to consider his sister could have been involved in anything sinister. In this case, Arizona agreed. It didn’t seem likely that his job had anything to do with the accusations that had ruined his sister’s reputation. The coincidence was unnerving, though.
A baby cried from somewhere in the back of the plane. The whine of jet engines and airflow muffled voices and the movement of flight attendants.
“Were you curious about my job because you were fishing for a connection or did something else prompt you?” he asked.
Prompt her? What had prompted her? She registered his reading glasses.
“I could tell you were—” a nerd, she almost said “—a college graduate.”
He stared at her. “A college graduate?”
“Yeah. You know, the office type.” His big chest and arms challenged her claim. So did the amusement in his eyes, entirely too...she’d rather not allow the word into her head.
“You could tell that by looking at me?”
She took in his stubble and the green of his captivating eyes. “Well, there are some deterring factors, but yes. I could tell.”
“Deterring factors?”
Never one to shy away from confrontation, she let propriety drop. “You have this masculine look about you, and yet you wear Gucci loafers and smudged reading glasses. It’s like Louis Vuitton clashing with Aeropostale.”
“Stereotyping, are you?” He removed his glasses and wiped them with his soft shirt.
Another non-office thing to do. Who wiped their glasses on their shirt? She smiled with an exhaled laugh.
“While we’re on the subject, I agree with your brother. You don’t seem like the international reporter type.”
She was having too much fun to be insulted. “You think I’m much more suited for tabloids?”
“It’s just an observation. Sort of like the one you made about me.”
Smart-ass. “Hey, I’m not the one who wears smudged glasses.”
“No, but you write entertainment news and are the subject of entertainment news, like what you’re reading about in that magazine.” He gestured toward the People magazine in her lap. “An interesting dichotomy, don’t you think?”
“Quite.” She wasn’t sure she liked his observations. She knew a lot of the people she read about. It was sort of like social media to her.
“Why’d you get into it anyway?”
“Jackson Ivy’s daughter...?” Her levity fell flat. The fun was over.
This was getting too close to personal pains she’d rather not stir up. If she explained why she’d made her observation and where it had come from, she’d have to tell him about her fiancé.
“The media will follow you no matter what you do,” he said. “So why not do something you love?”
What did she love? She thought awhile and nothing came to her other than her undying desire to be recognized as herself rather than Jackson Ivy’s daughter. “My brother thinks I should start a nonprofit organization that takes crime victims skydiving or other high adventures. His version of entertainment that would suit me. Dad would back me.”
“I’d get in on that,” Braden said.
She took in his profile as he typed on his laptop. Would he? Which part? The organization or her dad backing it? “I want to make it on my own. You skydive?”
Pausing in his typing, he turned his face toward her. “I love anything outdoors.”
That was different from Trevor. He’d been chained to his desk and his idea of physical exercise was taking the stairs. “Wow.”
“That surprises you?”
“It’s just...”
He angled his head, green eyes curious and prowling. “You think engineers are boring?”
“No...” He definitely wasn’t boring her right now.
“You’ve banned all engineers, is that it?” His flirtatious grin muddled her senses further.
“No...I...” She struggled with what to say. Engineers reminded her of Trevor. It didn’t matter what type of engineer, or how different they were, for some reason just the association hit a raw nerve. Except with him. Right now.
She had to stop all this focus on her. “Why are you so curious? Do you want to date me or something?”
Now he was the one speechless.
“No? Too soon after your divorce?”
“I don’t want to date you.” He was a rigid wall again.
His divorce had affected him profoundly; a man who’d loved his wife only to discover she didn’t love him back. Or was it only that? She sensed something deeper at work.
“What happened? If you don’t mind me asking...”
He averted his gaze to the front of the plane. “I wasn’t what she expected.”
Did all men answer questions so vaguely or were there only a few? The injured ones. “Did she cheat on you?”
“No. It had more to do with my title, or lack thereof.”
What was wrong with engineer?
“Her parents are rich. She has a trust fund. She’ll never have to work a day in her life. When she met me, I think in her mind she was giving me a chance. And when she realized I’d never advance to executive management, she served me and left.”
He said it so simply. All that emotional baggage wrapped up in a few sentences. Discovering his wife’s lack of caring had to have been difficult on him. How could some women be so shallow? Did they have no consideration for the men they married? They thought they loved them at one point. Of course there were always exceptions, but didn’t the past they shared mean anything? To Arizona, that was like erasing a relationship as though it had never happened. What a waste. She planned to cherish every second she was alive. There was no such thing as mistakes. Everything happened for a reason. Good or bad. The mistakes were just things that happened to correct the course of life. The catalysts of fated change.
“She wasn’t what you expected, either,” she said quietly.
They shared a long look.
“Was Trevor what you expected?”
“I think he would have been.” She stared over the top of the seat in front of her, falling into what-ifs. What if they’d gone to Paris instead of the Caribbean? What if they’d stayed in the hotel room all day? What if...
“Did he die?”
Braden’s question brought her back to him.
