He closed the distance between them and kissed her, putting everything he had into the kiss—frustration, lust, fear, passion, longing and, most terrifying of all, hope.
She responded without reservation, and he couldn’t help but release her seat belt and pull her into his lap.
“We’re landing,” she murmured against his lips.
“What the hell good is it being rich?” he replied.
She laughed before returning to the kiss with such passion he couldn’t think of anything but the woman in his arms.
The plane lurched to a stop at the gate, nearly unseating her.
Isaac helped her to her feet and then rose to stand beside her. “Let me see you home.”
“I’ll let you see me to a cab.”
He sucked in a breath. “Rachel.”
“Isaac.” She reached up and traced the line of his jaw. “If you see me home, I won’t be able to help myself. I’ll ask you to come up. You will. We’ll be up in a couple of hours doing what we do, and you’ll be there tomorrow morning when my alarm goes off far too early. You’ll ask me to call in again. I’ll be tempted. I can’t make senior attorney if I keep calling in just to get laid.”
He laughed. “Fair enough.”
“So see me to a cab and kiss me farewell with a promise to call me tomorrow?”
“Promise.”
They gathered their bags, and he didn’t balk at her insistence she carry her own belongings. The airport was far busier than he would have expected for a midnight arrival, but they managed to remain sideby side and talk all the way to the cab lineup.
She went to the front of the line, opened the cab’s rear door and turned to him.
He kissed her with all the promise he had in him, let her get in the cab against his better judgment and watched her disappear in traffic.
The alarm went off way too early—confirmation that real life was back. Shuffling to her tiny kitchen, her eyes still working on getting with the concept of “being awake,” she put the coffee pod in the machine and pressed what she hoped was the brew button. Thank God for single-serve coffeemakers. No measuring. No adding water. No thinking. Very little waiting. Cup in hand only a few seconds later, she made her way back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, trying to wake up. Jet lag was a very real thing and a bitch to boot.
Reaching for her cell phoneby rote, she was confused when it wasn’t on her bedside table, where it belonged.
“What did I do with it?”
Forcing herself to get up, she went to where she’d literally dropped her bags last night, just inside the doorway. She hadn’t had the energy to put things away just then, so she’d left her bags where they fell with the promise to sort things out after work today. Then she’d gone to bed.
Her cell had to be in the clutch she’d carried the night she met Isaac. She’d taken it to Ireland and then shoved the whole thing into the messenger bag she had purchased. Digging through the sparse but jumbled contents, she found the little evening bag wrapped inside the dress she’d worn Thursday night. She opened it and, sure enough, there was her phone.
And it was as lifeless as Jimmy Hoffa.
“Crap.” She should’ve plugged it in, but she hadn’t had messages when she checked it Friday night when they’d arrived in Ireland. And, if she was honest, she’d forgotten about it entirely after that.
Taking the phone, messenger bag and her one small suitcase back to the bedroom, she plugged in the phone. It was so dead that it wouldn’t power up with the cord in place. The best it could do was show the blinking red battery icon. Served her right. She’d just let it charge while she showered and put herself together. That would let her check her messages on her way to work. She’d plug it in at her desk and let it fully charge there.
Admit it. You want to know if Isaac has called.
“Nope. Not going to worry about that.”
Liar.
“Perhaps,” she said, smiling. She’d never be able to hear that phrase without thinking of him.
Rachel went through her morning routine, loaded her new messenger bag with her work items and then grabbed her phone. If she didn’t step it up, she was going to miss the bus to the subway and end up late.
She had to run for the bus, but she made it. Taking the first seat she came to, she sank into it and retrieved her phone. Which she almost dropped when she powered up the screen.