8
DALLAS
It seemed my future husband used his mouth exclusively to chew gum and piss me off.
When he wasn’t doing the latter, he engaged in the former, content to spending the entire ride to the small airport in silence.
Fine by me.
Judging by the way he sneered at my suitcase full of Henry Plotkin hardbacks, he broke my cardinal rule: Never trust someone with poor taste in books.
Once we arrived, Romeo’s shiny Gulfstream G550 waited on the runway. We shuffled into a passenger cart, which drove us the short journey from the hangar to the tarmac.
At the plane’s stairs, he collected my small suitcase and climbed the steps, ignoring the fact that I was barefoot.
I’d get back at him.
But first, I needed to find my footing in Potomac.
I already had a plan.
I knew someone there.
Madison.
We’d never really broken off the engagement. Not officially.
This morning, my daddy had called his daddy and informed him of the chain of events (obviously omitting rather unflattering bits). The Lichts insisted they understood, promising they were still fond of me.
Madison was Romeo’s enemy.
We could get back at him together.
When I entered the plane, I was met by an array of men. We passed the cockpit, where two attractive men in their 30s discussed a Ravens draft pick just outside. The captain and the co-pilot.
In the cabin, Oliver von Bismarck lounged on a crème sofa, drinking imported beer and watching something on his phone.
His face was seraph, nearly cherubic. With a red pout and light curls twining around his ears and forehead just so.
How fitting it was that the devil was masquerading as a perfect angel.
While Romeo’s proposal was the biggest news to come out of the debutante ball, the rumor mill spun stories of Oliver getting into the skirts of at least three local divorcées.
At the same time.
Yet another tall, handsome man in the casual rich-boy uniform of ironed khakis, a dress shirt, and a fleece jacket sat behind a compact table, holding a business conversation on his phone.
He had a top-dog appeal. Of a man whose attention everyone craved when he entered a room.
“Oliver, Zach, this is my fiancée, Dallas.” Romeo made dismissive introductions, not even bothering to approach each of his friends individually. “Dallas—Oliver and Zach.”
Oliver raised his hand in a hello motion. Zach sent me a smile so impatient and impersonal you could mistake me for a maid giving him room service.
Romeo parked himself in a recliner. “Make yourself comfortable. Takeoff is in ten minutes.”
I did just that, refusing to look intimidated. It helped that there was a charcuterie board.
Rows of shortbread adorned a crystal plate beside it. I pushed the tray away. For obvious reasons, I found the treat rather off-putting these days.
“Did the shortbread offend you, Dover?” Oliver gestured to an imported snack basket in front of him. “It’s all yours.”
First Shortbread. Now Dover. Lovely.
I wanted to politely offer him the finger.
Then I spotted shrimp chips and abandoned my dignity quicker than the chick who’d turned Jesus Christ into a monkey in the Ecce Homo.
I’d emptied half the bag when Romeo’s sharp voice sliced through the silence. “Miss Townsend, are you feeding yourself or your clothes? There is a time and place for scarfing down a village’s worth of sustenance with your mouth open. I suggest you refrain from indulging your poor manners during your stay in Potomac.”
“Or what?” I punctuated my question with a chip, tossing it past my lips and grinding it between my molars as loud as humanly possible.
“Or you’ll find yourself in a miserable position under the scrutiny of the viperous DMV media.”
“I’ve already found myself in a miserable position. With you. The first time we met. In front of all of Chapel Falls.”
“As I recall, you enjoyed every second.” He slanted his head, producing a matte-black rectangular tin from his pocket.
“You must have drugged the shortbread.”
“I stand corrected. You do have a talent. Deliberate misinterpretations.”
I frowned. “When did you accuse me of not having a talent?”
Oliver threw his head back and laughed. “This is fantastic. Turns out Bruce won’t have to kill you to land your job, after all. Your wife will do the job for him.”
Bruce?
Swapping notes with the man who wanted to kill my future husband seemed like a swell idea, but before I could request a last name, they moved on to discussing stocks.
With that, I pressed the chip bag to my lips and tilted my head back, finishing it down to the last crumb.
Romeo unwrapped a new pack of gum and transferred each cube into his tin container with deft fingers, forming a perfect, straight row. Then he offered a piece to each of his friends, forgetting me.
And I was the one with poor manners?
I glared out the window, trying to find some silver lining to my situation.
Anything.
First, we’d make beautiful babies. No way anything that came from his sperm and my eggs could be anything less than aesthetic perfection.
Second, from what I’d gathered, neither Romeo nor I cursed. Our child would exit the womb speaking like a fourteenth-century duke, hopefully sans the misogyny.
And third…there was no third.
Lord, even the second kind of sucked.
I slumped in my seat, depressed.
After takeoff, Zach spoke to me first. Romeo appeared to be typing emails on his phone, and Oliver’s snores drifted from the couch.
“You’re not suicidal, are you?” He didn’t seem like he genuinely cared, but the fact that he’d asked made me want to sag with relief.
At least someone recognized the horridness of my situation.
I shrugged. “Murderous, more like. Why should I be punished for Romeo’s bad behavior?”
“Potomac is nice.”
I shot him a glare. “What’s so nice about it?”
“Its proximity to New York, mostly.”
That earned him a chuckle.
Why couldn’t Zach force me into marriage?
And what was it about tall, dark, and handsome men with the emotional capacity of an ingrown toenail?
“Don’t encourage her, Zach,” Romeo warned. “Once she starts talking, it’s impossible to stop her.”
Since my future husband was dead set against having me around, I got up and slipped into the cockpit. I’d always wanted to visit one. Growing up, my parents thought it uncouth to peek inside just because we always flew first class.