“Are you alright?” he asks politely. “Do you need anything?”
I shake my head. “I need to call my parents before they kill me. But other than that, I’m fine.”
Dante nods. “The cellular circuits are jammed because everyone is on their cell phone in this area, trying to check on their loved ones. When we reach Caberra, I’m sure it will be clear. You can call them then.”
“Okay,” I answer, fiddling with the strap of my purse. Dante’s casual good looks aren’t something I have gotten used to yet. He still causes my tongue to tie in knots. Actually, I don’t foresee that dissipating anytime soon.
“Are you upset that I brought you with me?” Dante asks, his forehead wrinkling in concern. “I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble with your parents. It’s just that we didn’t know at the airport what the problem might be. I thought it was terrorists and something inside of me said that I couldn’t leave you there.”
“You thought it was terrorists,” I repeat in confusion. “It wasn’t?”
Dante shakes his blond head. “The helicopter pilot tells me that a volcano erupted in Greenland. The ash has carried in the air and it is wreaking havoc on airplanes. It gets sucked into their engines and clogs them up. Airports all over Europe are closed down.”
“Will a helicopter be safe?” I ask nervously, mentally picturing a fiery crash. Perhaps I’m going to die after all. My pulse speeds up.
Dante smiles reassuringly. “Yes. It’s safe. Helicopters don’t have jet engines to clog, so we’ll be fine.” He glances at me. “I promise.”
At precisely that moment, the pilot motions to us that he’s ready and we quickly move to board. Dante lifts my hand and helps me step into the craft, like a prince and a princess. His manners are perfect. His mother should be proud.
“It will be fine,” Dante repeats to me, patting my shoulder.
I’m such a baby. I know that. But in the face of what we’d just seen a couple of hours ago, I’m 99.999% sure that my terror is justified.
The co-pilot hands us headphones, which we all put on and settle into our seats. This is the biggest helicopter that I’ve ever seen, large enough to seat everyone in Dante’s security detail.
That thought makes me gulp again. Dante has a security detail. He is my complete and polar opposite on the life-importance-meter.
I fasten my seatbelt and close my eyes. All of a sudden, I feel his breath on my cheek and his mouth next to my ear.
“I promise, it will be fine.”
Everyone in the helicopter can hear, because mouthpieces are attached to our headphones. My cheeks burst into flame. Now everyone is well aware that I’m a big baby. Perfect.
“The people on that plane. Are they all dead?”
It is completely silent around me as I ask the question. No one wants to answer and that is answer enough. Dante’s face is grave as he leans toward me.
“Yes. They are.”
The breath freezes in my throat as I remember the grotesque popping sound as the plane had burned. And the doll with no face.
I close my eyes but I still see the visions.
Dante reaches over and squeezes my hand.
Perfect.
For real, this time.
I feel my heart flutter a little at his nearness and at the way his cool hand feels within mine. And then I instantly feel silly. Just because I’m a small-town farm girl does not mean that I should make a fool of myself over this boy. I have to have some self-respect. I am not going to fawn all over him. He’s a billionaire. And beautiful. He’s probably used to ‘those’ girls being at his beck and call. And I am bound and determined not to be one.
I pull my hand out of his and lean my head against the window. I’m determined not to look at his reflection, particularly because I can feel him staring at me.
I squeeze my eyes shut as the engine roars and we lift off the ground, shakily at first and then we soar across the sky like a motorized bird.
I think I might have a heart attack and this time, when Dante reaches over and squeezes my hand, I squeeze it back. To hell with trying to seem guarded. That had lasted all of three minutes. I’m a girl who wears her emotions on her sleeve. I’m not going to change that just to look cool.
Not for any boy, not for any reason.
The drone of the helicopter fades into my subconscious as I close my eyes and try to imagine that I am anywhere but 15,000 feet in the air.
I focus on my favorite daydream, the one where I return from London at the end of the summer and am all glamorous and drop-dead gorgeous and every girl in my school is completely jealous when Quinn McKeyan asks me to Fall Homecoming because he can’t resist my charm.
Hey, it’s my daydream. I can dream what I want to.
The thing is, Quinn’s face keeps getting replaced in my head by Dante’s.
Since I’ve had a mad crush on Quinn from the time we started kindergarten all the way through our junior year last year, that’s saying something.
Every daydream I’ve had for eleven years has been of him. I’m a very loyal daydreamer. And I suddenly feel like I’m cheating on my imaginary boyfriend, a boy who happens to be real, but who has been dating my best friend Becca for the past two years. And no. Becca has no idea that I’m secretly in love with her boyfriend. It’s the one secret that I’ve kept from her.
I clear my head from cluttered thoughts and instead focus on emptying it. I focus on blackness and feel myself drift to sleep.
I’m not sure how long I sleep. But my eyes flutter open to find Dante watching me. I’m instantly self-conscious and seriously hope that I haven’t done anything gross in my sleep.
