Chapter 41: My Dark Prince: Chapter 40

“Is this truly necessary?”

I burst into the cockpit of Oliver’s private jet, waving a small vial with white powder inside. The rage over his stunt at Baylor already had my blood sizzling. I didn’t bother reigning in my temper.

Ten more minutes, and I would’ve had a breakthrough. I knew it.

So. Damn. Close.

Already, I remembered more than I’d hoped for before the trip.

My roommate. My boyfriend. My majors. Plural. Marketing management and philosophy. My drink of choice: almond milk cappuccino. Tequila on nights out. #TeamOasis, not Blur. Jennifer Aniston over Brangelina. I took my whiskey neat and spent weekends volunteering at shelters. I must’ve read Steve Job’s biography seventeen times before I’d lost it in the Brazos River.

Oliver took one glance at the baggie from the pilot’s seat, clicking one of the hundreds of buttons before him. “Yes, it truly is.”

I threw my hands up, careful not to release whatever Schedule I narcotic he’d shoved into this thing. “You’re not flying us back home coked up.”

What kind of man did I live with?

“Coked up?” He jerked his eyes away from the cloudy skies. “Cuddlebug, that’s gluten-free flour. I take it everywhere I go because restaurants are shit about celiacs.”

Red-hot heat shotgunned to my cheeks. I did know that. Of course, I knew that. I remembered it from way back. The chefs at the lake house would make meals in small batches, just for him.

“Sorry.” I released a small breath – and with it, the tiniest fraction of my anger. “But I’m still mad at you.”

“I know.” He shrugged, flicking another lever. “Not that you have any reason to be. I saved you from those people.”

“Those people? I adore my friends.”

“You’ve only just technically met them,” he pointed out. “And you have to agree Dallas is a lot.”

“A lot of what?”

“Literally everything.”

“Agree to disagree. I love her personality.”

“Which one? She has many.” He adjusted the throttle and trim, maintaining a steady cruise speed. “I have no idea how Romeo manages to keep his sanity. Although, judging by his behavior the second his wife enters a room, I’m pretty sure he is no longer in possession of it.”

Another headache ripped through my skull. I held my temples with both hands and squeezed hard, as if my head would separate from my neck if I didn’t hold it down. A moan ripped out of me.

I swayed in my spot behind his seat. “I need to sit down.”

He stood up and shepherded me to the co-pilot seat. “Come next to me.”

I held up a hand, knowing he’d turn this on the girls. “I’ll be fine. It’ll pass soon.”

Had I not been fighting a 9.5 earthquake in my skull, I would probably be excited about being in a cockpit for the first time. Instead, a throaty groan grated past my lips.

“See, this is what I meant.” Oliver’s teeth slammed together. “Fucking Dallas. Private jets fly higher than commercial airlines. The altitude is terrible for your headaches. Here, I brought you Advil.” He loosened a couple of green gel pills from his pocket and passed them to me with some water.

I knocked them back, wincing. “Why do private planes do that?”

“Thinner air. Less congestion. Fuel efficiency.” He flicked on the autopilot and gave me his full attention, rubbing my back in small circles. “The higher you fly, the less fuel you burn. And since private jets are lighter than commercial planes, we have a better thrust-to-weight ratio.”

“That’s not common knowledge.”

“No, Dallas wouldn’t know that. She’s as knowledgeable as a fucking toddler, just not half as cute.”

“You’re being incredibly rude right now.”

“She was supposed to keep you safe.” If this were a cartoon, there’d be steam billowing from his ears. “She broke her promise to me. I have no respect for people who don’t keep their promis—”

The rest of the sentence perished in his throat. I wanted to ask him what he meant, but I couldn’t focus on anything.

“My head is killing me.” I whimpered in the back of my throat. “I hope there won’t be turbulence.”

“Fat chance. Very little rain and snow reach 45,000 ft. You’re in for a smooth ride.” He moved his tongue inside his mouth. “There’s a sexual innuendo there, by the way.”

“Shut up, Ollie. I’m still mad at you.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugged, pausing again. “Just to be clear … are you mad at me because I showed up at your little girls tour or because we own a private jet?”

Valid question.

To be honest, his surprise arrival hadn’t pissed me off that much. It was kind of romantic, in an enough-red-flags-to-be-mistaken-for-a-carnival kind of way.

I could see the worry oozing through his deep furrows when I’d found him pacing outside my dorm room. One arm crossed, the other fist tucked beneath his chin, and the heavy thumps of his feet against the laminate wood. He could be the posterchild for nicotine withdrawal.

It helped that he was right.

I shouldn’t have taken a spontaneous trip across the country. Doctor Cohen hadn’t cleared any travel. In fact, he’d insisted I get plenty of rest at home.

“I guess about the private jet,” I mumbled, though that didn’t sound right either.

