Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34243 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 171(@200wpm)___ 137(@250wpm)___ 114(@300wpm)
Huh.
I had to lean forward to check if it’s real, and yup, it so is. Nothing fake or cheap here. Not even the thick dove-grey carpet absorbing the sound of my sneakers. They’re not carpet tiles you can buy from your local hardware.
Icelle slides into her seat the way she does everything. Without fuss, without looking around, without giving any indication that this is remarkable in any way. She buckles herself in and pulls out her phone, and I realize this is just how she gets places. The limo, the airfield, the jet. For Icelle, this is Tuesday.
I sit down across from her. The leather is incredibly soft, and the seat is wide enough that I could tuck my legs up if I wanted to. One of the cabin crew glances at me from the galley entrance, and I can tell she’s noticed I’m not exactly a regular.
Icelle only looks at me once the seatbelt sign goes off and Connecticut is shrinking beneath us. “Don’t bottle it in, Ti. Just get it all out so we can enjoy the rest of the flight.”
I was planning to bottle it in, but since she’s now making it sound like I’m such a saint for wanting to do that, and being saintly means being weak in my book...
“Please tell me you didn’t let my mom know how rich you are?”
Icelle gives me a two-second look.
“I need subtitles for that one.”
“Go to sleep. I think it’s been a long day for you.”
I want to argue about that, but she’s already closed her eyes, and honestly? It has been a rather long day, and the hum of the engines is already pulling me under, so...
Yeah. I think I’ll just take a nap.
It’s my last thought before my eyes get heavy, and I’m not sure how much time has passed, but when I open my eyes again, Icelle is gone...and there’s the most ridiculously good-looking man seated across me instead.
Chapter Two
YOU KNOW HOW MOST GIRLS have this incredible talent for telling the difference between cerulean and teal, or green-blue and blue-green? So amazing, right? But unfortunately, that’s just not me.
The best I can tell about his suit is that it’s blue bordering on black. That’s as far as my vocabulary can go. Oh, and its fit is really good. Exceptional, actually, in a way that makes me think his suit is tailor-made for him, literally.
And that...
That’s just more proof of this man not being real, and I obviously have to be dreaming because the last thing I remember is falling asleep on the flight, and before that, Icelle introducing me to everyone, and nope. I don’t remember my friend introducing him, so either he’s not real or he’s somehow found a way to be one place one moment and then here the next moment, even though here is a jet flying 35,000 feet above the ground at Y per hour.
Yeah.
Right.
Teleportation? Not real.
So this man? Not real either.
And if I need more proof of how not real he is, then all I have to do is to look at his face, and ta-da.
He’s ridiculously good-looking, and I’m allergic to beautiful men like him. I just can’t bear being near them. I know it’s psychological (I paid good money for a therapist to make that official), but beautiful men like him literally make my skin crawl.
And this guy?
It doesn’t matter what your standards are. His looks are, like, guaranteed to surpass them. His hair is black as night, falling in short, silky waves that are just long enough to look careless but just neat enough to look like the carelessness took effort. I wish I could convince myself that he did make the effort to style his hair, but...no.
One look at that granite jaw of his, and it’s so easy to tell.
He’s not the type to care about his looks.
With all the men Mom’s dated through the years, I needed to develop a skill on how to read people, just to weed through her boyfriends, find out if it’s safe for me to sleep under the same roof...or if I’m better off spending the night in the local library.
So yeah, me reading people—it’s a skill I had to learn early on to survive, so it’s honestly nothing to be proud of. It’s depressing, actually, but...
This man, though.
How strange.
The gleam in his dark eyes tells me he’s studying me, but that’s it.
Is it because this is all a dream that I can’t read him?
Yeah, that must be it, just like why my skin isn’t itching at his proximity.
I’m dreaming, he’s part of my dream, and now it’s time to figure out what I need to do to wake up and get myself back to the real world.
So, hmm...let’s see.
I look at him again, and...oh no.
This isn’t good.
Mr. Not Real is still studying me, but this time, the darkness of his gaze is starting to make me feel ridiculously self-conscious. Even my heart has started to race like it’s never raced before, and I don’t like that at all.