Travis nodded and just as negligently unfurled onto a facing chair. “That’s right.”

“She said you gave her a big decorating job.” “Also right,” Travis said. “What’s your point, little brother?”

In a heartbeat, Luke was on Travis, and his shirt was bunched up in Luke’s hands. “If you do one single thing to hurt Lily, I will personally see to it that you pay.” He let go of Travis and stood up. “Well, I gotta go. Have a nice trip,” Luke said, then walked out of the loft, closing the door behind him with a click.

Chapter Six

Lily buckled her seat belt and accepted the glass of champagne from the pretty, reed-slim flight attendant.

“Thank you so much,” she said as the attendant moved on to serve a well-to-do couple behind her. Lily surveyed her first-class surroundings with wonderment. I could get used to this kind of life, she thought with a smile. From now on, it’s first-class or nothing.

Lily laughed out loud at such a ridiculous thought. She still couldn’t believe that she was sitting in the lap of luxury on a Virgin Atlantic flight. They were going to change planes in London, then it was straight to Rome. There was even a neon-striped bar in the compartment back behind the seats. It was so decadent. So lavish. So stimulating. Just like Travis’s hands had been on her br**sts. Just like his mouth had been between her legs. Just like his c**k had been…

Stop it, she ordered herself sternly. With a shake of her head, Lily forced herself to concentrate on the various goodies that had been waiting for her at her seat. She was rubbing a free sample of tea tree oil on her hands when Travis walked into the aisle.

Her smile went. He was so big he seemed to suck all of the oxygen from the cabin. She had to resist a crazy urge to pull her emergency oxygen mask from above her seat. But God forbid she give Travis the satisfaction of knowing how badly he affected her. In the aftermath of their sex-in-the-pool play, she had greatly enjoyed having the upper hand with Travis.

His bright green eyes sizzled for a brief moment, going clear so quickly Lily was sure she must have imagined the heat. Closing her eyes, figuring that she’d been about as brave as she could be, she replayed her talk with Luke.

“I can’t do this,” she had said, giving in and calling her best friend at midnight even though she knew she should be packing her pathetic, dumpy clothes for Italy.

“You’re doing great,” he had replied, a virtual thumbs-up across the wireless lines.

“No, you don’t understand.” Feeling like a bigger idiot than ever before, she had whispered, “He’s flying me to Tuscany, and I told him that I want our relationship to be strictly platonic.”

Luke whooped and Lily had held the phone back from her ear. “That’s perfect, Lily. A stroke of genius.”

“But what if it’s not genius?” Lily blushed fiercely, thankful that Luke couldn’t see her face. “What if he’s happy about it and never wants to, well, you know… ever again?”

Luke had laughed. “Travis hasn’t done anything this spontaneous since we were kids. I have a feeling that you are getting to him, and good.” Oblivious to Lily’s inner shame at lusting helplessly after Travis, Luke added, “All the better that you’re making him beg for it. Just stay strong and keep up the good work.”

Lily had hung up and given up on her clothes—they all were so ugly she really should burn them. Instead, she had settled in to spend the rest of the night worrying instead of sleeping. What if she didn’t let him touch her again, and he left her untouched for good and was glad? What if she let him touch her, and he got bored? What if she let him touch her, and he didn’t want to out of disgust? What if he did want to touch her, for whatever strange reason that she still couldn’t figure out, and she wasn’t strong enough to resist him, then he left her high and dry and even more pathetic and needy than before? What if he could feel the heat between her legs that he always caused simply by breathing and knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wasn’t strong enough to resist him? Hour after hour passed in an endless wheel of doubts and self-recriminations.

In the clear light of day that was streaming in through the oval window at her left shoulder, Lily reopened her eyes and watched with trepidation as Travis stalked her in her oversized leather seat. His eyes roved over her outfit, and Lily couldn’t help hoping he liked what he saw. She had dressed in one of her few nice outfits, a flirty red dress that Janica had made for her several years back. Lily hadn’t had the courage to wear it before, but as she got dressed after a long, scalding shower she realized she was going to need all the confidence she could get. Evidently Travis had liked her red suit enough to have sex with her in the swimming pool, so she figured red was a good bet. Now, seeing the heat rise in his eyes—thank God he wasn’t totally immune to her, she thought with a rush of pleasure mixed with relief—Lily wished that she owned a few other sexier outfits.

“Hello,” he said, his voice husky and warm.

Lily shivered under his gaze, and he bared his white teeth in a smile so beastly, she almost pushed past him to go lock herself in the bathroom for the duration of the flight.

“Hello,” she replied in a remarkably steady, light voice, even as she wished that she could be so lucky as to wake up to a naked and warm “Hello” in his bed in the near future.

But that, of course, was out of the question given her brilliant plan. Although it was looking less and less likely that she would be able to hold out during their trip, not if she was wet and wanting him in the first five seconds of their flight. That is, she reminded herself with harsh reality, if he even wanted to be with her again.

Five days in romantic Tuscany with Travis was going to be impossible.

The familiar taste of the fear of rejection hit Lily like a brush of cold air, and she shivered, picturing the scene too clearly: Travis hitting on a lovely dark-haired, olive-skinned lady in a bar, while she nursed a glass of wine in a dark corner and tried not to feel ugly and out of place. Travis making passionate love to the lithe, vibrant woman, while she made do with the dildo she had packed and gallons of chocolate gelato. It was all too real. All too possible. All too much like her life had been up to that point.

Travis cut into her negative visions. “Are you cold?” he asked, making no disguise of staring straight at her rapidly hardening ni**les. “Should I get a blanket from the stewardess for you?”