Escaping Reality Read online

  day, Ms. Bensen,” the attendant says as I approach the counter. “You’ve

  been bumped to first class.”

  I blink in surprise, and not just at the oddity of being called Ms.

  Bensen. “Are you sure?

  First class?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How much extra?” I ask, unsure of how much money I have on the

  card I’ve been given, unable to use my personal savings for fear of being

  tracked. I’m not even sure the little bit my extra holiday jobs allowed me

  would cover it.

  “No cost to you,” she assures me, smiling and motioning to my ticket.

  “Let me fix your paperwork so you can hurry along before they seal the

  doors and you still miss your flight.”

  “Yes,” I say quickly. “Thank you.”

  I rush down the walkway to my flight, and despite my relief at scoring

  a seat, the realness of leaving New York punches me in the gut. Everything

  I’ve come to know as my world is here and I haven’t felt this helpless

  since…a long time ago. I can’t think about what happened. I don’t think

  about it. That’s when the nightmares start, and so does the fear. This isn’t

  the time to let the terror control me. I have no idea what I will face in the

  next few hours and days.

  “Welcome aboard,” a flight attendant says cheerfully as I reach the

  plane, and somehow I muster a half-smile before making my way to row

  seven, where there are only two seats. My aisle assignment is empty as

  expected, and—impossibly, after they’ve told me the airline was

  overbooked—the one by the window also appears empty. Hope that I

  might be alone is dashed when I note the bag stored beneath the seat,

  which tells me my companion is nearby. I sigh. It would suit me just fine to

  slip into my leather seat and shut my eyes before whoever it is returns, but

  alas, that’s simply not an option. I have luggage to store and a file to study.

  With a shrug, I let the oversized bag hanging from my shoulder fall

  into my intended seat, then push the handle down on my new roller

  suitcase. Grimacing, I discover the bin above me is full. Apparently nothing

  is going to be easy tonight. Pushing to my toes, I try to adjust some bags to

  make room for mine, and it’s as much a struggle as breathing is right now.

  “Let me help you.”

  The deep, slightly husky male voice has me turning to my left to find

  myself captured in a familiar stare. My heart sputters. It can’t be. But it is.

  I’ve made a fool of myself by gaping at a gorgeous man and he’s here to

  make me pay in buckets of embarrassment. The man from the terminal is

  standing beside me, towering over my five feet three inches by close to a

  foot, and standing so close that I no longer have to guess the color of his

  eyes. They are blue, a piercing aqua blue that is almost green, and they are

  once again focused one hundred percent on me.

  “I…ah…thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” he says, a quirk to his mouth that I am once again

  looking at, along with the dark stubble shadowing his strong jaw along with

  his barely there goatee, which makes me think pirate. The kind that steals a

  girl’s senses and ravishes her body, leaving her incapable of anything but a

  whimper as she watches him walk out the door. Mr. Tall, Dark and

  Potentially Dangerous reaches over me to adjust the compartment, his

  t-shirt stretching over a perfectly sculpted broad chest. I don’t move—me,

  a person who believes wholeheartedly in personal space. I know I should

  and I mean to, but I don’t seem to have control over my legs, let alone

  anything else tonight.

  He glances down at me, still shifting my luggage. “Just this bag?” he

  asks, and there is heat in his eyes. Or maybe amusement. And conquest,

  definitely conquest, which must get old for a man like him.

  The thought is enough to make me step back, probably a bit too

  obviously. “Yes. Thank you.” Arms still stretched over his head, he adjusts

  my bag, muscles flexing, long torso stretching deliciously, and I don’t try to

  look away. Admiring this man keeps me from thinking about the hundreds

  of other people on this flight that could be trouble.

  “We’re all set,” he says, motioning to the seat. “You want the

  window?”

  “Window?” My belly tightens and I feel breathless. “We’re seated

  together?”

  “Appears that way.” Humor lights his eyes, and his mouth that I am

  somehow looking at, quirks as he adds, “Small world.”

  My cheeks heat at the reference to our little encounter in the

  terminal. “Too small,” I say, and an announcement over the intercom urges

  us to sit, saving me from some witty comment I don’t have.

  “Last chance,” he says. “Window?”

  I open myself to decline and snap my mouth shut. An aisle seat

  exposes me to the other passengers, many at my back. The only person

  who will ravish me while I’m trapped between this man and the wall is this

  man. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Thank you,” I say, before I grab my bag and move to the seat he’s

  just given up, only to remember that he’d been settled here before I

  arrived. “Do you want your things from under the seat?”

  He slides in beside me and he is big, and broad and too good looking

  for the safety of womankind. “Why don’t I just put yours under my seat?”

  he suggests.

  He smells spicy and masculine, and the scent stirs a distant memory

  in the back of my mind. I shove it away, frustrated that I’m back to every

  little thing triggering flashbacks. Today has undone the strength I’d spent

  years creating in myself, made me weak as I once was. “Yes,” I agree. “Just

  let me grab a few things for the flight.” I quickly remove my file and my

  purse and hand over my carry-on, and in the process my hand brushes his.

