Super.
Johan stopped reading and put his phone away. He hadn’t had to suffer the full indignity of social media dissection when his mother had died, and some newspapers had been respectful enough not to publish the photos of his breakdown. He wasn’t going to keep reading to see what people trying to revive his trauma would say about it.
He reached through the starched collar of his shirt for the thin, ornate ring on a chain around his neck and took a deep breath. He reminded himself that feelings were useless, unless they belonged to other people and could be protected or used to his benefit—never both.
Maybe Lukas had learned from him, a bit too well. Johan hadn’t done much regarding the upcoming referendum because there was influencing as distraction and influencing as politics, and the latter was not his domain. But the always scheming little voice in the back of his mind felt a bit of pride if his brother had known that his appearance would sway people to a yes vote. The voice of his heart, which reasoned that Johan schemed so Lukas wouldn’t have to, wasn’t quite as amused.
Nya shuffled down the aisle as he was finishing his smoothie and took her seat in the seat across from him. She kept her gaze straight ahead, sphinxlike, and the sun streaming in through the window outlined her profile and her crown of braids in gold. Her burnished silhouette was lovely, and Johan imagined capturing it on a cameo, like the old Liechtienbourger love charms—except he would never have the right to own such an object.
“Hello again, Naya,” he said, with a deferential tilt of his head. The plan was to walk the tightrope of annoying her—within reason—so that she would avoid him over the next few days, but not so much that she really hated him.
She turned her head slowly, regally.
“Yes, Jo-Jo?” There was the slightest hint of unruffled derision in her tone as she used the tabloid nickname for him.
He was both affronted and delighted.
Could she possibly understand how much he hated that name? No, but she’d assumed that he wouldn’t be pleased by it. She was soft and gentle, but not all the time, he was learning.
He fought off a smile, and cleared his throat.
“I’m going to apologize again,” he said. “There is nothing humorous about a strange man propositioning a woman trapped on a plane with him, and it’s not my style.”
He looked up at her through his lashes and grinned, a one-two combo he thought would work best on a generally reserved woman like Nya who wasn’t used to being the center of attention. Now she would blush, and stammer, and accept his apology not out of reflex but because he’d charmed her. Then he could go back to ignoring her for both of their own good.
She gazed at him steadily, but didn’t say anything for a long while. Johan’s jaw began to ache from holding his patented smile in place—it usually worked much more quickly than this.
He was off his game, indeed.
Just when the awkwardness was becoming almost intolerable, she tilted her head back and looked down her nose at him.
“Do you mean it? Or are you just trying to make yourself feel better?” Her voice was firm, with no hint of his charm having worked on her.
“Yes. I mean, no. I’m apologizing because I shouldn’t have behaved that way,” he responded, surprised to find himself flustered.
“If you take a moment to think before saying offensive things to a woman, and then don’t say them, you’ll have nothing to apologize for and she won’t have to make you feel better about it.” She tapped her index finger thoughtfully against her temple as she looked at him, then reached for a magazine on her tray table and pulling it into her lap, ignoring him.
“What?”
“Keep your apology.” She flipped the magazine open.
Oh là. He was losing his touch.
This . . . was not how things were supposed to play out. She was supposed to accept his apology with a shy smile. Maybe a giggle.
“I don’t understand,” he said, more to himself than to her.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
“Weren’t you the one who told me I shouldn’t excuse you?” she asked. That surprising anger that he’d heard before she’d cried crept into her tone. “I get it. It was a joke to you. But I’ve had some time to think and I don’t want your apology or your protection. I want to not be treated like a sex object or a . . . a sugar bubble depending on your mood.”
She turned a page decisively.
Oh là là.
Johan tore his gaze from her and tried to wrap his mind around the current situation. Nya—wallflower Nya, barely able to make eye contact Nya—had just soundly put him in his place. For a second time. She was like a feather pillow with a knife hidden in its down, and he kept managing to sit on the pointy end.
He hadn’t expected that response from her at all, which was worry enough in itself, but his reaction was even more troublesome.
He liked it. He quite liked it.
Oh là là là là.
He was prepared to sit in silence because he was supposed to be ignoring her, but then he heard a little shuddering sigh emanate from her direction and glanced across the aisle.
Her head was bowed over the magazine but the fingers of one hand tapped the pages nervously. The imperious demeanor she’d sported when putting him in his place had slipped away and she seemed smaller. Sadder.
“Ahem.” He took a moment to recalibrate his idea of her and what she might need to lift her spirits before speaking. She’d laughed a bit at the body fluids bit, though he sensed that she liked being joked with more than raunch. “What exactly is a sugar bubble, so I can avoid treating you like one?”
“Google it,” she said, though the edge of her mouth turned up just a millimeter. So she wasn’t entirely immune to his charms, then? He could work with that. All he needed was the slightest crack and he could ease his way in, turn this situation around.
Okay, maybe he was manipulative. But he didn’t like seeing Nya Jerami cry, nor did he like her sighing and troubled across the aisle from him.
He would distract himself from his worries about Lukas by helping her ease her own. That’s all this was.
He picked up his tablet and tapped at the blank screen as he pretended to do a search. “Hmm. ‘Sugar bubble is the name for a beautiful opalescent form of dark pearl, hollow with a thin shell. It appears delicate but is actually almost indestructible.’ Oh, but this sounds like something good, this sugar bubble.”
He looked over and saw her shoulders shake a bit, but her head was still down. She lifted a page of her magazine but didn’t turn it. She was listening.
“This is interesting, too. ‘Many people think the Trojan War was started over Helen of Troy, but this is a common misconception as her nickname was Sugar Bubble. The war was actually over the theft of this rare jewel, but fighting over a woman sounded more macho in the history books.’”
Her head swiveled in his direction, a smile on her face that rivaled the sunlight glowing through the window behind her. There was a repressed amusement in her tone when she spoke. “You’re lying.”
“Ouay.” The word came out deep and low because he was flirting, despite his best effort not to.
“This isn’t going to make me accept your apology,” she said cautiously, but then closed the magazine. “What else does it say?”