He must have seen something in my face—possibly sheer terror and total lack of blood—that made him click that I was being serious and not fucking around.

Shifting down gears as quick as he could without hurting his car, he slowed from the insane speed we’d been traveling. I pressed a hand to my mouth. He wasn’t stopping fast enough. Oh god. Shit. Fuck. Please don’t let this happen.

The car came to a stop on the side of the road and I frantically opened my door and threw myself out—except I hadn’t undone my seatbelt. The black fabric strap did exactly as it was designed to do, locking up and throwing me back into my seat.

Horror rolled through me, and my stomach rebelled.

*

My head pounded like a bass drum, and I rolled over in my plush bed with a groan.

Why?

It was the pained, desperate mental cry of all hungover girls, wasn’t it? Why did I drink so much? Why didn’t I use better judgement? Why?

The sour tang of vomit reached my nostrils, and I gagged. Oh my god. Not again.

Scrambling as fast as my stiff, sleepy limbs would carry me, I ran into the attached bathroom and cradled the toilet bowl as I dry heaved. Apparently there was nothing left inside me to come out. What the hell had happened?

Peeling myself off the marble floor, I used the wash basin to pull myself up and peer at my bedraggled appearance in the mirror.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

My makeup was smeared halfway down my face and my hair looked like something seen on the wife of Sasquatch, with a crusty patch of vomit dried into the ends.

Worse. I was practically naked. All I had on was the little black lace thong from the night before. Where was my bra? My dress? Wait, I hadn’t been wearing a bra under that dress. Rubbing my face with my hands, I frantically tried to remember the night before. After the tequila and the dancing and the drive home...

Oh shit.

Beck’s car. I threw up in Beck’s Bugatti!

Groaning, I sunk back to the marble floor in a puddle of shame. I vomited in Beck’s goddamn million dollar car. He’s going to murder me and rightfully so.

But then what happened? My memory was totally blank, and that made me feel even more ill. Had I passed out on the side of the road in a pool of my own vomit?

“Jesus fucking Christ, Riley,” I muttered, dragging myself back to my feet again. I still needed to use the basin for balance because the room was dipping and swirling something awful.

Cold water would help. I turned the faucet on and splashed my face a few times before giving up and staggering over to the shower. My hair desperately needed washing anyway.

“Ugh, gross.” I cringed at my image reflected back at me from the full length mirror directly outside the shower. It was not a pretty sight, and I could only hope the steam would obliterate my own image soon.

Just as I squirted a handful of shampoo into my palm, something caught my eye in that narcissistic shower sex mirror.

“What the fuck...” I mumbled, peering down at my body to find the unfamiliar mark. My hair was everywhere so I pushed it over my shoulders to get a better look at my chest.

Sure enough, there was a small, blue pen ink drawing on the side of my left breast.

“Mother fucker!” I screamed when I saw what it was. A fucking butterfly drawn mere inches away from my nipple. If there had been any question about who took my dress off, Beck had made sure I damn well knew it was him.

Dripping water everywhere, I stomped back into my bedroom in search of my phone. That fucker was about to catch a piece of my mind for this invasion of privacy. It didn’t faze me that I didn’t have his number. A man that arrogant would have put it in my phone, I had no doubt. He probably installed a tracking device too.

Finding it on the bedside table, plugged into the charger, I snatched it up and paled. It seemed Beck had also taken the liberty of changing my clock to twenty-four hour time because the numbers thirteen thirty flashed at me.

Thirteen thirty. That meant I had thirty minutes until this jet was scheduled to leave on some mysterious Delta mission which I was supposed to be partaking in.

Well, fuck it. I didn’t want to go anyway.

But something wasn’t sitting right... I stared at my phone a bit longer. Beck had changed the clock to twenty-four hour time and turned my phone on silent. Why?

Suspicion burned in my belly. That fucker turned my phone on silent so I would sleep all day, then made sure I would see the time and know I’d missed the flight when I woke up. Which meant he didn’t want me to go.

