Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
I didn’t remember much about myself, but I knew, without a doubt, that I loathed husbands who ordered their wives around without any regard for their wishes. As far as I was concerned, a marriage built on obedience isn’t a marriage – it’s a prison.
“Any chance you can care deeply about trips to the Italian and French rivieras for shopping sprees?” Oliver began readying for our descent. “Because that’s a sustainable habit for us, and that way, I get to keep my aviation hobby. Win-win.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You’re horrible.”
He winked. “Sexy-horrible?”
“Horrible-horrible.”
“Just checking the temperature.” He chewed on his inner cheek, glancing at me.
“Ice cold. And about to become colder, still.”
I never used to be unpleasant for no reason. It wasn’t like I didn’t know the von Bismarcks owned a fleet of jets. Hell, Romeo’s family manufactured them – and fighter jets, and tanks, and probably freaking nuclear weapons.
Hard pills to swallow, but not ones I wouldn’t get used to.
So, why? Why was I so upset?
Because it’s not just the planes, a voice pierced through the headache. It’s the steak he served you. The seafood Dallas offered. The fight he won’t tell you about. It’s the kid you considered your own baby brother – tucked in an abandoned wing of a cold, 20,000-square-foot castle that doesn’t feel like home.
“Well, what do you want me to do?” Oliver ran his tongue over his perfect front teeth. “Stop flying airplanes?”
Yes.
But even I considered the request unreasonable. The real question was, how did the man I love care so little about the world we’d leave behind for our kids. Unless …
My heart skipped a beat. I tried to catch it with a hand to my chest. “Ollie.”
“What now?” he mumbled under his breath. Did we even get along?
“Do we plan on having kids?”
He’d escaped the question the night of the dinner.
He wouldn’t today.
Oliver shot me an unreadable look. Again, I found myself confused. We’d spoken about starting a family together since our first date. He knew where I stood. No way would we get engaged without discussing this. And if we did, he wouldn’t be swallowing a lump in his throat the size of Baylor.
“Don’t care either way.” He lifted a shoulder, not meeting my eyes. “Leaving it up to you.”
“Well, I do want them. But you know this already.”
“Good. I promise to work diligently on making it happen.”
“Don’t you care about the world you’ll be leaving behind for our kids?”
He squinted at the clouds, frowning. “Isn’t Elon colonizing Mars?”
Elon? They were on first name basis? Was he friends with the guy? Forget it. I didn’t want to know.
“And if he is?”
“We’ll buy them a few lots. They’ll be okay.”
I shook my head. “This is outrageous.”
“Hey, hey, we haven’t even looked at the price sheet, yet.”
“What are other people, who aren’t wealthy enough to buy a place on Mars, going to do?”
Oliver’s light eyes brimmed with something suspiciously close to annoyance, but he kept his voice light. “Sweetheart,
I barely care about the lives of my best friends. To care about the lives of hypothetical future strangers is a stretch.”
I pressed my lips together, stifling a scream. “I really don’t know what we found in one another.”
I would say we stuck together as childhood sweethearts, but the four-year, college-sized gap in our romance proved otherwise.
“Happy to give you a demonstration once you get your memory back,” he drawled, making a show of clicking buttons I was fifty percent sure he only clicked to distract me.
“Do you ever think about things that aren’t sex?”
“Rarely – and not voluntarily.”
“I can’t believe you’re in your thirties.”
Actually, I couldn’t believe this was the same Oliver von Bismarck I’d pined over as a child. What happened to him? But I suspected I knew.
Seb.
“Me either.” He adjusted the throttles. “Trust me.”
The engine’s soft rumble hummed in my ears, accompanied by the occasional confirmation from traffic control. Silence stretched between us. The uncomfortable, tense kind. Not the silence of well-seasoned couples.
“So …” Oliver cleared his throat, restarting the conversation out of nowhere. “I guess you won’t be attending the official grand opening of the Grand Regent’s artificial ski resort in Palm Springs?”
I whipped my head toward him, aghast. “That’s the desert.”
“Until it becomes beachfront property in thirty years.”
My jaw struggled to remain attached to its socket. “Whose idea was that?”
He pointed at himself.
“Ollie.”
“Cuddlebug.”
“Where was I when this happened?”
“Probably riding my dick. I can’t get enough of you, and you always bring me to the point of delirium.”
I groaned. “I have a feeling we’re toxic together.”
He winked. “Hell and Heaven are the same experiences in different temperatures.”
I sank into my seat, not caring that I’d turned to sulking. “What other world-crushing plans do you have that I should know about?”
He kept his eyes on the sky ahead, the flare of his nostrils the only sign he’d heard me. “None that I can think of.”