Read Amy Bensen 01 Escaping Reality for Free Online

he will show me later and focus on
    searching for what lies beneath his amusement, but I find nothing. No
    secrets. No hidden agenda. But then, if he expected my reaction to the
    drawing, why would he react any other way? Then again, I could simply be
    losing my mind. I drop his hand that I am boldly holding and grab the
    sketchpad again, staring at the drawing of a high rise framed by a pyramid.
    It’s just a pyramid. There’s not a code in the center. It’s not tall and narrow
    like the one on my note. It really doesn’t resemble the tattoo at all. Maybe
    it really is just a building design. Maybe it has nothing to do with me or my
    father at all.
    Liam leans in close to me, his arm brushing mine and sending a jolt of
    awareness through me. “My design inspiration came from the two years I
    spent in Egypt, working with a team of experts that studied the Great
    Pyramid.”
    Impossibly, my skeletons have jumped out of the closet and attacked
    me and him in the process, and he’s not even questioning what must have
    seemed to be my bizarre actions.
    Confused, I turn to look at him. “You aren’t going to ask why I
    just…did what I did?”
    “No. I’m not going to ask.”
    “Why?” Why would he not ask if he didn’t know why I freaked out?
    “You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
    “I’m not going to be ready before this plane lands.”
    “That’s fine.” He lifts a chin at the sketchpad. “You still haven’t said
    what you think of my vision.”
    He’s confusing me. Okay, everything is confusing me, but his
    question is an escape from explaining myself and I take it. “The design is
    what you said you wanted it to be. It’s magnificent.”
    “You aren’t even looking at it.”
    “No. I’m looking at you. The man who created it.” The man who
    wanted me to see what he wouldn’t show anyone else.
    “And what do you see looking at me, Amy?”
    “What you let me see.”
    He looks intrigued by that answer, maybe even pleased. “Ask me
    what I see when I look at you.”
    More than I want him to. “No. I don’t want to know what you see.” I
    turn away from him, sinking low in my seat and pulling the blanket to my
    chin, and I am clear on only one thing.
    I don’t like who I’ve become.

    ***
    “Wake up, Amy.” I blink at the feel of a hand on my shoulder and
    turn quickly to find
    Liam leaning over me, his mouth impossibly close to mine.
    “I was asleep again?”
    “Like a rock.”
    “Please tell me I didn’t scream.”
    “No. Nothing like that. We’re about to—” The wheels hit the runway
    with a hard bump and I am shocked to realize that I’ve not only slept a
    second time, but so deeply that I had no idea we were even hearing the
    landing announcements. It’s like my mind had just shut down.
    “I didn’t want the landing to scare you,” Liam explains, settling back
    in his seat.
    “Thank you. It would have.” I sit up, adjusting my skirt and folding the
    blanket.
    “What’s your plan from here?”
    “Plan?”
    “Do you have a ride to wherever you’re going?”
    “A friend is picking me up,” I croak out, and the lie is like wet cotton
    in my throat. He wants this…this whatever we started to continue and so
    do I, but I can’t know his real motivation any more than I can risk his safety
    by being seen with him.
    “Male or female?”
    I blink, snapping back to the present. “What? Male or female?”
    “Your friend picking you up. Male or female?”
    I know the safe answer is “male”. I know that if his motivation for the
    question is simple male interest, it will discourage him, and still I hear
    myself say, “Female.”
    His eyes darken, heat, and I think he’s pleased with my answer. “I’ll
    help you with your bags.”
    “No, I—”
    “I’m helping you with your bags, Amy.”
    There is command in his voice, and I am instantly, unbelievably
    aroused, and pleased at his insistence, when I should be running for the
    hills. I will run for the hills