“I like the name Reece,” Dante says randomly, as though he’d been thinking about it. Once again, everyone in the helicopter is listening since we’re all on the same frequency. My blush comes back with a vengeance, fiery hot.
“Thank you,” I answer, not looking at him, trying to will my cheeks to not be pink.
“How did your parents choose it?” he asks, staring at me with interest. I straighten in my seat and once again look at him in the glass. I find it is safer to look at his reflection, rather than into his startlingly blue eyes. It helps me to keep my wits.
And I need every wit that I have.
“My father has always had a man-crush on the baseball hall of famer, Pee Wee Reese,” I tell him. “He played for the Dodgers a long time ago. My father has a signed Pee Wee Reese baseball that his grandfather gave him. Do you watch baseball?”
He shakes his head. “No. But I played it when I was a kid.”
“Well, it is one of the things that my dad lives and breathes for, when he isn’t working,” I explain. “So, naturally, he named me after his hero. But like I told you earlier, he was expecting a boy. I was quite the surprise.”
Dante looks at me seriously and I can’t help but turn to meet his gaze. As a result, my heart thumps so loudly that I’m afraid my mouthpiece will pick it up and give me away.
“Yes,” he agrees. “You are quite the surprise.”
What the hell does he mean by that?
But I don’t have any time to ponder it because Dante looks out his window and begins giving me a blow-by-blow tour of the scene below us. And as I lean into the window and look, I gasp at the beauty below. It is so gorgeous that it effectively takes my mind off my fear of flying.
“Where are we?” I ask in awe. This is so much better than being in the dreary rain of London.
The landscape is beautiful. There are so many white sandish-colored buildings and I can see, even from here, that they are ancient. Houses dot the countryside which is filled with green grass and rock. The ocean looms huge and blue around it and I’ve never seen such a lovely place.
“This is the land of the gods,” Dante tells me. “Greece. Look there,” he points. “That’s the Acropolis. And that there? That’s the Pantheon, a temple made for the goddess Athena a couple of thousand years ago.”
“Wow,” I breathe as I s
tare at the history sprawling beneath me. “The United States doesn’t have such history. We’re such a baby country compared to Greece.”
Dante nods, apparently satisfied with my reverence.
“It’s an amazing place,” he agrees. “To walk here, among the buildings where the gods are said to have walked, it is the most incredible feeling in the world.”
“How far are we from Caberra?” I ask. “Is it near here?”
“Very near,” he confirms. “Less than twenty minutes by plane.”
I settle back into my seat and stare absently at the turquoise water beneath us. It is almost hypnotic as we race above the glass-like water. And honestly, before I even know it, the helicopter descends for a landing.
We hover above a building for just a moment before we shudder to a stop.
I straighten in my seat and find that we’d just descended into paradise.
“Wow,” I breathe again, as I stared at the bright blue sky, quaint old buildings and shops and lush greenery below the helipad. “It’s beautiful here.”
Dante nods again. “Yes. I’m blessed to call this my home.”
“Where are we?” I ask as I stare around us in wonder. We’re clearly on the roof of someplace, but beyond that I don’t know.
Dante smiles. “This is my home. They call it the Old Palace because that’s exactly what it is. Once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, Caberra was a monarchal society with a royal family. This was their palace, but it has been turned into the prime minister’s home now, as well as housing a few governmental agencies. Since its royal family days, Caberra has evolved into a parliamentary representative democratic government with my father currently serving as prime minister.”
“Yikes. Say that three times quickly,” I challenge him.
Dante smirks slightly. “You should try living it.”
Turning to Buzz Cut, he asks, “Where is my father?”
“He’s in London,” the security guard tells him. “He decided to finish his meetings there and he will then depart for home in a day or two.”
“Fine. We’ll need to show Ms. Ellis to a room so that she can freshen up and she will need to call her parents.”
Buzz Cut nods as he helps me out of the helicopter. “Very well. Your father has already been apprised of the situation. We’re under instruction to give Ms. Ellis a proper welcome.”
Dante stares at him. “You were already under that very same instruction,” he points out. “From me.”
Turning his back on the burly security guard, Dante guides me away from the helicopter and through the doors leading into the Old Palace.
Once inside, I suck in my breath, trying not to say something stupid or act like the country girl that I am. The interior of this ancient building is dazzling. Amazing. Like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Air the exact perfect temperature washes over my damp skin, bathing me in a cool breeze. Priceless antiquities surround me in the form of statues, artwork and heavy antique furniture. The marble floors glisten mutely in the sunlight and are covered with woven rugs. Beautiful vases adorn ornate tabletops and even the ceiling is gilded in what appears to be gold. Glittering chandeliers hang overhead and crystal doorknobs adorn the doors. Everything is beautiful, but so perfectly in place that it seems almost sterile. I feel like I should whisper from the reverence of it all.
“Your home is beautiful,” I tell Dante politely and in a hushed voice. He grins.
