Chapter 10

Isabella

DAY 7

Sitting in the packed airplane, this is the first time it feels real. All the drama and emotional ups and downs between Gray and I are going to pay off soon. Real soon. The coach seat is uncomfortable, and I don’t have enough leg room, but who cares? The next time I catch a flight, I’ll have fifty million in my business bank account. I’ll be on track to my new life. I’ll bring my father’s business back to its former glory, no, to greater glory. He’ll look down on me from heaven and smile.

Then, one day, I’ll meet Mr. Right, Mr. Perfect, in one of our department stores. An actual human rights lawyer, maybe. Or an investigative journalist who always does the right thing. Or maybe just a good, solid, hardworking man who wants a family. He’ll sweep me off my feet. He’ll say all the right things. He’ll make me feel safe and wanted and lovely. I’ll never have to worry about him being a loose cannon. He’ll never be arrogant.

“We’re together, all right?” Gray whispers to me. “Anyone we see, they have to think we’re really engaged. I’m good at pretending. I want to see how good you are.”

“It’ll be fine,” I say. I feel relaxed. My Kindle’s on my lap.

He turns up his lip at it. “You’re going to read books the whole time?” he says, like it’s preposterous.

“Yes, thank you,” I say. “I have a nice little stock here. Some business books, some fiction. Before I know it, the flight will be over.” It’s a ten-hour flight, but I have plenty to keep me going.

“I wish Eddie was here,” Gray grumbles. “We drink the whole plane out of stock, piss ourselves laughing at comedy films, and flirt outrageously with all the air hostesses.”

“Yeah, well, he’s got himself his Seattle bad girl and is having a whale of a time,” I say. “So, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

People still file down the aisles with their bags, looking for their seats. We were the first on the plane. Gray charms his way everywhere, and the airport personnel on the ground—pretty women, of course—put him at the front of the line. I was invisible to them, only as important as a piece of luggage tagging behind him. It made me mad, but I’m over it now. Why should I care what these people think of me?

“Oh!” An old man catches his feet on someone else’s bag that’s poking out into the aisle. He falls forward onto his bag, then grabs the aisle seat in the row in front of us to right himself. “Ow! My back!” He grabs his back with his gnarled hand, wincing.

His elderly wife turns. “Robert, are you all right?”

“I’m OK, I’m OK,” the elderly man says. But when he reaches down for his luggage, he winces again.

Gray shoots out of his seat. “Sir, let me help you with your bags. Madam, I can take yours, too. Where are you sitting?”

“That’s kind of you,” the woman says. “We’re in row twenty-four. Seats A and B.”

“All right,” Gray says. He lifts their cases up with ease, though they had been struggling and bowing under the weight. “I’ll stow them in the overhead compartments. Is there anything you need in them for the flight?”

“Oh, no, thank you, son,” the lady says and pats her handbag. “I have it all here.”

Gray takes off down the aisle, saying, “So you’re going to London. What are you planning to do there?”

Their voices are lost in the low chatter of the passengers and the hum of the engine. I shake my head. Did Gray seriously just do that? I thought he’d be the type of person to turn his head away and say it’s not his problem. In school, he might even have been the one who pushed the old man down in the first place. But as I take a glance back, he’s still there chatting with them. He closes the overhead lockers and gives them a winning smile. I wonder what he wants from them. Is he going to ask them for money or something? I could see him doing this for a pretty girl, in exchange for her number, and later, a night of passion, but what is he trying to gain here?

I decide to mind my own business and get lost in a story. When he comes back, he smiles at me, flushed with pleasure. “Hey,” he says, obviously expecting me to say something.

“Hey. I’m reading right now. Let’s talk later.”

He shifts in his seat. “I was just saying hello, not looking for lengthy discourse.”

“Hey there, sir.” I turn to see an air hostess bending down to talk to us, full of makeup and perfume and white teeth.

I watch Gray’s face carefully. He doesn’t look her up and down. His eyes don’t zero in on her ample cleavage, as I expect. “Hello,” he says.

“I just wanted to thank you for what you did for that couple over there,” she says. “We’re run off our feet here and couldn’t reach the elderly gentleman in time. That was really kind of you.”

I can tell he’s doing everything in his power to not beam. “It was nothing.”

She makes a little signal to her colleague that I can’t make out, then turns back to us. “Are you two flying together?”

Gray grabs my hand and gives her a proud smile. “Yes. This is my fiancée, Isabella.”

The air hostess smiles, a genuine, warm smile. “You make a lovely couple.”

“Thank you,” I say, not really knowing what to feel.

“Now, if it’s all right with you, we’d love to upgrade you to first class,” she says, then nods to Gray. “As a thank you for your kindness.”

“Wow!” I can’t lie, I’m thrilled.

“That would be very kind of you.” Gray sounds the perfect gentleman.

“Please bring your bags and come with me.”

Before we know it, we’re settled into huge comfy seats in first class. Take-off is a breeze, and soon we’re in the air. Glasses of champagne sit on our own personal table. Yes, table, not tiny little tray attached to the seat in front. I have all the space I could dream of, and the hostess showed us how we can recline our seats back all the way until they’re like beds. With the pillows and blankets provided, this is going to be a dream of a flight. I’ll snuggle back on my bed-chair and read and doze and before I know it, we’ll be in London. There’s a businessman in the middle of the aisle, and a couple over to the right, but we have plenty of space of our own and even a curtain to pull around us if we want privacy. To sleep, that will be. Only to sleep.

