I jumped as a flight attendant peered around the pod at me, smiling widely. ‘Oh, um…’

‘How about champagne?’

‘This is a work trip, though,’ I confessed, biting my lip.

‘What would your boss do?’ he asked me.

‘She’d order champagne,’ a voice sailed over from across the aisle.

I jumped again and looked over at Jake, who had sat down in his pod opposite but was still watching me with interest. I raised an eyebrow at his encouragement, which was surprising, but I also knew he was right. Hayley Harper was the champagne queen so I nodded at the flight attendant. ‘Yes, please, a glass of fizz would be lovely.’

‘You too, sir?’ he asked Jake, who thought about it for a moment.

‘Why not? We need to mark Freya’s first time here.’

‘I am a first-class virgin,’ I agreed as the flight attendant left to get our drinks.

I caught a small smile on Jake’s lips while my hand flew to my mouth that I’d made another sex comment in front of him.

‘Why do I keep embarrassing myself in front of you?’ I groaned, then my cheeks began to turn pink again. I wouldn’t need to use blusher at all when I was around Jake at this rate.

Jake looked at me for a moment then he ran a hand through his dark hair. My eyes tracked the motion involuntarily. ‘I don’t know, Freya, but if it makes you feel better, I embarrassed myself in front of thousands of people. I need this trip to work out because of it. So, don’t worry about embarrassing yourself in front of me. You don’t care what I think about you, do you?’

I stared at him. There he was, finally admitting to the fact that the article calling him out for slagging off romance books had been humiliating and damaging. And telling me that it didn’t matter I had embarrassed myself in front of him. His last words echoed though my brain as the flight attendant returned with our glasses. Did I care what he thought about me? I wanted to say no. He had gone down in my estimation after finding out he might not care about the books he’d written that had made me so happy to read, and he was so much more reserved than I was but… I wanted to impress him still. It was annoying but I couldn’t help it.

I liked that he had acknowledged he needed this trip to work out. That he needed my help. Finally, we were on a more level footing. If I ignored him being ten years older, a rich and famous author, and handsome as hell… Still, it was something and I grasped at it eagerly.