Weekend Agreement (6 page)

“I have to admit it—this beats flying the Nantucket shuttle.”

Daniel had moved aside a platter of fruit and cheese, and was busy arranging the contents of his briefcase into neat little stacks. “I decided a long time ago that if I have to travel, I might as well make the experience as comfortable as possible.”

“No sense feeling nauseous and flying commercial, I suppose.”

His pointed look said he regretted sharing his secret. “Exactly.”

Peter appeared suddenly at the front of the cabin, emerging from behind the blue velvet drape that divided the cabin salon from what Charlotte guessed were the facilities and cockpit areas. “Is there anything you need, Mr. Moretti? Ma’am?”

Daniel looked in her direction, and Charlotte shook her head.

“Then we’ll be taking off as soon we have clearance. I’ll try to keep things as smooth as possible.” With a quick nod, he returned to his place behind the curtain.

“He’s very efficient,” Charlotte noted.

“He should be. I pay him enough to be. That, and discreet.”

“Do you ever worry he won’t be? Discreet, that is?”

“He knows what will happen if that’s ever the case.”

With a man as rich and powerful as Daniel, she could only imagine. “I’m sure your previous guests must appreciate the privacy.”

“Yes, they do.”

“As do you.”

He eyed her from over the page he was reading. “Yes, again.”

Charlotte settled into one of the chairs across from him and buckled her seat belt. The supple leather molded her bottom like a glove. It felt more like settling in for a nap than a plane ride. Too bad the atmosphere didn’t feel as comfortable. The cool distance from the car had boarded with them.

Playing with the strap of her belt, she said, “Peter looked surprised to see me. Was he expecting someone else?”

Daniel’s head shot up. “Like who?”

“I don’t know. Someone more glamorous, like your other dates.” If Daniel regretted not having a more high-profile date, that would certainly explain his aloof behavior.

“How would you know about my other dates?”

How indeed.
Judy’s little research file was best left unmentioned. “History books aren’t the only things I read.”

“Is that so? You didn’t strike me as the tabloid type, Professor.”

“I’ve been known to scan a few covers in the checkout line.”

“Well, in this case, he wasn’t expecting anyone. I usually fly alone.”

“What about your guests?”

“My ‘guests’ travel separately.”

Charlotte’s eyes widened. “You mean I’m the exception?”

“It didn’t make sense to take two trips under the circumstances.”

“You mean the weather.”

“Exactly.”

His answer made sense. With the hurricane bearing down, it was safer for them to make one flight across the ocean. Still, his answer surprised her. He never flew with his dates? Not ever?

…

Daniel returned to his paperwork, a convenient wall that kept Charlotte from looking too closely. Or reading too much into his admission. They were sharing a flight for exactly the reason he told her: to avoid unnecessary flying in the face of the storm. The fact that the storm had yet to hit land notwithstanding. He didn’t need her thinking his making an exception meant anything more.

He ground his teeth. For the past twenty-four hours, the muscles at the back of his neck had been knotted tight with suspicion. Why had Charlotte agreed to this trip? Was it really to regain some silly plot of land? Could a person place so much value on family history that she’d be willing to jump through hoops to preserve it? If the land truly meant that much to her, why not sell a few of those antiques cluttering her house? The heirlooms, to quote her, she would never, ever sell. Give him a break. Sounded like Vivian with her damn Ferncliff museum.

Could it be she had more in common with his mother than mere antique hording? The incident on the step certainly resembled something out of Vivian’s playbook. Maybe the land was an excuse, a means to spend time with him and earn herself a bigger prize.

The thought made his shoulders slump.

One thing was for sure. If she
was
after more—or rather after him—she’d found the right formula for arousing him. The casual outfit tossed on like she didn’t have a care, T-shirt just tight enough to show off her curves, shorts high enough to reveal a glimpse of tan, smooth thigh. All her outfits seemed to possess some element designed to entice. The green silk roadmap, yesterday’s tank top. Today it was a pair of shoes. Dainty, bright white boat shoes. She’d tucked one leg under her body, while the other swung back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth. A bright white semaphore flag daring him not to look. Not to run his hand along her shapely calf until his fingers slipped beneath the hem of her shorts.

Damn, but it was going to be a long flight.

The plane lurched forward as it began its progression toward the runway. Right on schedule, Daniel’s stomach lurched with it, this afternoon’s lunch ready to rise in his throat. He closed his eyes to block out the landscape moving next to him and focused on his breathing. Deep, controlled breaths.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Spewing his lunch all over himself was not on today’s agenda.

In. Out.

It wasn’t working. Dammit, he controlled a billion-dollar company; why was it so hard to control his stomach?

“Would crackers help?”

He opened his eyes to find that Charlotte had left her seat and was on the sofa next to him, with what looked like true concern in her eyes.

“Or some water?” she asked, nodding toward the bottles on the table. “I can pour you a glass.”

The offer caused a warm feeling to spread through him. Gratitude, he realized. Used to flying alone, he had never had anyone offer to help him before. “No, thank you. I’ll be fine as soon as we get in the air.” Hopefully. “You should buckle up, by the way. We’re going to take off.”

“You’re white as a sheet. Does this happen every time you fly?”

“Fly. Ride in the backseat of a car. Any sort of movement, unless I’m the one driving. It’s the swaying sensation that does me in.”

His stomach rose in his throat again. Quickly he closed his eyes. “Silly, huh?” he said, swallowing it down. “A grown man getting sick to his stomach at the drop of a hat.”