“Sebastian fucking Beckett. When are you going to learn?” I shook my head, tossing my phone on the bed and hurrying back to the shower. I had a flight to catch in thirty minutes.

11

My borrowed car came to a screeching halt beside the shiny white Cessna at fourteen hundred hours exactly.

“Suck it, bitches.” I snickered to myself as I climbed out of the white Mercedes and left the keys in the ignition. I had no doubts someone would see it safely back to the Deboise McMansion.

Grabbing the railing, I skipped up the steps and ducked into the jet with a supremely smug grin on my face. I wasn’t sure what reaction I expected, but it wasn’t the casual indifference they greeted me with.

“Oh great, the spare made it,” Evan muttered as he sipped on an amber liquor in a crystal rocks glass. “Thought you said she’d still be asleep, Beck.”

Beck didn’t reply to Evan’s bored sounding enquiry, instead flicking a glance over me from head to toe, then turning back to his laptop open on the table in front of him. The bastard looked incredible, which was only made worse by how utterly dog shit I was feeling.

I’d managed to drag myself through the shower, washing my hair and cleaning my teeth, but then I’d had little time to do anything more. I’d thrown on my comfort clothes—jeans, converse sneakers and a wonder woman tank top—but my hair was still wet and my face totally devoid of makeup.

“Yikes, you look like crap, trailer trash,” Jasper sneered, grinning at me from behind the girl who was seated in his lap. One of his hands was buried up her skirt and from the speed of her breathing and the flush to her cheeks, it wasn’t hard to guess what was going on. “Didn’t you get the memo, this is a business meeting? Right now you barely look old enough to handle a fucking Chuck E. Cheese party.” He tilted his head back to watch the chick again. She let out another moan. “Celia here can help you sort out your appearance before we get there, can’t you doll face?” He pressed a possessive kiss to her neck, and she just moaned.

“Where are we going?” I demanded, folding my arms and desperately trying to ignore the writhing woman in Jasper’s lap. “In case you forgot, no one has filled me in on anything, least of all where the fuck we’re going today. I don’t know shit about your business, so it’s pretty stupid to drag me into any sort of meeting.”

“You don’t need to know, Butterfly,” Beck answered, not taking his eyes from his computer for even a second. “You’re only here as a show of power. To prove that the Delta is not weakened by Oscar’s death. We are still five successors strong. Five votes.”

I wanted to argue, but the pilot stepped through the little cockpit door and cleared his throat. “Uh, Celia? We need to take off.” He gave the woman who was clearly mid-orgasm, writhing all over Jasper’s lap—and hand—a pointed look and indicated toward the open door. For a moment I thought he was telling her to get off the plane, but when she huffed and stood up, tugging her skirt back in place, it suddenly clicked. This was our flight attendant.

“Sit down, Butterfly,” Beck ordered me casually, nodding at the plush, cream leather recliner facing his. “We have a decent flight ahead of us and I’d rather not find out if you get air sick.” He arched a brow at me and my cheeks flushed hot. Goddamn tequila.

I wanted so badly to cut him down with my words, but my head still pounded and my stomach hurt from the earlier vomiting. So instead of whipping out my sassy pants, I slid into the waiting armchair and buckled my seatbelt.

When I said nothing, Beck cleared his throat, his gaze turning to the small drinks table near the window. A bottle of water and packet of painkillers sat there, waiting for me, like freaking magic.

“If you knew I’d be here, why mute my phone?” I asked, taking the pills out of the packet and washing two down with a gulp of water.

Beck sighed and closed his laptop, sliding it into a pocket beside his seat. “When you noticed I’d muted your phone, what was your first thought?” The way he looked at me, I knew I’d walked into a trap, but my poor hungover brain couldn’t figure out how or why.

“That you didn’t want me to make this flight,” I replied, then took another long sip of water. Holy crap I needed that water.

Beck raised one of those dark brows at me, his gray eyes full of dark amusement. “So what did you do?”