I needed the privacy it offered. Athena might appear to have accepted her return to America, but I didn’t trust her not to kick up a fuss just for the sake of it if we flew commercial. I could imagine her screaming bloody murder as we entered the security area, yelling she’d been kidnapped if only for the sheer entertainment value of watching me being led away in handcuffs.
“Why can’t you fly commercial?”
I shook my head. “Because. I need the jet.”
“What for? You’re sticking around here for a few days. I can send it back for you if you’re that snobbish about flying commercial.”
“It’s got nothing to do with snobbery, as you well know. I’m not sticking around as long as I originally thought. I’m going to review the plans for the club with the project manager, ensure he knows the standards I expect, and then I’m heading to Paris.”
I wasn’t heading to Paris, but I had to find a way for Elliot to relinquish the jet and agree to fly commercial. Once I’d taken Athena back to America, I’d hole up in my apartment for a couple of days. He’d never know the difference.
“Paris?” His forehead wrinkled. “You never said.”
I arched an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware I had to report all my movements to you, Elliot.”
“You’re a tight-lipped bastard, Ryker. Always have been.”
“I’ll have Patricia book you a first-class seat,” I said, sending a text instructing my Executive Assistant to do just that.
“Fine,” Elliot said in his usual amiable manner. “If it means that much to you, jackass, you can have the goddamned plane.”
Elliot’s happy-go-lucky nature—unless riled—was one the many things I loved about my best friend. That wasn’t to say he was easy to push around—he wasn’t—but he chose his battles.
One fight he’d never back away from? The one that involved his baby sister.
My phone dinged with a text. I swiped the screen. “Email with booking details is on its way. You’d better get a move on. Your flight leaves in two hours.”
“Jesus, Ryker.” Elliot swigged the rest of his coffee, spilling a little. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. “A little leeway would have been appreciated. I haven’t even packed yet.”
“Then you won’t want to hang around here chatting with me, will you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Call me.”
“Yes, honey,” I replied.
He flipped me off, then left. I refilled my coffee cup, waiting for Athena to make an appearance.
Right on cue, a door creaked behind me.
“You can come out now. He’s gone.”
She sidled over, taking the same seat she’d vacated in a hurry. “Thank god he didn’t know I was here.”
“He knew someone was here.” I pointed my chin at the plates. “He assumed I’d scored last night.”
A faint flush of pink dusted her cheeks. “Oh.” She fiddled with the belt on her robe. Her eyes took on a faraway look, her gaze focused on a fixed spot out the window where the only view was the bright-blue sky and a few fluffy white clouds. “When are we flying back to the US?”
“Soon. I have some business to finish here first.”
“And what will I do while you’re attending to this business?”
I stroked my chin. “As I don’t trust you, you’re tagging along.”
She glowered, clapping her hands in sarcastic fashion. “Oh, goody. Lucky me.”
I picked up the newspaper once more, hiding a smile behind it, relieved her acid tongue had made a comeback. “Your suitcases arrived after you went to bed. I had them placed in the third bedroom. Dress appropriately. We’ll be leaving in thirty minutes.” Another reason I’d told Patricia to book Elliot on the earlier flight. He’d be long gone by the time we were ready to leave.
She gripped the top of the newspaper and wrenched downward, tearing it. “And what does sir count as appropriate?”
A surge of blood left my brain at full speed, heading directly to my groin. I bit back a groan. Athena calling me “sir” was right up there with my most coveted fantasies, even if she had laced it with barbed wit.
I folded the ruined paper and placed it on the table, then schooled my expression into a flat stare. “Covering your tits up would be a start,” I said coldly.
A flash of pain crossed her face, pain she quickly locked up tight. “Really, Ryker? Most men love my tits. It’s only you who seems to have a problem with them. Maybe you should examine that issue more closely.”
She blasted to her feet, flounced over to the spare bedroom, grabbed her suitcases, and wheeled them into her room. The door slammed behind her.
As I rubbed my sternum with a clenched fist, my eyes fell closed. It was going to be a long flight home.
6
Athena
Ryker arranged for a car to collect me from the airport on our arrival in New York and gave the driver strict instructions to deliver me straight to my parents’ house. Y’know, in case I couldn’t find my own way.
Thirteen hours we’d been holed up in a steel tube, albeit a very luxurious steel tube, the atmosphere thick and uncomfortable. Ryker had buried his head in his laptop for most of the journey while I just sat there, quietly seething and deeply hurt by his clear belief I was some slut who went around flashing my assets to all and sundry.
For Christ’s sake, I was, to all intents and purposes, still a virgin. At the age of twenty-four, I’d had sex once—once—and all because I couldn’t stomach the thought of being touched by a man who wasn’t the cruel bastard sitting opposite me wearing a deep frown of concentration on his handsome face.
Even when he’d put me in the jet-black limo, he’d barely looked at me—merely grunted, shut the door, and walked away without a backward glance to his own waiting vehicle.
The car coasted to a stop outside the mansion Elliot had purchased for my parents, and where we all still lived together. I kept expecting Elliot to get his own place, but he seemed perfectly content to remain here.
The house couldn’t be more removed from the home we’d grown up in. My parents loved it. Dad swam fifty laps every morning in the Olympic-sized swimming pool. Mom invited her friends over to the purpose-built yoga studio to contort their bodies into weird, unnatural positions.
To me, it was a monolith. If you were reading a book in the library, fetching a cup of coffee took fifteen minutes. By the time you returned to your book, the damn drink had gone cold.
I owned nothing of my own. Even the clothes on my back had been bought with the ridiculously generous allowance Elliot deposited in my bank account on a monthly basis. Despite graduating from Virginia Tech with a degree in IT—a course Elliot also funded—I had no opportunity to use it. Every time I expressed a desire to get a job, Elliot dismissed me with a casual wave.
“You don’t need to work, Athena. Go shopping, have lunch with your friends. Play bridge with Mom.”
I loved my brother more than my own life, but sometimes his attitude drove me crazy. He thought he was doing the right thing, protecting me from the shit I heard my friends moaning about on a regular basis.