That underlying fury continued to simmer in my blood ever since I’d woken from the coma. It would take the slightest spark to bring it to a boil. Somewhere deep within its folds, my brain knew I was livid at my fiancé.

I massaged my temples, forcing away the uncertainty before I lost my head to the throbbing. “How often do you fly this thing?”

Knowing we owned a private jet thrilled and nauseated me in equal parts. I didn’t fear flying, didn’t feel that queasy churn in my stomach at takeoff earlier, and yet … It didn’t sit right with me. I wondered why.

“More often than not.” Ollie flipped off the autopilot, returning his hands to the yoke. “I try to get ten hours a week, at least. It calms me down. Keeps me fresh.”

I wiggled in the co-pilot seat, trying to get comfortable. “It’s horrible for the environment.”

“Last I checked, Dallas brought you here on a private jet, not a broom.” He glanced at me from the periphery of his shoulder. “Is it safe to say she wasn’t subjected to the same Greta Thunberg monologue?”

“Correct.” I tipped my head back, staring at the lighting controls. “She’s my friend. One day, I hope to appeal to her common sense—”

“Good luck finding it.”

“But you’re my actual husband-to-be. We should be making big decisions together.” I flung my hands in the air. “And flying around the globe creating the carbon footprint of three presidents is unheard of.”

“Three presidents? That’s a stretch.” He puffed out his cheeks. “These fuckers fly from golf course to golf course if the sun sets too fast.”

I fanned my cheeks. We could’ve fried an egg inside the cockpit – a stark contrast to the cabin, which could double as a freezer.

“Don’t be a smart ass.” I hiked my sleeves up my arms, rolling them over my shoulders. “There is no excuse for what we are doing to the environment, Oliver.”

Ollie’s eyes caught the flash of skin on my arms. He tensed, going rigid as he tracked my movements. “Clearly, you forgot all our trips to Martha’s Vineyard and the charcuterie you gobbled by the board. You made Dallas look like she invented hunger strikes.”

“This isn’t funny.”

I hooked my finger around the neck of my tee and pulled, fanning air into the gap.

God, why is it so hot in here?

“Is this broken?” My hands hovered over the AC vents. “We need to start flying commercial.”

I grabbed the hem of my shirt and yanked it up, rolling it just under my chest and tucking it inside my bra. Ollie peeled his gaze from the clouds, glancing at me.

He swallowed hard, his voice taking a sharp edge. “You need to stop doing this.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s hard to keep my eyes forward, and I’d really like to get us home.”

I snorted. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. You can’t even see my bra.”

His throat rolled with another swallow. “What if I told you every time with you hits just like the first time?”

“Then, I’d tell you I hope to hell it’s not the same for me, because the first time we slept together, it felt like you were that machine that cuts cold meats, only with my internal organs.”

Oh, shit.

I remembered that night, I realized. In Paris. On my birthday. Philomena and Jason had abandoned me, and Oliver saved the day, whisking me away by train. The tattoo. Dancing in the streets. Drinking my weight in wine. Sloppy orgasms on crisp hotel sheets.

Ollie slapped a hand to his chest. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

I laughed, despite myself. This was supposed to be a serious conversation.

No wonder I became an intimacy coordinator, I thought, my mind still on Paris. If every time we made love sizzled like that night, I bet he couldn’t pry me out of the bedroom. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to regain my memories for another reason. Getting in my fiancé’s pants.

Clouds blanketed the path beneath us in pillowy tufts. Something struck me as we sliced through the sky.

“Hey.” I scowled. “I’m an environmentalist.”

That had to be the reason for the knot in my gut that refused to unravel.

“Aren’t I fucking lucky,” he muttered, almost too quiet for me to hear. “It just keeps getting better and better.”

“No.” I shook my head, shooting up from my seat, pumped enough to wrestle an Olympian. “I mean, I’m actually an active environmentalist.” Adrenaline buzzed inside my chest. “I go to stand-ins at city halls when they vote to knock down parks and forests. I only use eco-friendly products and write letters to my local representatives.”

Standing Rock. The Climate Strike. Keystone. Berlin.

Hundreds of thousands of people.

Speeches. Chants. Marches.

Music. Poems. Hope.

My heartbeat thrummed between my ears. I swayed, refusing to fight the memories, even as the nausea threatened to topple me.

I clutched the armrest, forcing myself upright. “I … I … I hug trees.”

A long-suffering sigh sailed past his teeth. “Of course, you do.”

“Do you not like that about me?” I stared at him, dumbfounded. “This is … like, my life mission. I care deeply about the environment.”

Did Oliver think I’d wake up from the coma and become a different person? He had to know how I felt about private jets. Why did he disregard it?

Of course, he had his own agency. I couldn’t expect him not to exercise it because my passions didn’t mesh with his, but I expected him to respect me enough to keep me off private planes.

Fine, with my injury, I understood today. But before the coma … The prospect posed a possibility I couldn’t stomach. That once upon a time, I abandoned my morals for a man. A man who saved me as a child, but a man, nonetheless.

