of his jaw told her he was worried, too.
The dive lasted longer this time. It seemed, she thought, fighting the first edges of panic, to go on forever.
Were they about to crash into the ocean? Or worse, into the mountainous edge of Silvershire? She had no idea where they were or what might be below them.
Then again, if they crashed at this speed, what they hit wouldn’t really matter.
Finally the plane leveled.
Sydney exhaled in relief.
“Despite his attempt to climb, I think we’ve lost a lot of altitude.” Chase sounded calm, matter-of-fact, as though none of this worried him. “I’d better go talk to Franco.” He pushed himself out of his seat and the plane lurched, then took another violent drop.
He lost his balance and stumbled toward Sydney.
Wide-eyed, she reacted instinctively, throwing up her arms. He stopped with his face inches from her breasts.
God help her, she could feel her face heating.
Slowly, he raised his head to meet her gaze. She could have sworn she saw a flicker of amusement in his hazel eyes before he climbed back to his feet. “My apologies.”
Tongue-tied, she dipped her head in acknowledgment.
“Wait here,” he ordered, making his way to the cockpit.
As if she planned on going anywhere! She grimaced as the jet pitched and bobbed. If she had a parachute, she’d definitely consider jumping. She flexed her shoulders, feeling tension knots as she stared at the closed cockpit door.
A moment later, Chase returned. His expression looked even grimmer, if such a thing was possible.
She straightened, her aches forgotten. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Not good. We’ve lost an engine. The hail must have damaged it.”
Her heart stopped. “What now?”
“Franco and Dell are good. They’re searching for a place to make an emergency landing. They’ll get us down safely.”
“With one engine?”
“Yes. We’ll be fine.”
Swallowing, she pushed back her panic. She’d traveled a lot with the symphony, and knew this wasn’t great, but it wasn’t lethal.
Thunder boomed again, so loudly the jet shook. A jagged bolt of lightning flashed so close she wondered how it had missed them. Though the hail had tapered off and was mixed with driving rain, the storm’s fury scared her almost as much as the possibility of crashing.
“Talk to me.” Not caring that her desperation showed in her voice, she touched his arm. “I need a distraction.”
Another man might have made light of her fear. But Chase took one look at her and nodded. “Tell me about your family.”
She had no family. “I’d rather hear about yours. Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“I have two brothers and two sisters.” He smiled fondly. “We’re a noisy, affectionate bunch. They’re all married now, and their spouses are part of the family, as well.”
“But you’ve never been married?” Gripping her seat, she wondered why she’d asked, but as the plane did another hop-and-skip movement and she felt her stomach come up in her throat, she realized she didn’t care.
“No,” he said, his expression closed. For a moment she could have sworn she saw a flash of anger and hurt in his eyes, and she wondered.
Then she remembered. She’d read about him a few years back. Chase might work at keeping the royal family out of the news, but that meant his own life was up for public scrutiny, as well.
“You were engaged,” she said slowly. “To the daughter of an earl. I remember now. And there was some sort of scandal, involving another—”
“Yes.” His harsh voice cut at her like a knife. “I was engaged. It didn’t work out. No need to rehash all the details.”
There had been a baby, Sydney remembered. Another man’s child, though the woman had tried to pass it off as his to get him to marry her. The wedding ceremony had actually started when the woman’s lover, a high-ranking duke from Gastonia, had interrupted, claiming both the woman and the baby as his rather than Chase’s. While flashbulbs popped and cameras whirled, Chase had learned the truth. In front of the entire world, he’d been jilted.
The repercussions had nearly cost him his job. Though he’d presented a stone face to any and all questions, and had since cut a wide swath through Silvershire’s female population, Sydney knew how badly he must have been hurting.
After all, she could certainly relate.
“Did you love her?” she asked softly.
Instead of answering, he narrowed his eyes. “Did you love Reginald? Did you truly believe he was the one you’d spend the rest of your life loving?”
Throat tight, she nodded.
Emotion flashed in his gaze. Rage or torment, she couldn’t tell which. “Then I think we’re about equal, aren’t we? We both know what it’s like to be played for a fool.”
As she opened her mouth to apologize, a dark-haired man appeared in the doorway of the cockpit. The copilot, Dell. All the color seemed to have drained from his face.
“Chase.” One word, then he went back to his controls.
Instantly, Chase unbuckled and took off for the front of the plane. While he was gone, though the jet seemed steadier, she could have sworn they now descended rather than climbed.
An eternity seemed to pass before he returned.
His expression hard, he stood staring at her for a moment before dropping down into his seat and refastening the seat belt.
“Chase?” She touched his arm. “What did he want?”
“To give me bad news.” The gaze that met hers was bleak. “If you’re a praying person, you’d better start now. Though he’s bringing us down to try and land, the other engine has sustained damage, too. Franco doesn’t know how much longer it will last.”
She stared at him, a stranger until that very morning, and twice the bearer of bad news. “We’re going to crash?”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “It certainly looks that way.”
God help her, she didn’t want to die the same way she’d lived her life—alone. But she wasn’t alone, she had her baby. Her unborn child.
Once, music had been enough. She’d thought her art was her life, her reason for existence, her sole, all-consuming passion. The weight and solid feel of her cello, the pure, smooth sound of her gleaming horsehair bow gliding across the strings, had been her everything. Until now.
Now