“It is, isn’t it?” he answers. “But it’s not really my home. My family home is on the outskirts of Valese. Valese is the capital of Caberra, by the way, and we are in the very heart of it right now. My home is in the Giliberti olive groves, where it is beautiful and peaceful at all times. That sounds stupid, right?” He gestures around us. “But I always feel like I am in a museum here. It’s too uptight.”
It does feel as though I have stepped directly into the National Museum of History. I’m not surprised to find that some of these things, probably priceless relics, had actually been cordoned off with red velvet ropes.
“Well, at least there are no creepy suits of armor standing around,” I tell him wryly.
And no lie, just as the words are out of my mouth, we round a corner and there stands a small suit of armor.
No. Lie.
And it is, in fact, creepy with its empty blank holes for eyes and dangling arms and legs.
“You were saying?” Dante asks, with a raised eyebrow.
“Um. Yes. You do seem to live in a home straight out of an old Scooby Doo episode,” I laugh.
He chuckles as I step closer to look at the tiny suit of armor. It seems to be bronze and it is no more than five feet tall.
“It’s so small! Were your ancestors dwarves?”
Dante’s eyes twinkle.
“No. Caberra used to have armies made from children so that our strapping adult men didn’t die in battle.” As my mouth drops open in horror, he laughs, a rich sound that sends goose bumps erupting down my arms.
“I’m kidding,” he assures me. “People used to be much smaller hundreds of years ago,” he explains. “Surely it was the same in the United States. People were simply littler. By way of evolution, we have grown bigger and bigger.”
“How big are you?” I ask, sizing him up as I spoke.
“That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?” he answers impishly. My cheeks catch fire as I realize his implication.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes quickly. “That wasn’t polite or appropriate. I hope I didn’t offend you.”
“Not at all,” I assure him. “I grew up in a rural town full of cowboys and farm animals. Trust me, I seldom get offended.”
“But still,” Dante continues. “I’m sorry. It came out before I had thought about it. I’m 6’3”, to answer your question. How tall are you?”
“I’m 5’8”,” I answer. “Tall for a chick, I know.”
“Yeah, but you were supposed to be a boy, so I would totally expect that out of you,” he replies, his eyes sparkling again. I really like it. It is just so ornery, like he always knows an entertaining secret.
“Yeah, yeah,” I answer with a sigh. “Keep it up, smarty.”
He laughs as we step onto yet another landing and then start climbing our third flight of stairs.
There are So. Many. Stairs.
“Yikes, how many floors are in this building?” I’m practically panting.
“I know,” he sighs. “It’s too big to be a real home, right? There are three stories sprawled over two city blocks. First story is government offices, parliament, etc. Second story has the ball rooms and museums. And the third story is the personal living quarters of the Prime Minister. And me.”
“There’s actually a museum in your house?” I ask, trying not to laugh, although secretly I’m impressed.
He shakes his head. “Yeah, yeah. Keep it up, smarty.”
I go ahead and laugh, at his embarrassment, at the way he threw my words back at me, at his cute dimple, at the absurdity of the situation. I shouldn’t be standing in a Scooby Doo episode because I’m supposed to be in London having an uncomfortable dinner with my father right now.
That last thought is actually sobering.
Dad is probably having a steak so rare that there is blood in the plate and a finger of Pimm’s, which is just a weird way of saying that the liquor is poured to the height of a finger held against the glass.
If I were there, he’d be trying to talk to me about baseball, horseracing and any other imaginable male topic of conversation and I would be attempting to act interested. But I’m not there. I’m here, standing in a beautiful old palace in the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen with the most beautiful boy I’ve ever laid eyes upon.
But all good and beautiful things must come to an end. I turn to Dante with a sigh.
“Do you have a phone…a landline? I really have to call my dad.”
And if I’m really, really lucky, Alexander Ellis, NSA Agent Extraordinaire, won’t kill me d
ead right on the spot.
Dante shows me to a phone and I settle into an ornate carved chair. I don’t want to speculate on how antique and expensive it might be. My father answers on the first ring, a bad sign, but he isn’t angry at all. I am pleasantly surprised when the conversation doesn’t go badly at all.
In fact, he seems in awe of the fact that I am staying in the Prime Minister of Caberra’s palace.
“Tell me again how you met this boy,” he instructs me in his London accent.
Interesting fact: My dad doesn’t actually have a London accent. He was born and raised in America. He says he’s acquired it from living abroad for so long. Um, I haven’t picked it up after spending every summer in London since I was small, so I know that he really just wants to seem sophisticated. But I’ve never called him out on it and I’m not going to start now.
Instead, I answer his question and he tells me that he’s already up to speed on everything because Dante’s father had personally called him and explained the situation. Since my father can’t exactly be angry with the Prime Minister of a country, he seems perfectly okay with me being here.
Shocker number one.
It turns out that Dante’s father has extended the generous invitation of letting me stay with them until the airports open back up and surprisingly, my father already accepted the gracious invitation. Apparently, he figures it would be educational for me to learn about another culture firsthand.