The Billionaire's Allure (The Silver Cross Club Book 5) (11 page)

Max shook hands with both of them, and then drew me forward to introduce me. “Beth, these are our pilots,” he said. “I’ve flown with them many times. You’ll be in good hands.”

“A smooth ride for you today, miss,” the taller one said, shaking my hand. “We’ll have you safe on the ground again in no time.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m glad to hear it.” I wondered if I looked like I was nervous about flying, like I needed some sort of reassurance. I didn’t
feel
nervous. I was just a little bewildered by the whole experience. Movie stars and billionaires took private planes. I was just a cocktail waitress; I had no business even being at Teterboro. I half-expected a man in a dark suit to walk up, tell me there had been a terrible mistake, and escort me off the tarmac.

I knew, of course, that Max had money. He hadn’t made a secret of it, and there had been the dinner, and his gorgeous apartment. But it wasn’t until I stood there in front of the plane that it really sunk in: Max had
money
.

We climbed the steps onto the plane. Max turned to the right and led me past a bulkhead and a galley area with a sink and a microwave. Past that was the main seating area of the plane, and I stopped dead in the aisle and looked around in amazement.

This was
not
your average commercial flying experience. Instead of the typical rows of cramped, uncomfortable seats, plush leather recliners were arranged at staggered intervals. Some were by themselves beside the porthole windows, and others were clustered around a sleek wooden tabletop. There was even an honest-to-God sofa covered in throw pillows. It looked like an inviting place to take a nap at 30,000 feet.

Max, watching my face as I took it all in, grinned and said, “Nice, isn’t it?”

“You could say that,” I said. “Max! I can’t believe you’re spending this much money on a plane trip. It’s not worth it.”

“It’s absolutely worth it,” he said. “You’re so short that you don’t understand how painful flying commercial is. Even first class seats fold me up like a pretzel. I need leg room. This way we can work, sleep, spread out. We can even join the mile-high club, if you’re up for it.”

I lightly smacked his upper arm with the back of my hand. “You’re terrible. It isn’t happening.”

“If you say so,” he said, still grinning, and moved toward the rear of the plane to sling his briefcase onto one of the recliners.

Our pilots came on board and closed themselves in the cockpit. An intercom cut on, and one of them said, “Folks, we’ll be taking off shortly. Please have a seat for now. I’ll let you know when we’re at cruising altitude and it’s safe to move about the cabin.”

Max sat in his chosen recliner and patted the seat next to him. He looked so smug, like the cat that had not only gotten the cream but lapped it all up and been given more. I didn’t want to encourage him, but choosing a different seat would be more trouble than it was worth, and would probably spark a long conversation about feelings and why I was being so stand-offish.

So I sat, stifling a sigh, and when he settled his hand palm-up on the armrest between us, I obediently placed my own hand in his.

He tangled our fingers together and squeezed gently. “Are you ready?”

Was I ready? What a loaded question. Ready for a week with Max, for too much time together in close quarters, for potentially finding Renzo and everything that would entail. I didn’t see how anyone could possibly prepare for that. “I guess I am,” I said.

The plane taxied out onto the runway, and within just a few minutes, we were in the air. I held Max’s hand and looked out the window as we gained altitude. The city appeared to our right, a miniature doll town of tiny skyscrapers, and then we wheeled left, away from it, and headed west.

Despite my half-serious fears that Max would try to seduce me on the couch, he worked for most of the flight, busily typing away at his laptop. I spent the first hour gazing at the landscape below us, farmland and hills and rivers, and then dug out one of the novels I had packed. I had brought my own laptop, but I didn’t like the idea of working on my book while Max was sitting beside me, able to peek over my shoulder and witness my painful laboring over each sentence. An hour or so after that, Max leaned across me to look out the window, and said, “There’s the Mississippi, I think.”

I looked at the thin brown line far below. “That?”

