PASSION AND PRIDE
This is the wrap-up of the Billionaire’s Kiss series. If you haven’t read the previous four installments first, I highly suggest you buy THE BILLIONAIRE’S KISS Volume One, which has all four parts collected into one book. Or you can start with the individual first installment. Otherwise you won’t understand what’s going on.
Eve
Paris. The City of Lights.
I’ve never been to Paris before, but I’ve always wanted to – in a general, Hey, I’d like to go there! kind of way.
I made a wish one time when I was still in high school. I remember pitching a penny into a fountain and thinking, I want to go to Paris, but I didn’t really picture anything concrete. Maybe the Eiffel Tower. Baguettes and cheese. Wine.
You know. Paris.
I certainly didn’t envision myself on the run with a hot billionaire, chased by a serial killer, in a borrowed private plane, on a tiny airstrip, in the middle of the night, surrounded by a dozen French policemen with guns.
If I ever throw another penny in a fountain and make a wish about visiting Rome, I’m going to be a hell of a lot more specific.
2
The French-accented voice echoes over the megaphone again. “I repeat, this is the Police Nationale! You are surrounded! Exit the airplane and surrender!”
Grant jumps back from the light flooding the windows and turns to Mike. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
Mike just flew us here, from New York to France. He’s a former fighter pilot who went on combat missions in Iraq. I doubt much gets to him, but even he looks a little rattled. “What?!”
“Take off. Get us back in the air.”
After the initial burst of shock wears off, I realize it’s not so crazy an idea.
Let me rephrase that: it’s technically possible. The jet’s engines are still running. Mike never shut them off after we landed.
Definitely a crazy idea, just not… so crazy.
Mike looks stunned, then points out the obvious. “That’s the French police out there!”
I’m about to say, He’s right, Grant. Give it up – we tried, but we lost. Then he rips the rug out from under me.
“You don’t know that,” Grant says.
“Don’t know what?” Mike asks, bewildered.
“If they’re the French police or not.”
“Oh shit,” I whisper, realizing Grant is right.
“What?! They said they are!” Mike yells, gesticulating at the door to the outside.
“Back in New York, we got chased by a bunch of guys claiming to be the FBI,” I say. “But they weren’t. They were mercenaries trying to kill us.”
“Why?!”
“A serial killer’s after us.”
Mike looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “…what?!”
At first I want to ask him, What part of ‘A serial killer’s after us’ don’t you understand?
Then I realize he’s just confused by the general idea. After all, it’s not something you tend to hear in casual conversation. I’ve grown used to it over the last 48 hours, that’s all.
Which really says a lot about how messed up my life is right now.
“Those guys out there could be mercenaries, too,” Grant says. “And if they kill us, they’re definitely not going to let you walk away. We need to get this plane up in the air now.”
The megaphone erupts again. “We know you are onboard, Monsieur Carlson! You and Mademoiselle Saunders! Surrender now, you are surrounded!”
It makes my stomach knot up to hear them call me by name.
“What if they really are cops?” Mike asks.
Grant cracks a wry smile. “Then I really need to get the hell out of here.”
“Look, even if we took off, we’re not going anywhere,” Mike snaps. “We had just enough fuel to make it to Paris – that’s it.”
“You had to have some extra for emergencies.”
“Yeah, enough for big headwinds – that’s it! I can’t get you back to New York. I probably can’t even get you to London.”
Grant narrows his eyes. “Can you get us to the English Channel?”
“What?”
“The big body of water between France and – ”
“I know what the English Channel is!” Mike yells.
“Well, can you?”
“Probably – why?”
“We’re going to need to ditch the plane in the water.”
3
I stare at Grant.
I figure we’re officially in ‘Crazy Idea Territory’ now.
“WHAT?!” Mike sputters.
“It’ll be a diversion, help us get away. There are parachutes onboard, right?”
“Yes, but – ”
“You must have bailed out of fighter planes when you were a military pilot,” Grant argues. “Or trained for it, at least.”
“Yeah, but not just for the hell of it!”
“It’s not just for the hell of it. If they’re mercenaries, we’re dead.”
“And if they’re cops and we run and get caught, we’re talkin’ years in jail.”
“Not for you. I’ll say I took you hostage – you’ll get off scot-free. But if we surrender now, it’ll mean decades in prison for me,” Grant says.
“Not my fuckin’ problem.”
Grant leans forward. “A million dollars.”
Mike and I both say it at the same time: “What?!”
“You said you flew here because the price was right. That’s why you took the chance. So I’m offering you a million dollars to ditch the plane in the English Channel.”
Mike cocks his head to the side. “How do I know you’ll pay me?”
I stare at our pilot. “THAT’S your objection?!”
“You also told us that Connor said he’d trust me with his life,” Grant says. “You can trust me to pay you.”
“This is a twenty million dollar plane!” Mike exclaims.
“I’ll pay Connor back. I can afford it,” Grant says in a deadpan voice.
“This is insane,” I protest.
“Getting killed or going to prison because I don’t want to spend twenty million is a lot more insane.”
“Ten,” Mike says, a glint in his eye.
“Ten what?” I ask.
“Ten million to run and ditch,” Mike clarifies.
“WHAT?!” I yell, incredibly incensed. My life is on the line, and this guy is trying to milk Grant for more money.
Grant doesn’t seem to mind. “Two,” he counters.
“YOU’RE NEGOTIATING?!” I scream at him.
“This is business,” Grant says.
They go back and forth, rapidfire.
“Nine.”
“Three.”
“Six.”
“Four.”
“Five,” Mike offers.
“Done,” Grant says, and shakes Mike’s hand, who gets back in the cockpit. “Where are the parachutes?”
“In the rear. It’s marked on a door.”