“What’s silly about it? When I was a teenager, my friend and I snuck into her mom’s liquor cabinet and drank Bloody Marys till we got sick. To this day, I can’t smell tomato juice without gagging.”

Daniel felt himself turning green. “Could we not mention gagging?”

“Sorry. My point is we’re only human. There are some things we can’t control, our bodies being one of them.”

“I refuse to believe that.” He swiveled in his seat to face her, using his hand to shield the view. “All it takes is a little mind over matter. People do it all the time when conquering phobias.”

“A phobia is psychological–not quite the same thing. Nausea is a physical reaction.”

Reaching behind him, she pulled the shade. Again, he felt the warm rush of gratitude. “Is it? Or have I mentally painted myself in a sick corner? And by the way, just because something’s physical, doesn’t mean you can’t will it away. Take all those stories of people willing themselves into remission. You going to tell me that’s not controlling your body?”

“No, that’s the power of positive thinking combined with science. Trust me,” she said, helping herself to a water cracker, “you can’t control everything.”

“Try me.”

She laughed. “You would be that arrogant.”

“A point, I thought, we already established,” Daniel said. He leaned forward, his stomach woozy but better. Proving his point. He could control his body. “Tell you what, I dare you to prove me wrong.”

Her eyebrows arched, widening her green eyes. “Is that a challenge?”

“Name something that a person can’t possibly control in some form or fashion.”

“All right.” She bit into her cracker. “Hunger. You can’t control when you get hungry.”

“Not true. You can always trick your body into thinking it’s full. Dieters do it all the time.”

She frowned, her pink lips jutting in a pout. Quite an attractive pout, too. Daniel could almost see the gears turning in her head as she tried to think of a better example. He had no doubt that she’d do her best to stump him. This was an interesting change of pace, having a companion who was mentally stimulating.

He saw her shoulders square, indicating she’d come up with one. “Emotional reactions.”

“What about them?”

“You’re walking along a dark street late at night, and you hear footsteps behind you. You can’t help but feel a little nervous.”

“Ahh, but you can get calm by taking a closer look at the situation and reminding yourself it’s simply your overactive imagination making you anxious. Face it, Professor, there’s nothing a person can’t control with a little rational thinking.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. In fact, I pride myself on it.”

“Yet you can’t control your stomach.”

Thank you for pointing out my one failure.
“Give me time; I will.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“Not an option.”

A grinding noise filled the cabin—the wheels being raised. They’d taken off and his stomach barely noticed. He smiled triumphantly. “We’re in the air. I think that proves my point.”

“All that proves is you were distracted,” Charlotte countered.

“That’s not a method of control?” Obviously, she wasn’t ready to admit defeat.

“No, distraction is distraction.” She swiveled so she could face him, tucking one long leg under her like before. “Okay, here’s one. Desire.”

Unbidden, Daniel’s gaze darted to her legs, and that bewitching white pendulum of a shoe. “I thought we determined that physical reactions are controllable.” Practicing what he was preaching, he forced his gaze back to her face. “Attraction is definitely physical.” And could be fought.

“Attraction, yes, but I said desire. Want.” She leaned forward, the emeralds in her eyes sparkling like a victor about to deliver the deciding blow. “Love.”

A funny ache struck him square in the chest. “Love?” he repeated, just to make sure he heard correctly.

“Yes. We fall in love when we’re not expecting to; we fall in love with people we shouldn’t. People fall in love with us. All whether we want it to happen or not, making the emotion completely unpredictable and out of our control.”

She folded her arms across her chest, victorious. “Not even you can control that, Mr. Moretti.”

Don’t be so sure.
A sour taste had risen in his mouth, and he was fairly certain it wasn’t from his stomach. “But you can learn to live without it.”

Suddenly, their conversation wasn’t so entertaining. Or distracting. He sat back against the sofa, trying hard not to look at the woman sitting next to him. Love was something he’d long ago given up thinking about or expecting. At least unconditional love. That fantasy died a long time ago—if it ever existed.

He lifted the window shade. In the distance, he saw Plymouth Harbor as they turned to cross the Cape. It was ironic that the topic would turn to love on a trip to Ferncliff Manor. Or was it? The sour taste returned. “Why are you on this trip?” he asked, as much to the window as to her.

“You know why. You made me.”

Right—he was the bad guy in this. She was simply preserving her precious family legacy from being razed to the ground. “It’s all because of the farm? There’s no other reason?”

“Should there be?”

“You tell me, Professor. You’re jumping through an awful lot of hoops for a piece of land.”

He heard her sigh. “You sound like Judy. She said the same thing. Problem is, the farm is a lot more than land to me.”

“It’s part of your family legacy. You told me.”

“More than that. It’s… Do you remember when I said I believed history gave us context?”

“Yes.”

“Craymore Farm is my context. See, it’s just my brother and me now, and as you probably guessed, we’re not very close.”

So he gathered, from the way he sold the farm out from under her.

Charlotte was fiddling with the strap of her seat belt. The nervousness of her actions made her seem younger, more innocent, and he felt a pang of empathy he didn’t know he had. “I’m not close to my family either,” he remarked.

“Really?” She looked up and he saw on her face all the feelings he fought to keep at bay. A strange sense of connection seemed to wind itself around them. He felt understood. It couldn’t be real. No one understood him.

He searched her face, looking for a sign, any sign, that the soulfulness in her eyes was manufactured. But he only saw a pair of brilliant emeralds and soft pink lips. And skin so smooth it begged to be touched.