cord. She thanked him as she resumed her seat.
She glanced out of the corner of her eye to see Sullivan had his pillow—a nice, big, fluffy one. Ignore him. Easier thought than done. He smelled great; a spicy musk with a touch of soap.
Eyes back on her tablet, she shuffled some names into table seats and then started to run them against her lists to see if they were all compatible. Of course, they weren’t. Two people needed to be moved forward and two people couldn’t be seated together. That left four people at the table. She moved people to new tables and highlighted them as a reminder to check out the politics on them. And repeated the process.
A soft snore came from across the way—much less annoying than the shrill cry of one of the toddlers demanding a bandage for his boo-boo. Blondie rushed to the rescue and the boy settled down. Except for loud outbursts like that, the two boys were actually well behaved. There’d been no need for Sullivan to move seats.
“Would you care for a meal, Ms. Reeves?” Dan appeared beside her.
She glanced at the time on her tablet. Eight o’clock. They’d been in the air an hour. “Yes, please.”
“You have a choice of chicken Cordon bleu or beef Stroganoff.”
“I’ll have the beef. With a cola.”
He nodded and turned to the other side of the aisle. Before he could ask, Sullivan said he’d have the beef and water.
Her gaze collided with his. Brown eyes with specks of gold surveyed her, interest and appreciation sparkled in the whiskey-brown depths, warm and potent.
Heat flooded her, followed by a shiver.
“What’s in the bag?” he asked, his voice even deeper and raspier from sleep. Way too sexy for her peace of mind.
“None of your business.” She turned back to her table plan.
“Must be pretty important for you to get so upset. Let me guess, a special dress for a special occasion?” He didn’t give up.
“Yes. If you must know. And it’s my job to protect it.”
“Protect it? Interesting. So it’s not your dress.”
She rolled her eyes and sent him a droll stare. “I liked you better when you were snoring.”
He grinned, making his dimples pop. “I deserve that. Listen, I’m sorry for my attitude earlier and for sitting on the dress. I had wine with dinner and wine always gives me a headache.”
Lindsay glared at Sullivan. “So you did sit on the dress.” She knew it. That had definitely been a butt print on the bag.
He blinked, all innocence. “I meant I’m sorry for dumping it over there.”
“Uh-huh.”
His grin never wavered.
“Why did you have wine with dinner if it gives you a headache?”
The smile faded. “Because dinner with my folks always goes better with a little wine. And I’m going to have a headache at the end either way.”
“Okay, I get that.” Lindsay adored her flighty, dependent mother but, yeah, dinners were easier with a little wine. Sometimes, like between husbands, a lot of wine was required.
A corner of his rather nice mouth kicked up. “You surprise me, Ms. Reeves. I’d have thought you’d be appalled.”
“Parents aren’t always easy.” She closed her tablet to get ready for her meal. “It doesn’t mean we don’t love them.”
“Amen. Respect is another matter.”
That brought her attention around. He wore a grim expression and turmoil churned in his distracted gaze. The situation with his parents must be complicated. It was a sad day when you lost respect for the person you loved most in the world. She understood his pain only too well.
Thankfully, Dan arrived with a small cart, disrupting old memories. He activated a tray on the side of her seat and placed a covered plate in front of her along with a glass of soda. Real china, real crystal, real silverware. Nice. And then he lifted the cover and the luscious scent of braised meat and rich sauce reached her.
“Mmm.” She hummed her approval. “This looks fantastic.”
“I can promise you it is,” Dan assured her. “Chef LaSalle is the pride of the skies.”
She took her first bite as he served Sullivan and moaned again. She couldn’t help it, the flavors burst in her mouth, seducing her taste buds.
“Careful, Ms. Reeves,” Sullivan cautioned. “You sound like you’re having a good time over there.”
“Eat. You’ll understand.” She took a sip of her drink, watching him take a bite. “Or maybe not. After all, you’ve already eaten.”
“I wasn’t hungry earlier. Damn, this is good.” He pointed to the video screen. “Shall we watch a movie with our meal?”
She was tempted. Surprising. After the disaster of last year, work had been her major consolation. She rarely took the time to relax with a movie. She was too busy handling events for the stars of those movies. A girl had to work hard to make the stars happy in Hollywood. And she had to work harder than the rest after allowing an old flame to distract her to the point of putting her career at risk. But she’d learned her lesson.
Luckily she’d already signed the contract for this gig. And she planned to make the royal wedding of the Crown Prince of Halencia, Antonio de l’Accardi, to the commoner, Christina Rose, the wedding of the century.
Thirty days from now no one would be able to question her dedication—which meant returning to the puzzle of the table seating.
“You go on,” she told Sullivan. “I have to get back to my work.”
“What are you doing over there? Those earlier moans weren’t as pleasant as your dinner noises.”
“It’s a creative new form of torture called a seating arrangement.”
“Ah. It sounds excruciating.”
“Oh, believe me. It’s for a political dinner and there are all these levels of protocols of who can sit with whom. And then there’s the added element of personal likes and dislikes. It’s two steps back for every one step forward. And it’s a lot of manual double-checking...talk about a headache.”
“Politics usually are.” The grimness in his tone told her there was something more there. Before she had time to wonder about it, he went on. “The information isn’t on spreadsheets?”
“It is, but there are more than a hundred names here. I have to seat a table and then check each name to see if they’re compatible.”
“You know you can set up a program that can look at the information and tell you whether the table mates are compatible at the time you put the name in.”
She blinked at him. “That
