When Philip had told him he was a natural he swelled with something he’d never felt before.
Pride.
The praise had fed him, nurtured him and ultimately freed him.
On the ground his life was a dead end with no way out, but in the air he saw more than sunshine and fluffy clouds beyond the horizon. He saw a world without limits, full of possibilities.
He saw hope.
With the aircraft he achieved a depth of understanding he’d never reached with another human being.
A social worker had once told him the only thing he was good at was screwing up. Given that she’d caught him breaking into her office to make his own additions to the case file she had on him, he hadn’t disagreed. He would even have considered it a fair summary of his talents. Until he’d put his hands on the controls of a plane. Then he’d known immediately there was something else he was good at.
From that moment on, flying was the only thing that mattered.
Flying satisfied his need for adventure and excitement and it leveled the field. Up in the air, he was equal to anyone. Not just equal, superior. Most times passengers didn’t speak to the pilot so he did what he loved and some stupid fucker with more money than sense paid him to do it.
For the first time in his life, he’d pushed himself. Challenged himself.
He’d dragged all the information he could from Philip and thirsted for more. Even when Philip had taken him in and given him a home, he’d still thirsted. After spending his formative years trapped and helpless, something in him needed to be free. Why stay in Maine when there was a whole world out there waiting to be discovered?
He’d flown in places most pilots chose to avoid, places with more land than people, including remote parts of Alaska with no runway and enough ice to freeze a plane out of the sky, until finally he’d returned to the island that on a good day he almost regarded as home.
His reputation as a pilot was such that he’d immediately been offered a job by Maine Island Air, the company that flew freight and passengers around the islands.
Zach didn’t want that life.
To him, flying was freedom. He didn’t want his days dictated by someone else’s schedule and demands and anyway, thanks to a stroke of luck and his instinct to live life closer to the edge than most people, he now owned his own plane.
So instead of taking the job, he’d used that sharp brain Philip had identified and noticed the number of super-wealthy individuals who owned property around Penobscot Bay. Those people flew into Boston on their Citation or Gulfstream and then needed something private and personal to transport them onward to their beach house or yacht. They needed a pilot skilled enough to land anywhere, on land or sea.
For a fee that made him laugh out loud, Zach offered that service.
Personal?
Yeah, he made it personal. Hell, he offered bottles of chilled champagne and caviar on silver platters if that’s what they wanted, although he didn’t recommend it because with the crosswinds across the bay the one thing he couldn’t guarantee was a bump-free ride.
It never ceased to amaze him how much people were willing to pay for the privilege of picking the time, the place and, most importantly of all, exclusivity. For one flight ferrying a rich banker and his family from their private jet to their private island, he made enough to ensure he didn’t have to work for the next month.
It was robbery, but for once he was on the right side of the law.
He picked and chose the jobs he took and had sufficient funds to play with projects that interested him.
If all the people who had written him off could see him now, they’d choke on their good intentions.
Looking back, he always divided his life into two parts. Before flying and after flying. Before flying was a time he chose to forget, a time when his world had been small and terrifying with no escape. After flying—after flying was the world he chose to live in now, and it was a world he loved.
Zach smiled as he completed his preflight check.
It was a bright sunny summer morning in Maine and today the man bankrolling his lifestyle was Nik Zervakis, a Greek-American billionaire who was landing in Logan and wanted one of his female guests flown direct to Puffin Island. Which meant that in exchange for flying one rich pampered princess across the bay, Zach was going to make an obscene amount of money.
The businessman in him was satisfied.
The badass was laughing his head off.
“I WANT TO fly this way for the rest of my life.” Cocooned by the feather-soft leather seat of the Gulfstream, Brittany closed her eyes. “No more tedious queues, no more screaming toddlers wriggling in the seat next to me, no more lost baggage and no more trying not to breathe while strangers cough all over you. Push Lily out of the window, Nik, and marry me instead. We can make it work, I know we can. You own four properties—we don’t even need to see each other. You can live in San Francisco. I can live in New York.”
Bronzed, handsome and filthy rich, Nik Zervakis was scrolling through his emails with one hand while with the other he kept a possessive hold on Lily.
It made Brittany smile to see them together.
She was sharp enough to know that her own laughably brief experience of marriage colored her judgment and careful enough not to apply that judgment to others. Even she had to admit she’d never met two people more perfect for each other than Nik and Lily. And if a small part of her felt wistful, she chose to ignore it.
Lily almost hummed with contentment. “You love your independence.”
“You’re right, I do. And even a Greek-American billionaire with a private jet isn’t going to persuade me to give it up. All the same—” She glanced around at luxury living and shook her head in disbelief. “You’ve won the lottery, Lil.”
“I know.” Her friend smiled up at the man who had swept her off her feet and he lowered his head and delivered a lingering kiss to her mouth.
Brittany was fascinated by the sight of the notoriously ruthless business tycoon softened to the consistency of butter by her sweet-natured friend. There was no doubt in her mind that they shared something deep and special.
“Hey, you need to watch out—you’ve turned into a pushover, Zervakis. If your competitors find out, your shares will plummet. Economies will shatter.”
Without shifting his attention from Lily’s mouth, Nik made a rude gesture in her direction and Brittany grinned.
“Don’t mind me. You guys go ahead and make a baby right here and now. I’ll look the other way.”
Lily pulled away with a murmur of embarrassment. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. It was decent of you to give me a lift. The good news is I’m getting off at this stop and the two of you can rip each other’s clothes off all the way to New York.”
“We’re spending a few days in Boston first. Nik’s meeting isn’t until Tuesday, so if you need anything, call. Then we’ll be in New York for a few days and I’ve arranged to meet up with Skylar.” Lily touched her fingers to the necklace at her throat and her gaze slid briefly to Nik’s. “We’re going to her exhibition in London in December. Will you be there?”
Brittany knew that the necklace, one of Skylar’s exclusive pieces, retailed for more than she’d earn in a year as an archaeologist.
She opened her mouth to remind her friend that not everyone had access to a private jet and a bottomless bank account, but then remembered that such a response was likely to illicit all sorts of generous offers from Lily and Nik, and they’d already done more than enough for her. “Not sure.