  A jolt of electricity darts up my arm and I quickly turn away, buckling myself

  in. Maybe being locked in a corner with a man I am powerless to control my

  reactions to isn’t so smart.

  “Champagne?”

  I glance up to find a pretty twenty-something flight attendant holding

  a tray and gobbling up my seating partner with unabashed approval that

  makes me think of the bold way Chloe lives her life, and suddenly it’s hard

  to breathe. I will never see Chloe again.

  “Why yes, we will,” my travel partner says, accepting two glasses,

  and turning to me, successfully dismissing the flight attendant.

  I hold up a hand. “No. Thank you.”

  “We have a designated driver.”

  “I’m afraid it will make me sleepy,” I object, though I am certain the

  visit from my guardian angel, or handler, has ensured I won’t rest well again

  for a very long time.

  “It’s a four-hour flight,” he points out. “Sleepy isn’t a bad thing.”

  Sleepy. This gorgeous, incredibly masculine man has just said

  “sleepy” and it seems so out of the realm of what I expect from him, that

  he has managed the impossible considering my life right now. I smile an

  honest smile and accept the glass. “I suppose it’s not.” I sip the sweet,
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  bubbly beverage.

  A glint of satisfaction flickers in his eyes, as if he’s pleased I’ve done

  as he wishes, before he takes my glass from me and sets both our drinks in

  the cup holders between us. The easy way he assumes control of my tiniest

  actions, and seems to enjoy doing so, should bother me. For reasons I don’t

  have time to analyze, it only makes him more tantalizingly male.

  He extends his hand. “Liam Stone.”

  My pulse jumps at both his ridiculously alluring name and the idea of

  touching him. I start to lift my hand and hesitate with the oddest sense of

  this moment changing my life in some way. Pushing past the crazy thought,

  I press my palm to his. “Nice to meet you, Liam. I’m Amy.”

  His fingers close around mine and a slow, warm, tingling sensation

  slides up my arm.

  “Tell me what I did to make you smile so I can do it again.” His voice

  is low, gravelly. As sexy as the man who owns it. I expect him to let go of

  me, but his fingers seem to flex around my hand, tightening as if he doesn’t

  want to let go. I am shocked at how much I, someone who avoids people I

  do not know well, do not want him to.

  “Sleepy,” I manage, and my voice sounds as affected as I suddenly, or

  maybe not so suddenly, feel.

  His brows furrow. “Sleepy?”

  “That’s what you said that made me smile. You don’t seem like a man

  who’d say ‘sleepy’.”

  He arches a brow and he’s still holding my hand. I should object. I

  should pull away.

  Because he has the experience and depth I’ve long avoided and

  craved in a man. All I succeed in doing is melting into my chair, like I know I

  could easily melt for him. “Is that so?” he challenges.

  “Yes. That’s so.”

  He looks amused, and—reluctantly, it seems—he releases my hand.

  Or maybe not reluctantly. Maybe he wasn’t holding it as long as it felt like

  he was holding it. I fear I have no real concept of what is real or not

  anymore.

  Liam leans closer, so close it’s like he plans to share a secret, and still

  I want him closer.

  “Just what kind of man do you think I am, Amy?”

  The kind that flirts with lost little girls who don’t even know their

  own names and then darts off to see the world with a supermodel, I think,

  but I say, “Not the kind who says ‘sleepy’.”

  Laughter rumbles from his chest, a deep, masculine sound that

  spreads warmth through my body. Impossibly, it is both fire in my veins and

  balm for my nerves, calming me in an unexplainable way, when I know he is

  too good looking, too inquisitive, and absolutely too controlling to play

  with. Not that I would even know how to play with a man like this, or really,

  any man for that matter. Men, like friends, have been risky propositions.

  “Why are you headed to Denver, Amy?” he asks, and the soothing

  balm becomes shards of glass splintering through me.

  “Excuse me,” the flight attendant thankfully interrupts, saving me an

  answer that is still in a file I haven’t read. “Can I take your dinner orders?”

  “Chicken,” I say.

  Liam glances at me. “How do you know they have chicken?”

  “It’s the go-to food for hotels, parties, and airlines.” And there was a

  time in my youth when all those things had been in my life. I glance at the

  flight attendant for confirmation, and she nods. “Chicken it is.”

  “Make that two orders of chicken,” Liam says with another rumbling

  of that deeply addictive laughter of his, and while I like his easygoing

  nature, I can almost feel the band of control he pulls around him. A muffled

  ringing sound fills the air.

  “Whoever is ringing,” the flight attendant warns, “you have about

  one minute until electronic devices are off.”

