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But how could he persuade her?
Then again, maybe that wasn’t the priority. He sat up straight. Right now, he just needed to stop her talking to the trustees. If he did that, then it would buy him some time and then he could concentrate on changing her mind.
‘If and when I choose to get married, it’s going to be to a man who...solves his own problems.’
Lily’s voice echoed inside his head, and he got to his feet. If that was what she wanted, then that was what she was going to get. But first he needed to make a phone call.
The plane was waiting on the runway, sleek and pale grey like a gull at rest.
Lily stared at it, her throat tightening.
Her father, James, was a US senator. She was proud of him. Proud of his values and his work ethic. He was not just a charismatic speaker with catchy sound bites but a doer. Unfortunately, his job was also the reason she had been pushed into the spotlight at such a young age. It hadn’t been all bad. She wasn’t shy like her brother, Lucas, and when she was very young it had been exciting to be on stage at the end of a campaign with all the balloons and the cheering.
That had all changed when certain parts of the media and the unnamed, faceless trolls had decided that she was fair game. Except it hadn’t been fair, and it hadn’t felt like a game. Some of the things that had been said and written about her still had the power to make her chest fill with pain, and a shame that was in itself shaming.
She had tried to keep a low profile, and sometimes that worked. Other times, she was criticised for being aloof and stuck up. But mostly they had lost interest in her because she was single, fully clothed, and the only people she let get close to her were her family and tried-and-tested friends.
Except Trip.
And look at how that was working out for her.
Fleeing felt like too strong a word, but she was definitely escaping from New York, and fortunately her father’s status as Secretary of State for Veteran Affairs meant she could just hop on a plane at short notice.
She was too frazzled to feel more than a pinch of guilt. She felt safe here.
Not that Trip scared her. But the idea of people thinking they were engaged was terrifying. Worse still was the prospect of anyone uncovering the truth. That Trip had needed a name, a wife to make him look like a changed man, and had thought of her because she was reliable, sensible, unadventurous.
That should have been enough for her to throw him out of her apartment.
Instead, she’d let him kiss her.
Not just let. She had kissed him back. And that scared her too. How easily she had softened beneath his mouth. How much she had wanted to be his again in that moment.
Three crew members, two women and one man, were waiting by the stairs to greet her. She smiled politely but none of their faces were familiar. Then again, it had been nearly eighteen months since she had taken the family jet anywhere.
It would be nice to be up in the air and out of reach of everybody, she thought, tossing her bag onto one of the cream leather seats and glancing round the cabin. Was it her imagination or did the cabin seem bigger than she remembered?
Had her father changed planes?
Truthfully, she had no idea, and she certainly wasn’t going to ask any of the stewards and look like some Upper East Side princess. The pilot and co-pilot chose that moment to come and introduce themselves and then it was time to fasten her seat belt. She glanced at her watch. It was a quarter to eight now, so with the time difference she should arrive in London at—
‘Good evening.’
It was a man’s voice and she glanced up, smiling automatically, expecting to see the male steward. The smile froze on her lips.
Trip was standing there, one hand wrapped over the top of the seat beside her, his muscular body filling the aisle.
She stared at him, mute with shock, the memory of that feverish kiss in her apartment swelling up inside her, making her lips tingle as if it had only just happened.
He was the epitome of casual cool in a dark blue polo shirt, pale linen trousers and loafers, clothes that would have looked unremarkable on any other man. But this was Trip. It didn’t matter what he wore. Nothing could diminish that shockingly sensual, dangerously masculine aura that had its own gravitational pulling power. He was the physical embodiment of a risk worth taking.
Or so she’d thought. But not any more.
‘This is where you say what a surprise and a pleasure it is to see me,’ he said softly.
Her throat was suddenly dry and tight, and her hands felt shaky. But, lifting her chin, she met his gaze. ‘But that would mean lying and you wouldn’t want to make me a liar, would you, Trip?’
‘Oh, there are worse things than lying.’ His voice was all smooth and silk, but there was an edge to it that made her skin tighten with warning. ‘Like leaving someone locked in your apartment.’ She saw his jaw tighten, just a little. ‘That was a mean trick, Lily.’
