“I enjoy the memories,” I pause, looking at him. “How about you? Did you know any of your grandparents?”
He nods. “My mother’s mother was very affectionate. She lived in San Francisco and she would make up holidays so she could buy us gifts.” He smiles fondly at the memory. “She died about a year before my mom. My dad’s parents were retired and living in France by the time I was born. We used to visit them once a year. After the accident, my grandfather wanted to move back, but he was too old, too sick, and what was he going to do with two little boys anyway? They never really knew how bad it was with my dad, thankfully, they died about three years apart, when I was a teenager.
I try to imagine Lily Swanson and Alexander Court as an old couple. I’d read stories about them when I’d been scouring newspaper archives to learn more about Landon. They’d been a lovely couple, the media darlings of their time.
The image gives way to one of Landon and me, together, old, after a fulfilled life with each other.
The thought fills me with a hunger so intense my body almost seizes.
“What are you thinking?”
I smile at him. “Nothing really. Just what a devastating older guy you’d make.”
He laughs and wiggles his eyebrows at me.
He looks so comical I start to giggle. “Come on,” I tell him, taking his hand. “Let’s go to bed.”
BACK at work, I have a busy week, with intense pitch meetings with the Gilt Review team, and racing to meet the deadline on my first article, a short commentary on misconceptions about women’s fiction. I tidy all my tasks for the week as early as I can so that I can do last minute shopping with Laurie and my mom.
On Sunday morning, Joe drives Landon and me to the airport. There is another man riding shotgun, a silent, well-built man who is obviously an extra precaution for added security. He’s been present since the middle of the week and even though Landon assured me that the extra security precaution was nothing to worry about, I still feel the ghost of Evans Sinclair and that horrible night outside the restaurant.
I slip my hand over Landon’s and raise my eyes to his. In that first week I spent with him, I’d wondered how he managed to sleep so little and yet look as refreshed and alert as he always did. It was still a mystery to me. Years of training himself to need less sleep maybe? I sigh. He’d been sleeping less and less lately. The two nights I’d succeeded in convincing him not to get up, he’d slept beside me only to wake up a few hours later after having a nightmare.
Looking at him now, he couldn’t be more different from the man I held in my arms until he went back to sleep. He looks so confident, so in control, that it’s hard for me to reconcile the two images.
His eyes meet mine. “What are you worrying about now?”
I smile. “Am I so transparent?”
“No, but I’ve made it my business to memorize your every expression.”
I flush, a smile curving my lips when his eyes linger on my face. His expression is tender and yet sensual. My mind goes to last night, and this morning, and the passionate goodbye we’d had in bed. “Stop saying lovely stuff to me. It’s hard enough to leave you as it is.”
“Then don’t go,” he says, with his own version of a pout. It should be comical, but it’s damn sexy. I sigh. The thought of being without him for almost a full week makes me feel desperate too. He can’t make it to Barbados until the day before the wedding.
“I want to turn the car around, take you somewhere, and hide you away,” Landon continues. “I love Laurie and I know she’s your family, but I’d rather steal you than lose you for a week.”
“You’re not losing me. I’m just going to be halfway across the globe,” I laugh at his big frown. “Does it help that I feel the same way you do?”
“No. That just gives me more incentive to want to steal you away.” He smiles at me. “I know I’m being selfish.”
“You’re not selfish,” I tell him. “I’ll miss you too, terribly. It’s just… however tempting it is, we can’t lock ourselves away forever.”
His eyebrow quirks and a small smile finds its way to his lips. “Why not?”
“You know why not.” We both laugh, and he raises a hand to trace his thumb across my lower lip. I see his chest rise as his eyes rove my face, as if he’s trying to memorize every feature, and I can’t help but feel elated, grateful even, for the emotions I see on his face. It mirrors what I feel. “I don’t want to go a day without you,” he murmurs, “ever. If it can be helped at all.”
Ever. My heart swells. “I love you,” I whisper. The car stops and we both look in the direction of the chartered plane where my family is already waiting. Then my eyes go to the front of the car, and where Joe and the other guy, I think his name is Collins, are seated quietly. I turn to Landon. “I need you to be safe.”
“I’ll be.”
“Landon,” I pause. “Will you at least think of talking to someone about your nightmares…?”
He is quiet, so I continue. “Whatever you’re afraid of…”
“The only thing I’m afraid of is losing you.”
I shake my head. “You won’t.”