamboat.”

I threw her a bone, feeling tired but suddenly a little delirious about the fact that I might see James in just a few short hours, depending on if he was at work by the time we got there. “There’s a chance he might be picking me up from the airport. If he is, it will probably be right by the crew van pickup, so you might get a glance at him.”

She grinned at me as though I had just done her a huge favor. “That’s so awesome. He can’t possibly be that beautiful in person, though, so I’ll brace myself for disappointment.”

I had to smile back. “Actually, he’s even more gorgeous. Sometimes I call him Mr. Beautiful.”

She giggled. “You’re very pretty and all, but he can have any woman on the planet. No offense, but how did you manage to land him?”

I gave her my little shrug, strangely no longer offended by her candor. “I really have no idea.”

Our strange little talk was interrupted as the two other members of the main cabin crew came through the curtain. They were less pushy, but both of them gave me strange, probing looks, and I figured they’d heard or seen something about me.

I asked them politely if they needed any more help. When they declined, I ducked back into the cabin and found my seat beside Stephan. I lay my head back and tried my best to get a short nap in.

I awoke with a start as the plane touched down. I was so conditioned to stay awake on red-eyes that I was surprised I’d been able to sleep that long on a plane.

I sent James a text as we taxied in.

Bianca: We just landed.

He responded immediately.

James: There’s a car waiting at the curb for you.

That didn’t seem to need a response, so I put my phone away, deplaning as quickly as possibly. We were in the last row of the aircraft, though, and it was a frustratingly slow process.

We wound up walking with the crew through the airport. Stephan grabbed my small flight bag from me without a word, as was his wont.

The strange girl, who was named Marie, as I discovered when she reintroduced herself, made her way to my side as we walked. She chatted on and on about celebrity gossip.

She seemed to think that because I was in the tabloids, I would also like reading them, and be caught up on the latest drama. She seemed crestfallen when I disabused her of the notion. I really had no idea who she was talking about.

She had me half-distracted with her endless chatter as we stepped out of the sliding door and began to make our way to the pickup spot at the curb. But I wasn’t so distracted that I didn’t instantly see the tall figure step out of the limo parked just behind the crew van. Even if he hadn’t gotten out of the car, there was no way I could have missed Clark’s imposing figure waiting on the sidewalk for us. But James stepping out of the car with the warmest smile on his face made me instantly forget that there were even other people in the world, let alone that one was babbling at me.