He leaned in close. “What if I want to fuck you in the morning?”

“We’ll just have to see if I let you,” she said.

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Was it tough to get away from the office at the last minute?” she asked, shifting gears.

He shook his head. “Not when you run the company,” he said, flashing her a confident grin.

She rolled her eyes.

“Besides, I was supposed to be away this week in California anyway.”

“I’m sure you’ll be working the whole time too in Paris.”

“Not while I’m fucking you.”

“You have a one-track mind, Jack Sullivan.”

“No, it’s two tracks. Fucking you, and thinking about fucking you.”

“You know that only makes me want to tease you this whole flight,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Sort of like what you said to me the night we met.”

“Payback is a bitch,” he said, grabbing her shoulder and planting a quick kiss on her delicious lips that tasted of the champagne the flight attendants had handed out in the first-class cabin during boarding. Surely, they wouldn’t be the only couple locking lips on this flight. The cabin appeared rife with lovers, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, and of course, solo businessmen, and women, too. Even though he’d only had a day’s notice, he’d snagged the last seat in first class, and the airline had found two first class seats together. Being next to her for a seven-hour flight and unable to touch her the way he wanted was hell, but he’d happily suffer that kind of torture. He found he preferred the time with her to the time without her.

“But to answer your question, no, it wasn’t that hard to get away. My sister pretty much pushed me out the door.”

“She knows about us, right?”

He nodded. “She wants me to date again,” he said, the words coming out easily. Everything was becoming increasingly easy to say to her. Maybe it was her warmth, her lack of judgment, her kindness that made talking to her simple. Even about things he didn’t usually share.

“Because of Aubrey?”

Like this topic. “Yeah.”

“I think that’s common with widowers. The family always wants to set the man up with a new woman not too long after and vice versa. There’s a whole subset of the romance novel genre with widower heroes.”

He cringed inside, gritting his teeth. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so easy when he hadn’t come clean with all the details. When she still operated under the illusion the rest of the world had about him. “Yup. I know all about that.”

“Remember when you told me at dinner that you don’t really miss her anymore? Is that why you came to me in the first place? To be able to move on and let go of all that missing?” she asked, her voice quiet to keep the conversation private. The low hum of the airplane flying through the night was like a shield; their words were just for them.