He smiled. “It doesn’t look like much from here, does it? I’m pretty sure that’s what it is, though.” He closed his laptop and stretched, arms over his head, and I heard his spine crack. “I’ve been sitting for too long. Are you hungry? It’s past time for lunch.”

“I guess I could eat,” I said. “There’s food?”

“Oh, Beth,” he said. “Is there food. What a question. Come on, let’s go have a look.”

He led me to the galley and began opening cupboards and drawers. He took out two sets of dishes and silverware, and then opened what appeared to be a tall, narrow cabinet and turned out to be a wood-faced refrigerator. He pulled out several shrink-wrapped trays and arranged them on the counter. “Take your pick,” he said. “We’ve got salmon, lasagna, linguine in vodka sauce…”

The food wasn’t even frozen. It must have been loaded onto the plane that morning. One of the cupboards he had opened was full of alcohol and wine of every variety. “I was just expecting some peanuts and a little plastic cup of soda,” I said.

“Not when you’re traveling with me, babycakes,” he said. “I fly in style.”

“Babycakes,” I repeated, staring at him.

He stared back, face blank, but then his mouth twitched a little, and I knew he was screwing with me. “You don’t like that pet name?”

“Put the food in the microwave,” I said. “I’ll have the lasagna. And you can open one of those bottles of wine.”

“A woman after my own heart,” he said.

We ate lunch sitting across from each other at the table. Now that we were west of the Mississippi, the landscape below us started getting more interesting. The flat land of the prairies abruptly transformed into mountains, the snow-capped crest of the Rockies rising in a jagged line. I watched, rapt, as the earth crumpled and folded, dropped away into flat basins, and rose again into yet another ridge of mountains.

“We can go skiing next winter,” Max said. “I’ll take you to Aspen. We can rub elbows with the rich and famous, and you can see as many mountains as you want, right up close and personal.”

Next winter? “You’re making a lot of assumptions,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “I feel okay about it.”

We flew over the Great Salt Lake, small and sparkling, and over a vast brown expanse of desert that Max told me was Nevada. Then more mountains, and as the plane lost elevation, details came into view: hills pinched up from the earth like the folds of a bedspread, scattered with trees; the grid of a town, sprawling westward toward the bay.

The intercom came on. “We’ll be landing at San Francisco International in about half an hour. Hope you folks enjoyed the flight. If you need to move around the cabin, please do it now and then remain seated for descent and landing.”

“Here we go,” Max said, smiling at me, and I smiled back, delighted by his delight, happy to be here with him, thousands of feet above the ground.

* * *

We landed with little commotion. The plane taxied off the runway and came to a stop. The pilots emerged from the cockpit and shook hands with us again, and then we disembarked and went out into the airport.

It was a little after 3:00, local time. Max guided me through the airport with absolute confidence, and I remembered that he had been here before, probably many times. “Do you want to get anything to eat?” he asked me, and I shook my head. I’d eaten plenty on the flight, and I just wanted to get into the city and check into our hotel.

We took a cab into the city. I had thought that I would be able to see the Pacific from the airport, but a ridge of mountains rose to our left, blocking my view. As we drove north, the highway ran along the water, an expanse so vast I couldn’t see the far shore. We came into the city, and I craned my neck to peer out the window, rapt for whatever glimpses I could catch from the highway.

“Where are we staying?” I asked, as we came around a bend in the highway and the skyscrapers of the city core appeared.

“A hotel downtown,” Max said. “It’s where I usually stay when I’m in San Francisco.” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “I reserved a suite for us. It has one bed, but there’s a pull-out in the sitting room. I’ll sleep there if you’d prefer.”

I exhaled. I had been worrying about the sleeping arrangements, and I wasn’t surprised that Max had tried to force intimacy by putting us both in the same room. I wondered if he had originally planned to spring it on me—surprise!—and then reconsidered, deciding that my fury wouldn’t be worth whatever small advantage he might gain by taking me unawares. “You’re a real jerk, Max.”

