An idle Bennett . . . and all that.

I settled into the first class cabin, declining the champagne, and pulled out my phone to text Chloe.

Boarded. See you across the pond.

My phone buzzed several seconds later. Rethinking this whole trip. There’s a shoe sale at Dillons this weekend.

I laughed, choosing to ignore this one and slipping my phone back into my jacket pocket. Closing my eyes as the other passengers filed in past me, I remembered our past trips. We’d only traveled together a handful of times, but nothing ever went according to plan. Had I incurred some sort of vacation voodoo I wasn’t aware of? It seemed we were destined to be plagued by trips that went terribly off course, were taken separately, were colored by miserable arguments . . . or were canceled altogether.

My stomach turned when I remembered our attempt at a vacation last Thanksgiving. On impulse one weekend we’d purchased tickets to St. Bart’s and rented a house on the water. It was meant to be perfect but instead it led to the first time Chloe stopped speaking to me since our reconciliation.

“Motherfucking cocksucking son of a whore.”

I looked up from my desk, my eyebrows inching to my hairline as Chloe slammed my door and stormed to my desk.

“Did the gimp escape the dungeon again, Miss Mills?”

“Close enough. Papadakis is pushing up launch.”

I stood so abruptly my chair skidded back and banged into the wall. “What?”

“January is the new March, apparently. The first press blast is set to go out January seventh.”

“That’s a horrible time to pitch something like this! Everyone is still drunk or cleaning up the holiday mess. No one is buying fancy apartments.”

“That’s what I told Big George.”

“Did you also tell him he needs to stick to counting his Benjamins and leave the marketing to us?”

She laughed, crossing her arms across her chest. “I may have actually used those words. With a few other gangster terms thrown in.”

I sat back down, rubbing my hands over my face. Our flight was scheduled to leave in the morning, on Thanksgiving Day, and there was no way we could leave work now. “You told him this was okay?”

Across the desk, I could sense that she grew completely still. “What was my option?”

“To tell him we’re not going to be ready!”

“But that’s a lie. We can be ready.”

I dropped my hands, gaping at her. “Yes, but only if we work fifteen-hour days through the holidays—and all to accommodate his shitty timing for a launch.”

She threw her hands up, eyes on fire. “He’s paying us a million dollars for basic marketing and we’re inking a deal for another ten-million-dollar media campaign. You think fifteen-hour days are unreasonable to keep our biggest client?”

“Of course not! But he’s also not your only client! Rule number one in business is to not ever let the big dog know how small the other dogs are.”

“Damnit, Bennett. I’m not going to tell him we can’t deliver.”

“Sometimes a little pushback is a good thing. You’re being green, Mills. If you weren’t sure, you should have sent the call to me.”

I immediately wanted to pull the words back into my mouth. Her eyes went wide, her mouth dropped, and f**k, her hands curled into fists at her sides. I reached down to cover my balls.

“Are you f**king serious right now? Are you going to cut my f**king steak at dinner, too, you egomaniacal asshat?”

I couldn’t help myself. “Only if I can feed it to you and help you chew.”

Her face smoothed and I could see her calculate how much effort she wanted to put into kicking my ass. “We’re skipping St. Bart’s,” she said, flatly.

“Obviously. Why do you think I’m pissed?”

“Well, even if we did still go at this point, you’d be sleeping alone with your hand and a tube of lube.”

“I could work with that. These two hands provide some variety.”

She blinked away, jaw clenched. “Are you trying to make me more angry?”

“Sure, why not.”

Dark eyes turned back on me, narrowed. Her voice shook a little with one word: “Why?”

“So you can feel the pain more. Because you should have told George that these kinds of decisions have to be cleared with the entire team and we’d have an answer for him after the holiday.”

“How do you know I didn’t say that?”

“Because you came in here and delivered news. You didn’t act like it was a suggestion.”