Page 44 of This Bitter Sweet Temptation
Everything about her is softer and sweeter than a lie. It must be the pressure getting to me, that shot of adrenaline going to my head.
Cleo’s not a tiny waif of a woman. She’s not bony.
Still, I think she could be eating more, especially with the task ahead. Another problem to rectify as soon as we’ve touched down in New York.
She uncurls a little as I drape the blanket over her and sit back across from her.
“Mm, that was nice. Surprising,” she mutters. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
As she drifts off, I flag down the flight attendant again and whisper, “Keep her comfortable. Anything she needs, she gets. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the woman says. “We’ll look out for her.”
“Good.”
When I buckle up, I notice she forgot to fix her own seat belt. Sighing, I reach over her to strap her in, grazing the curve of her hip as she moans and shifts in her sleep.
As the jet speeds down the tarmac and positions for takeoff, I try to enjoy the view, the gold clawing through the clouds and the morning shadows below.
I try and I fail.
My traitor eyes keep drifting back to the exhausted, troubled girl across from me. Her lips pout, murmuring something soft and indecipherable.
Something I have no business trying to read, but I do.
It’s not a long flight, just under two hours.
It feels like a lifetime.
Cleo Blackthorn sleeps so fucking peacefully,her hands tucked under her chin and her hair falling over her face.
I’m glued to her so closely through the flight it’s embarrassing.
By the time we’re coasting down for a landing, I’ve never wanted to punch myself more.
This is demented.
I know I shouldn’t be watching her.
I absolutely shouldn’t be the creepy older man before I’m even forty. At thirty-eight, I have two years to go.
I can’t figure out what it is.
This is anything butnormal.
The dormant caretaker in me, maybe. The man I had to bury with Charli after she came back to us, eaten up with cancer. Terminal.
How many times did I beg her to work with me before the hammer dropped? To find room in her career, her life, for a daughter and a life with us?
She never listened.
She only came home when she had nowhere else to turn.
Of course, I fucking took her in.
I bled my soul in countless black hours, tending her like a nurse, praying to a God I’m not sure I believe in for a miracle.