  She rushes away, and since the sound is obviously coming from

  Liam’s bag, I cautiously adjust my skirt and bend over to grab it, dislodging

  my folder in the process. My heart lurches as it tumbles to the ground and

  spills open, the contents flying everywhere. I grab for the contents, shoving

  papers inside the folder again as quickly as I can.

  “Your résumé, I believe,” Liam says, and I freeze at his obvious nosy

  inspection of the document I have yet to read. The idea that he knows

  more about me than me is unnerving.

  Slowly, I lift my gaze to find only a few inches separating us, and his

  eyes, those piercing blue eyes, see too much. He makes me feel too much. I

  don’t know him. I can’t trust him. Is there anyone I can really trust left in

  this world?

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the resume from him with more obvious snap

  than I intend. I tug his bag out from underneath my seat. He unzips the side

  pocket to remove his phone, and I am self-conscious of how high my skirt

  rides up my thigh as he helps me shove the bag back where it had been. But

  he isn’t looking at my legs. I can feel the burn of him watching me in my

  cheeks. I know he knows how uncomfortable I am. I know he knows I’m not

  okay right now. I feel trapped. Trapped with this man, and I am trapped in a

  life that isn’t mine.

  Tugging at my skirt, I sit up and he does the same, shifting his

  attention to his phone as he does. Taking advantage of his distraction, I

  twist toward the window, offering him my back.

  Maybe he will think I’m allowing him privacy for his call. Maybe he

  will think I’m rude. I don’t care. I open the folder and quickly find the

  résumé he’s already seen and start reading. Amy Bensen is, or was, a

  private secretary to some executive, whose name I quickly press to

  memory.

  She’s had that job since graduating college three years before, but

  he’s retired and she’s been laid off.

  I flip to a summary page behind the résumé that tells me my

  backstory, and read on, hearing Liam talking on his phone about some

  meeting. An announcement is made about electronic items and I read

  faster. Amy Bensen has scored a three-month position handling the

  personal affairs of a private businessman who is both a friend of her

  ex-boss and overseas for that time period. Her new boss will be providing

  an apartment near his personal home that is empty and will need to be

  monitored. There is a comment typed in bold and underlined. You are not

  to apply for work until I contact you and tell you that it’s safe. Do nothing

  to bring attention to yourself. I inhale a slow, heavy breath and can’t seem

  to let it out. Until I tell you it’s safe? What does that even mean? Who is

  after me? Do they, or he or she, or whoever, know I was in New York? Can

  they figure out where I went? And why, why, why have I let myself pretend

  this threat doesn’t exist until I’m forced into hiding again?

  The plane roars to life and I nearly jump out of my skin. Casting a

  glance over my shoulder, I confirm that Liam didn’t notice, and is

  concentrating on punching something into his phone. He might not be

  attentive to me right now but he already started asking me questions.

  He’ll ask more and I have to be ready. Thumbing through the file, I

&
nbsp; find a page with my new family history. My mother died in a car accident

  four years ago and my father was a drunk who left us when I was a kid. I

  have no siblings. A wave of nausea overcomes me and I shut the file, and

  still facing the window, I lie back against the seat, squeezing my eyes shut.

  I’d adored my mother. I’d worshiped my older brother. And my father

  would never have left me by choice. I had a family that was more than a

  typed piece of paper in a file. Now I have nothing but a fake name and a

  fake life.

  Chapter Three

  We level off at cruising altitude, the soft hum of the engines lulling

  me into deep thought, and I can feel my mind trying to go places I don’t

  want to go. Flashes of the tattoo on my handler’s wrist keep interrupting

  my plans to keep Liam’s questions at bay the rest of the flight.

  The tattoo shifts to flames and I am suddenly floating in a cloud of

  thick smoke, trying to escape, but I can’t see to get out of it. I can’t scream.

  I try to scream. They are screaming. Oh God. Oh God. I have to get to them.

  A sudden bright light pierces the fog and I jerk to a sitting position and grab

  my throat, gasping for air, feeling the rasp of smoke burn through my lungs.

  “Easy, sweetheart. You’re okay.”

  I barely register the voice. I can’t focus. My hands go to my face.

  “Where am I?”

  “Amy.”

  Strong hands touch me, turn me, and I blink a pair of piercing blue

  eyes into focus.

  Memories rush over me. “Liam?”

  “Yes. Liam. That must have been one hell of a nightmare.”

  Nightmare? I fell asleep? “No, I…” Images flash in my mind, and I

  squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out my fear, the smoke, and

  gut-wrenching screams. My fingers curl around what I realize is Liam’s shirt,

  and on some level I know that I’m clinging to a man I barely know, but he is

  all I have. Somehow he is all that is keeping me from melting down.

  “Amy,” Liam whispers, stroking a hand down my hair. I tell myself it’s

  inappropriate for him to touch me like this. It’s also exactly what I need,

  and somehow so is he. I tell myself it’s simply that he’s at the right place at

  this very wrong time in my life, but it does nothing to discourage my

  reaction to his touch, to the warmth radiating from where my palms rest on