“I know,” he said, unapologetic, and grinned. “At least I got the suite. It could be worse. Look, Beth, I took a gamble, and if you really aren’t comfortable, I’ll ask for a second room.”

“I like the idea of you sleeping on the couch,” I said. “I hope it’s really uncomfortable, with lots of springs, and you toss and turn all night.”

He laughed. “Vengeful and merciless. I like it.”

The cab let us out in front of our hotel, and we went into the lobby. My suitcase was old and not in the best shape, and one of the wheels squeaked with each rotation, a blaring alarm alerting the valets and the woman at the front desk that I didn’t belong there.

I stood at Max’s elbow while he checked in, feeling very small and helpless in the face of his smooth confidence. He chatted with the check-in lady like they were old friends, and I could tell from the way she laughed and tossed her hair over her shoulder that she found him both attractive and charming. She didn’t look at me once. I was invisible, an unremarkable creature, here only because of Max’s largesse.

That was fine with me. I hated talking to customer service people.

We took the elevator up to our room on one of the top floors of the building. In my experience, hotel rooms were small and cramped, shabbily decorated, with two lumpy beds and a television and not much else. But this room was, as Max had said, truly a suite, with a sitting area and a little kitchenette, and large windows facing toward the bay and Oakland in the distance. The view drew me forward, and I abandoned my suitcase beside the sofa and went to stand at the windows and gaze out at the city.

I heard Max rustling around behind me, opening drawers and cabinets, and then he said, “What would you like to do this afternoon?”

I turned to look at him, puzzled. “We’re going to look for Renzo.”

He shook his head. “I don’t have an address yet. My investigator isn’t sure where he’s living.”

“I thought you said you had found him,” I said. “You know where he’s working, right? Why can’t we just go there?”

“I don’t think we want to surprise him on the job,” Max said. “I imagine his employment situation is pretty tenuous, and he won’t thank us for causing a scene while he’s at work. I think it’s best if we go to his house. My investigator hasn’t tracked down his address just yet. He’s been working with the cops on a big drug bust and that’s apparently taking up most of his time.”

“So why don’t you hire an investigator who won’t ditch you for the police?” I asked.

“Because he’s the best,” Max said. “It’s worth the wait.”

“Then I don’t understand why we’re out here.” I hadn’t taken time off from work so I could cool my heels in a hotel room.

“He just needs another day or two,” Max said. “We can recover from jet lag and settle in. My impatient Beth. We’ll find him soon enough.”

I wasn’t mollified. It sounded to me like Max had decided that we were going to take a vacation together, and Renzo was just a convenient excuse to pry me out of my comfortable routine in New York. “Fine. You’ve got two days, and then I’m going looking for him myself.”

“It’s a deal,” he said, holding out his hand.

I stared at it for a few seconds, baffled, and then realized he expected me to shake to seal the deal. I sighed and shook his hand.

He didn’t release me when I loosened my grip. Instead, he used my hand to reel me in, a fat baffled fish on a line, and bent his head to kiss me. It was a light kiss, pleasant and firm, and he did let me go after that.

I raised my hand to touch my tingling lips. “You can’t keep doing that.”

“I don’t know why not,” he said, clearly very pleased with himself.

Because he was just pretending. We were both pretending, playing at being lovers again, and it wouldn’t last. After we found Renzo, after Max got whatever he wanted, he would disappear again, receding back into his life of effortless luxury, and I would be left with no explanations and no hope. I had done that once already. I didn’t want to go through it again.

I turned back to the window. It was a beautiful day, and I was being melodramatic. “Maybe we could go for a walk.”

“We can play tourist,” Max said. “Ride the cable car. Stroll through Chinatown. Walk up the crookedest street in America.”

I glanced at my watch. I could plead exhaustion and stay in the hotel all afternoon, but I would probably get bored, and I didn’t want to squander the opportunity to see San Francisco. The other waitresses would kill me if I came back from the West Coast without a single exciting story. And I
had
, after all, been hoping we would have some time to sightsee. “Okay,” I said. “I guess for a little while.”