I didn’t remember much about myself, but I knew, without a doubt, that I loathed husbands who ordered their wives around without any regard for their wishes. As far as I was concerned, a marriage built on obedience isn’t a marriage – it’s a prison.

“Any chance you can care deeply about trips to the Italian and French rivieras for shopping sprees?” Oliver began readying for our descent. “Because that’s a sustainable habit for us, and that way, I get to keep my aviation hobby. Win-win.”

I wrinkled my nose. “You’re horrible.”

He winked. “Sexy-horrible?”

“Horrible-horrible.”

“Just checking the temperature.” He chewed on his inner cheek, glancing at me.

“Ice cold. And about to become colder, still.”

I never used to be unpleasant for no reason. It wasn’t like I didn’t know the von Bismarcks owned a fleet of jets. Hell, Romeo’s family manufactured them – and fighter jets, and tanks, and probably freaking nuclear weapons.

Hard pills to swallow, but not ones I wouldn’t get used to.

So, why? Why was I so upset?

Because it’s not just the planes, a voice pierced through the headache. It’s the steak he served you. The seafood Dallas offered. The fight he won’t tell you about. It’s the kid you considered your own baby brother – tucked in an abandoned wing of a cold, 20,000-square-foot castle that doesn’t feel like home.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Oliver ran his tongue over his perfect front teeth. “Stop flying airplanes?”

Yes.

But even I considered the request unreasonable. The real question was, how did the man I love care so little about the world we’d leave behind for our kids. Unless …

My heart skipped a beat. I tried to catch it with a hand to my chest. “Ollie.”

“What now?” he mumbled under his breath. Did we even get along?

“Do we plan on having kids?”

He’d escaped the question the night of the dinner.

He wouldn’t today.

Oliver shot me an unreadable look. Again, I found myself confused. We’d spoken about starting a family together since our first date. He knew where I stood. No way would we get engaged without discussing this. And if we did, he wouldn’t be swallowing a lump in his throat the size of Baylor.

“Don’t care either way.” He lifted a shoulder, not meeting my eyes. “Leaving it up to you.”

“Well, I do want them. But you know this already.”

“Good. I promise to work diligently on making it happen.”

“Don’t you care about the world you’ll be leaving behind for our kids?”

He squinted at the clouds, frowning. “Isn’t Elon colonizing Mars?”

Elon? They were on first name basis? Was he friends with the guy? Forget it. I didn’t want to know.

“And if he is?”

“We’ll buy them a few lots. They’ll be okay.”

I shook my head. “This is outrageous.”

“Hey, hey, we haven’t even looked at the price sheet, yet.”

“What are other people, who aren’t wealthy enough to buy a place on Mars, going to do?”

Oliver’s light eyes brimmed with something suspiciously close to annoyance, but he kept his voice light. “Sweetheart, I barely care about the lives of my best friends. To care about the lives of hypothetical future strangers is a stretch.”

I pressed my lips together, stifling a scream. “I really don’t know what we found in one another.”

I would say we stuck together as childhood sweethearts, but the four-year, college-sized gap in our romance proved otherwise.

“Happy to give you a demonstration once you get your memory back,” he drawled, making a show of clicking buttons I was fifty percent sure he only clicked to distract me.

“Do you ever think about things that aren’t sex?”

“Rarely – and not voluntarily.”

“I can’t believe you’re in your thirties.”

Actually, I couldn’t believe this was the same Oliver von Bismarck I’d pined over as a child. What happened to him? But I suspected I knew.

Seb.

“Me either.” He adjusted the throttles. “Trust me.”

The engine’s soft rumble hummed in my ears, accompanied by the occasional confirmation from traffic control. Silence stretched between us. The uncomfortable, tense kind. Not the silence of well-seasoned couples.

“So …” Oliver cleared his throat, restarting the conversation out of nowhere. “I guess you won’t be attending the official grand opening of the Grand Regent’s artificial ski resort in Palm Springs?”

I whipped my head toward him, aghast. “That’s the desert.”

“Until it becomes beachfront property in thirty years.”

My jaw struggled to remain attached to its socket. “Whose idea was that?”

He pointed at himself.

“Ollie.”

“Cuddlebug.”

“Where was I when this happened?”

“Probably riding my dick. I can’t get enough of you, and you always bring me to the point of delirium.”

I groaned. “I have a feeling we’re toxic together.”

He winked. “Hell and Heaven are the same experiences in different temperatures.”

I sank into my seat, not caring that I’d turned to sulking. “What other world-crushing plans do you have that I should know about?”

He kept his eyes on the sky ahead, the flare of his nostrils the only sign he’d heard me. “None that I can think of.”

I chewed on my lower lip. “I really need to regain my memories, don’t I?”

“No rush. I’ll wait.” He squeezed the steering yoke tight. “Even if it kills me.”