Chapter 44

As Chase's private plane lifted off for Greece into the early morning sky, all Amaya wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep. Donna had a sudden change of heart and wanted a Greek wedding instead, and it wasn't a miracle what money could do with the sudden shift of mind of the bride.

However, Tommy had been misbehaving the past two nights without Chase, and she was surprised how easily he was attached to him. And her Sunday night had been spent packing, planning, dreading, and finally weeping. Weeping for a father she resented.

She was resilient, though she had always had to be, so she hid her swollen eyes behind huge Prada sunglasses and pleaded for another headache when Chase commented on them. She had, after a night of weeping, pushed away yesterday’s worries and left her son to his nanny again, which she hated but needed and was, in a bizarre way, actually glad to be getting away for a few days and leaving all her fear behind her.

They were served a sumptuous breakfast of eggs, pastries, waffles, meats, and coffee that Chase survived on, but Amaya wasn’t hungry, and Chase watched her push her food around her plate and frowned over his newspaper. "You okay?"

"I'm good, just a headache."

He sighed and noticed that there was something different about her. Oh, she was chatty and polite, but there was a vague distraction about her—a restlessness almost, something he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

Her acceptance of all his wedding plans yesterday had floored him. Well, it wasn't supposed to be easy, but then, after the meeting in Los Angeles, he ended up going home instead and tried his best to talk about what happened to them, telling him that they just had to forget what happened.

Forget my ass. He thought to himself.

They both knew it was futile.

But then, Amaya had been avoiding him, and he wondered why. Or not. It was obvious she didn't want to talk about the kiss.

But then Chase had engineered everything for this week—had been hoping the mutual attraction between them would be quickly sated, that she would be the solace that would get him through the difficult time ahead. He had been dreading the wedding for months now—back to the family home, back to his father and step-sister. Amaya was to have been his relief.

But not now, and he had only himself to blame.

Breaking hearts he could deal with.

But breaking hers—he was having serious second thoughts about that.

He saw that she wasn’t eating her food and, remembering her beverage of choice when she was flagging, ordered his crew to fetch it for her. Then he sat and watched closely as she took a grateful sip of thick, hot cappuccino.

"About our wedding, should we invite your father?" he asked her.

"No. He is sick."

"Okay, I'm not comfortable with him attending our wedding anyway, but do you have siblings?" Chase checked, watching a small furrow emerge on her brow.

"No. But Mary and Tyler could come as my family," she acknowledged briefly.

"Okay."

"About your mother?"

"I really don’t want to talk about it."

"But we have to," he insisted. He finished his breakfast and pushed his plate away. It was removed instantly, and the conversation continued when the steward discreetly disappeared. "You speak little of your personal life."

"The hours I work hardly allow for much of a personal life! I have a son, and that is all that matters," she protested.

"Amaya, for this week you are supposed to be my fiance; you have my ring; I am taking you to meet my supposed family. Surely you can see that I ought to know some of your background."

He had a point. In the weeks she had known him, she had been privy to all sorts of information about him.

His diary had noted birthdays, anniversaries, his clothing preferences for times when he needed an outfit at short notice, and even the hairdresser he used for his regular trim. She knew, because it had been her job to hire a new housekeeper for him, how he liked things done, the sort of food he kept at home—she had even downloaded some songs for him—so if she were put on the spot right now, she knew enough about Chase to bluff her way through, whereas apart from the fact her father was in a nursing home, Chase knew practically nothing about her.

That was the way she wanted it.

But, as Chase pointed out, their stories needed to be tallied. She screwed up her courage, and then suddenly he came up with a compromise.

Chase added when she didn't say anything, "Okay, I'll tell my sister you don’t like talking about it."

"About what?’ she asked, bewildered.

"Anything I don’t know the answer to," he said, pleased that he’d managed to eke out a smile from her. "I'm going to tell them that we have been seeing each other for a couple of months," Chase said, "since you came and worked for me. We have both decided that working together is too much, so you will be finishing up soon."

"To do what?"

Chase shrugged, trying to think about what his girlfriends actually did all day.

"Being my wife?"

"Oh, please, I'm not quitting my job!" Amaya snorted in dismay. "We have a deal; I'll get a promotion to the specialist department. If I’m to convincingly play the part of your devoted fiance, then at least there has to be a semblance of me in there. So…" She chewed on her lip and tried to imagine a world where this man loved her, tried for the first time to actually picture a world with herself and Chase as a couple, and glimpsed the impossible—being the sole recipient of his affection.

Yet even if it was impossible, it was still fun to pretend.

"I'm almost done with my masters. I'm capable as an IT, and you know that." Her voice faded for a moment, and she realised now why he might have disliked that side of her, the side to which she dreams more, or maybe not, but she refused to dwell on it; it was just too big to deal with right now. "And oh, and by the way..." She gave him a wry smile. "Just in case it comes up in the conversation, today’s my birthday."

Chase frowned. "I thought—"

"Today is my real birthday. I happened to have two birthdays, don't ask."

