“So you love me, huh?”
She had pulled out a magazine and was absentmindedly flipping through it. She licked her fingers and bobbed her foot as the plane taxied down the runway. Pretty soon she would have a queasy stomach and a sinus headache. Bet Ken wouldn’t be too impressed with that side of her.
“I said that, huh?”
Lana glanced at the other passengers. Luckily, nobody was paying attention to them, and the plane was too loud for people to eavesdrop anyway. “You sure did. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were stalking me. I mean, you own half of Fifth Avenue, apparently. I’m surprised you don’t have your own private plane. You must have called your buddies in the TSA to tell you how to find me. Did they hold this seat for you too?”
“I have no friends in the TSA. I bought this ticket last night. It was the only one available today.” He grimaced. “Well, that wasn’t in Coach.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“Does that mean you don’t believe me when I say that I love you?”
The magazine slipped from Lana’s fingers. “Don’t joke about things like that.”
He took her hand. The plane sped up. Anxiety took control of Lana’s brain, but she didn’t know if it was because Ken was being affectionate, or because the plane was about to take off. “I would never,” he softly said. “I’m not ready to let you go, Lana. I’m going down to Miami to talk with my accountant about breaking off on my own.”
She shuddered, like she had shuddered beneath his body the night before. “You’re going to kill me, Kenny.”
His grip on her faltered. “Come again?”
Why had she called him that? Lana was so uncomfortable that she had half a mind to tell the flight attendant to switch her seat with someone in Coach. Would he follow me back there? How much fate are we talking about here? “So… going into business for yourself?”
He caught her discomfort like the wind catches leaves. “I’m sorry, Lana. For everything.”
“Yeah, well…” She scratched her head as if that were more interesting than talking to him. “I’m over you already.”
“Are you, now?”
What was with the disbelief? Men. Really. They couldn’t handle a woman saying she wasn’t into them anymore. “Yes. We had fun this week. But now it’s time to move on.”
They pushed back into their seats as the plane ascended into the air. Lana shifted her jaw so her ears would pop faster. She was so preoccupied that she almost missed Ken reaching over and plucking her necklace charm between his fingers.
“That’s why you’re wearing this?”
Lana swallowed, hard. Yes, she was wearing the brass rabbit pendant. It matches my dress, okay? Yes, that was the reason. No others. She had no other reason to give a shit about a cheap rabbit pendant given to her by the one man she considered loving.
“What do you want from me?”
The plane had stabilized in the air by the time Ken answered. “I want you to tell me the truth, Lana.” He released the pendant. “Do you want to be with me?”
Yes. She did.
He looked good. He smelled good. He sounded good. He damn well felt good. Lana felt a mental connection with him that she had never felt with a man before. She hadn’t even thought it was possible to get along with a man like she got along with him. How many times had she dated a man only to want to verbally kill him because he made her life so inane? She couldn’t imagine that happening with Ken.
“All I’m saying,” she began, looking out the window, “is that if we try again, I’m glad it will be long distance to start with. You need to grovel a bit, Mr. Andrews.”
He pulled a pen out of his inside pocket and jotted something down on a trash piece of paper he found. Once it was slipped into her hand, Lana unfolded it and read the words, “I don’t grovel. Unless you order me to, Ms. Losers.”
She plucked his pen from his fingers and wrote something back. “You don’t know who you’re playing with. I’ve made men get so hard they would come from walking across the room to get to me.”
Ken cleared his throat and penned a response. “Pretty sure that’s happened once already. Still, I could use a thorough demonstration sometime.”