1
Belle
In life, you can’t always run from your problems. But in some rare cases, you can pack your bags and fly a few hundred miles away from them.
I tucked my carry-on a little tighter in my lap and tried to breathe normally. Just breathe, Belle.
At a wedding venue not far away, I knew there was a Chernobyl-scale Bridezilla meltdown still in progress. I also knew the wedding ceremony was being held at a beautiful little villa in the hills of Texas. I knew the color scheme was a tasteful blend of violets and ivory and that the entire ceremony had put the bride’s parents out roughly three hundred thousand dollars.
I knew all this because I was the one who planned the wedding.
Unfortunately, I was also the one who ruined it.
I caught myself not breathing again, and forced a slow, deep intake of air through my nose. I wondered if this was how it all ended. My body was going to make an executive decision to off me. The diagnosis was shame and embarrassment. The case was terminal, and the body’s prescription was to make me forget how to breathe.
I heard my phone buzz from my purse for the hundredth time in the last hour. Nope. Not answering that. It felt like Mike Tyson himself was trying to land a knockout punch on me with every missed call and every wandering thought that brought me back to a few hours ago. Was I going to do the brave thing? Take one right on the chin? No, of course not. I was going to duck, dodge, and run as fast as I could with my tail between my legs.
I was practically first in line when the call came to board the plane, and I sank into my first class seat like it was a bomb shelter—because honestly, nothing in the world sounded quite as nice right then as getting a mile above my problems and being jettisoned away.
His face made an unwelcome visit in my brain. Lance Sunderland. My childhood crush. The guy who had unknowingly friend-zoned me while he fell head over heels for another woman. The guy who didn’t realize it ripped my heart out when he asked me to plan his wedding, even though he was excited because he knew it was a big opportunity for my business.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat. Don’t do it, Belle. Think about something else.
I had a view of the airport from my window seat. I looked to my left, idly watching the small figures of people walking past the endless windows.
That was when one figure in particular caught my attention. Among the sea of shuffling, bent silhouettes, one stood out. He was tall, upright, and taking one long-legged stride after another while a small swarm half-jogged behind him.
I sat up straighter, squinting for a better view. For a confused second, I thought I saw lightning flash, but then realized people were taking pictures.
The pursued man passed out of my view just in front of the terminal where I’d boarded.
Must’ve been a celebrity, I thought. I idly wondered who it could be, and if I was going to get a nosy chance to peek at them if they boarded my plane. I’d never been the type to buy into celebrity worship, but I wasn’t above gawking if one wanted to pass by within arm’s reach. I was human, after all.
I didn’t have to wonder for long, because a mountain of a man shouldering a black backpack was walking down the aisle of first class. He had on a black baseball cap and sunglasses in that stereotypical get-up celebrities thought made them inconspicuous. Even with most of his features hidden, he was clearly drop-dead gorgeous.
He wore a few days of stubble on his chin, which was tanned and sharp. He had a muscular neck, which I decided in a split second was strangely attractive. Then again, it could’ve been the fact that his entire body was composed of lean, defined muscles stacked on top of more lean, defined muscles.
I was still totally not celebrity worshipping—because yeah, whoever this guy was, he was definitely someone famous—when he stopped right beside my seat. He reached up to shove his backpack in the compartment above me.
My eyes wandered down to where his shirt drifted up from his jeans to reveal a tantalizing little sliver of his stomach.
Boom. Apparently running away from your problems was the watered-down version of whatever medicine I needed. The direct, intravenous injectable version was dressed incognito and dripping with sex appeal about three feet from my face.
He sat down on the aisle seat directly beside me.
In some part of my brain, I realized the pilot was speaking over the intercom and there were sounds happening. Stewardesses explaining what to do in the event of a crash.
Too late. We’re already going down. Down, down, down… The cause of our unfortunate demise is about six foot, four inches, and practically carved out of granite with dirty blond, wild hair that is trying to escape his hat.
I stared at the headrest of the seat in front of me like I was making sure it wasn’t about to come alive. I had a tingling suspicion that I recognized the man sitting beside me. I’d seen him somewhere but couldn’t quite place it.
Little by little, a scent was creeping from him toward me, like some kind of pheromonal assault on my senses. My head was filled with images of men wearing flannel and doing manly things, like unscrewing light bulbs and fixing sinks. If he wanted his crack to stick out while he checked out my plumbing, I wouldn’t have even complained. He smelled real, as stupid as that sounded, even in my own head. He wasn’t wearing some fancy, “I’m a rich bastard” cologne. He didn’t smell like gold nuggets and diamond dust. He just smelled like a man, and my over-ambitious self apparently took that as some kind of vague sign that he was attainable.
I felt the systems inside me all chug to life. My stomach got warm and fuzzy. My skin tingled. I was definitely wet. Yes. I was wet because an attractive guy had sat down next to me. If there was any better sign that I’d fallen on desperate, sad times, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find it.
“May I?” he asked.
The sound of his rich voice was like a gunshot waking me from the deepest sleep of my life. My whole body twitched, and before I could figure out what he was talking about, I said, “yes,” in an embarrassingly dreamy voice.
The man hadn’t seemed to notice me, but that got him to do a slight double take as he reached to plug his headphones into the armrest between us. He paused, looking at me, then the corner of his mouth pulled up.
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry.
It’s just a man, Belle. Stop acting so starstruck. You don’t even know who he is. Besides… I stuck my hand in one of the pockets of my dress—yes, it had pockets, and they were deep enough to hold real things, not just a couple coins. There was a crumpled-up sticky note there. I’d written it right after the blow up with Lance and the wedding. I knew what it said without pulling it out to remind myself.
No more men. No dating. No. Just no.
Start working out (I’d crossed this one out a few seconds later, because I knew that wasn’t going to happen.)
Go on a diet. (This one was crossed out more vigorously than the last. I loved food too much. Sorry, not sorry.)
Never fall for someone again. It makes you stupid. Love is for stupid people. You are not a stupid people. Stupid person? Point is, no more love.
I clutched the note tight in my palm. No. I wasn’t about to fall in love with the total stranger sitting beside me, even if he was mouthwatering. But I needed to remember to not go down that fantasy lane in my head. This was a test. That’s what he was. Like some cosmic sign dropped from the heavens to give me a chance to show I could handle this.