"Really?" Chase frowned. "You should have said."

"I just did."

"I am sorry to pull you away from your celebrations."

"You didn’t," Amaya answered tartly. "It’s really no big deal. I never celebrate my birthday. Since my school days with Mary in France were over, I never—I mean, sometimes for the past few years I've even forgotten it."

"And how old are you today?"

"That's rude to ask, you know." It made her blush to say it, with the information she’d so recently given him. She saw just the slight rise of one eyebrow, but thankfully he chose not to comment.

"So what about you?" she asked.

"You know all about me. Everything is in Gabby's notebook and organiser. I believe you've read it."

"Yes. But I don’t know much about your family."

"My father is a billionaire jerk, my mother is dead, and I have Donna. That's all."

"And you don’t get on?"

"I tried to be civil." He gave a tight shrug, and clearly it was Chase now who didn’t want to talk about it!

"Anything else I should know?" she pressed.

"Nothing." He shook his head. "Let’s just do what we have to, smile, enjoy, and be done with it as soon as possible. Let’s just get through it."

There was a bedroom at the rear of the plane, but for the relatively short flight to Athens, he just tipped back his seat and stretched out, and Amaya did the same. Hoping her swollen eyes had settled, she took off her glasses and laid back.

"I love these chairs," Amaya commented. "I wish I had one in my cubicle."

She squirmed in comfort as the attendant placed a soft, warm blanket over her.

"If I ever have to bribe you, I’ll remember that." Then he added, "Are you okay?" when it took her a second too long to smile.

"I’m fine. Tommy misses you a lot, and he wasn't able to sleep well; he’s been looking for you."

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to call back when he called, I was at the meeting."

"I know, I've explained it to him, and he understood."

"I like him, you know."

"He likes you too."

"I know, I'll video chat with him later."

"No need. He'll be busy at school."

"But—"

She frowned. "Chase please. Let Tommy—"

He sighed before replying with hands up in the air, "Okay, okay! Anyway, I'm worried about you."

"There is nothing to be..."

"Amaya, if you’re worried about what you told me after that kiss—" he was direct as always, "well, you don’t have to be—I’m not in anything for the long haul, and…" he gave a slightly wistful smile, "if you’ve waited this long for it to be right, I do understand."

Her eyes widened. "What do you mean? I didn't wait. I just don't have the time of the world to date someone. I'm busy being a mother!" Amaya said, because right now she wasn’t thinking clearly—Chase had wanted a fling, and actually, so now did she. She probably wasn’t very good fling material, but she’d deal with it. It really was good to just get away. This marriage was for a show. That's all.

"Then what are you so upset about?" They were lying flat, facing each other. "You look as if you’ve been crying."

"Not about you," she retorted.

"Good," Chase said, and he intended to keep it that way. "Here." He dug in his pocket, pulled out a black box, and handed it to her as if it were a sweet. "You’d better put these on—if we were going out, I would have bought you nice gifts."

"Oh hell!" Amaya gasped and held up two earrings, and a ring the huge teardrop diamonds sparkling. "They look so real."

"They are real," Chase said dryly.

"But I already have a ring, um, the one I bought when I went shopping with Tommy." She tried to sound as casual as him, but it felt strange to be holding his gift, strange to be lying beside him, and very hard not to imagine that this was...

Real.

So she thought about other things instead. Silly things—like she used to when she was a child and couldn’t sleep, not the grown-up things that she thought of now.

The steward clipped belts loosely around them, and on leaving them, he dimmed the lights. Chase closed his eyes, but smiled when she carried on talking. "Thank you."

"Welcome."

"By the way, um, you didn't have to buy too many things for my Tommy."

"Why?"

"Chase, please. I don't want him to expect too much from you. This marriage could break his heart."

"What if we make it work?"

"It won't work."

Chase turned his eyes open. "What if it’ll work for us?"

"You just said you don't like long-term relationships; you said it yourself."

"Okay, I understand," he sighed, wondering what to expect—if she’d be miserable and angry if he pursued those sorts of topics. He shook his head and removed it from his mind, she was just being Amaya.

Yet, he was glad that she was there.

He could feel the familiar knot of tension tighten in his stomach as the plane sliced through the sky—the same knot he felt every time he came home, the same sick dread he had felt coming home from boarding school on the holidays. The same sick dread he had felt every night as he had lain in bed as a child.

Chase breathed out, suddenly needing to swallow, sweat beading on his forehead as he willed sleep to come.

His father was old, weak, and dying; there was surely nothing to dread now.

And then he saw it.

Like a dog dashing into the street, his mind swerved to avoid it, but his father’s fist was there, slamming into his mother’s face, the image so violent and so real that it was as if his father’s fist had made contact with his own.

He jumped.

That horrible jump where you woke up with your heart racing—only Chase knew that he hadn’t been asleep.

"Chase?" Amaya murmured. She was almost asleep, though he could tell from her voice, and he knew because, in her right mind, Amaya would never reach out and hold his hand.

It felt like a weakness to take it.

But it helped, it actually helped.