Gray grins at me and raises his champagne glass. “To fake engagements.”

I can’t help but grin back as I clink my glass against his. “To fake engagements. And good deeds, too. You worked us some magic there.”

He shrugs but can’t keep the smile from his face. “I’m not always a monster.”

“You’re not a monster at all. Talking of fake engagements, though. I assume you haven’t had any real ones?”

“Don’t you know me yet? Of course not! What about you?”

I shrug. “Haven’t let anyone close enough. One guy proposed to me, but I turned him down. He was lovely, but…” I don’t really know how to explain it.

“But not Mr. Perfect-Goodie-Two-Shoes?”

“I’m not sure. I just… it didn’t feel like it would make the perfect marriage. I didn’t feel like all the elements were lined up correctly. Like we were matched well enough.”

He laughs. “In other words, he didn’t meet your impossibly high standards.”

That’s actually the guilt trip that played through my mind when I broke up with him. So that stings a bit. “Is it really that bad to have high standards?”

“Depends how high. If it ends up with you locking out the world, then probably, yeah. People around you are going to feel judged. Like you’re looking down on them.”

Now that shocks me. Scares me, even. I don’t want people to think that. “Do… do you feel judged? Like I’m looking down on you?”

He laughs again, so free and easy. “Yeah, but I don’t care much. If I cared what prim and proper people think of me, I’d never have any enjoyment in life.”

“Prim and proper people? What’s that supposed to mean?” He makes me sound so uptight. Like some strict old aunt instead of the determined, independent, principled woman I see myself as.

“Oh, you know, always playing by the rules. Doing things right.”

“So, what, I’m supposed to want to do things wrong? Maybe rules are there for a reason, Gray.”

“Life doesn’t really have rules,” he says and knocks the rest of his champagne back. Right away, he pours himself another glass. “It’s a free for all. You do what you want.”

“You’re supposed to do what’s right,” I say tightly.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Frustration starts tensing my muscles. “I’m going to read now.”

“No, wait, listen to this. Watch how messed up I would have been if I played by the rules and did the right thing. So, I was with this girl. Lillia Smythe-Darcy. Lilly.” His face creases up as he says it, like her name is some highly infectious disease. “She’s from some aristocratic family with old titles. No money, but that didn’t matter to my dad. He thought, you know, link up the Fairfax family with the Smythe-Darcys, and we’ve bought ourselves some more credibility. Some more status. Like we need any more.” He rolls his eyes. “So, her family were dead set on it. My dad was pushing me to do it. It all made sense. Their family wanted our money. My father wanted the status. She said she loved me. I was trapped in some foolish illusion thinking I loved her. So, surely, the right thing to do would have been to propose, right? Lillia was beautiful, and she had class, titles, all of that.”

“Was she a good woman?”

“That’s not the point,” he says, frustrated. “It would have been the right thing to marry her, wouldn’t it? And if I’d done it, where would I be now? Trapped in some crumbling mansion with the gold-digger. In some gilded jail. No, thank you. But, you see, I chose to do the wrong thing and dump her. And now I’m free.”

“I feel sorry for her.”

“You shouldn’t,” he says acidly. “She was a bitch. Had no integrity whatsoever. Just wanted to use me.”

“Sounds like a perfect match for you, then. No values. No real loyalty.”

He rocks back in his seat like I slapped him. “I know what right and wrong is. I just bend the rules to get the best out of life. But her? She thinks right is wrong and day is night. That’s different.”

“You really think you have the best out of life?”

“You really think you have the best out of life?” he shoots back. “If you had half a brain in your head, you’d take this money and start a new life, not pour it into the black hole of your father’s failures. You’ll never see a return.”

I feel like I could explode and my rage would blow up the whole airplane. “My father’s failures? How dare you talk about my father!”

“He’s dragging you down from beyond the grave. Save yourself. Jump ship. He’s dead. He won’t even know.”

I could reach over there and slap him. “Shut the fuck up, Grayson,” I whisper furiously.

“You just don’t want to hear the truth,” he hisses back. “Your father is dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Why are you trying to keep him alive?”

I have to clamp my mouth shut to keep from screaming. Eventually, I muster up enough self-control to spit, “I really hate you, Grayson Fairfax. Now I remember why I hated you so much in school. I thought you’d changed, but I was wrong. Tragically wrong.”

“I’m remembering why I hated you, too. You’re stuck up and think you’re better than the whole world.”

I sneer. “Maybe not better than the whole world. But certainly better than the likes of you.”

“Aha, there it is!” He throws his hands up in the air and claps. A big fake smile stretches across his face. “It finally comes out. I knew you thought you were better than me. Well, don’t worry, Queen of Perfection, soon you’ll be away from this monster, clutching your fifty mil.”

“I don’t want your money,” I say. If we weren’t on an airplane now, I’d be walking. Someone give me a parachute, and I’m out of here. “I wouldn’t spend another second with you for a billion dollars. As soon as we land, I’m booking a flight. The deal is off.”

“Fine.” He’s gone eerily calm and pours himself yet another glass of champagne. “I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone or anything. Not even my father’s money. I’ve gotten through life fine by myself so far. Book your flight and scurry back to your sad little life. See if I give a shit.”

“Yeah, and you go back to your empty little life. Enjoy.” Then I flick on my Kindle, thrust the seat back to the lying position, and turn my back on him. Grayson Fairfax II can rot in hell, for all I care.