I smiled a bloodthirsty smile at my own reflection and headed back out to the galley.

The curtain was still up, but Leona was out in the cabin.  Serving the first pre-board round of champagne, I assumed.

I grabbed my manual and made a quick announcement over the intercom, lowering my voice just so, turning it into a near seductive purr.

I did this for one reason.  I knew it would get to him.

I wanted to score a hit before I ever even had to look at him.

He’d had the nerve to come into my territory.

I’d make him pay.

I always traveled with two pairs of shoes.  One on my feet and one in my carry-on.  Work heels and killer heels.  Work heels were for work, i.e. all of the grunt work on the airplane and keeping my balance at thirty-five thousand feet.  The killer heels were for the glamorous walk through the airport with my crew of gorgeous girls.

Well, okay, it wasn’t glamorous.  Nothing about being a flight attendant was.  But we made it look glamorous, which was close enough, as far as I was concerned.

I yanked my bag out of its spot in the cubby that ran just behind my jump seat and pulled out my killer heels.

Don’t get me wrong.  My work heels are not hideous.  I wouldn’t be caught dead in hideous shoes.  They are black, patent leather, three-inch wedges with a cute little bow on the toe.

But this was not the time for cute.

I switched out my shoes in record time, stepping into five-inch red platform stilettos with a peep toe.

My uniform was simple and sleek.  A black pencil skirt, white dress shirt, black vest and tie.  I’d had every piece custom tailored to fit to perfection, accentuating my figure to its best advantage.

Add that to a sexy pair of red stilettos, and I felt like a million bucks.

I stashed my bag right as Leona returned to the galley.

“I handed out menus, but the champagne could use topping off,” she informed me, dashing back into her galley to prep for takeoff.

That was fine.  I was ready.

I grabbed the opened bottle of champagne and strutted out into the cabin.

Under my breath I was humming Seven Nation Army.

My battle anthem.

Because this was war.

I faltered slightly when I spotted him, but recovered between one step and the next.  His face was downcast, eyes pointed away from me, thank God, so at least he hadn’t seen it.

His looks had always devastated me.

I was a shallow thing, with a weakness for the superficial.  Even now, with all we’d put each other through, his beautiful face moved me.

He was just how I remembered.  Every gut-punching, heart-wrenching inch of him.

He was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome.  He had wicked good looks, with ebony black hair, light eyes, olive skin, and a perpetually shadowed jaw.  His features were even and sharp, with slanted eyes and a lush mouth.

He was extremely tall, enough so that it was apparent when he was sitting down.  If he stood, even in my killer heels he’d tower over me.

He was broad-shouldered and muscular, but he was lean enough to pull off looking elegant in the ungodly expensive suits he wore on a regular basis.

Physically, he was just my type.  I was a sucker for a sinister looking man.

Another thing that was all his fault.

“Dante,” I crooned with a smile when I reached him.  “To what do I owe the honor of your disagreeable, unwelcome presence?”

He’d been looking down at his phone when I’d approached, and he sucked in a deep breath at the sound of my voice.

He held it there for a long moment before letting it out and waited another beat still before letting his ocean blue eyes travel up to meet mine.

Ah, sweet torture.

This was the part I dreaded the most.

When our eyes clashed, and everything—every horrible, wonderful, painful, ugly, beautiful, torturous, ruinous, gory bit of us came back to me.

It was bad enough when I didn’t have to look at him.

But when I did—exquisite torment, with a touch of pleasure so concentrated, so brutally pure it had ruined my life.

Broken my heart.  Eviscerated my soul.

“Hello Scarlett,” he returned in that beautiful voice of his that I utterly detested.  It was the deepest timbre and compelling to an unusual degree.

Compelling to the point of controlling.

When it warmed, I warmed with it.  When it cooled, I went cold.

His voice was a dirty trick.

An unfair weapon.

I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat just to disarm it.

Well, if I was honest, I wanted to choke him for numerous reasons.  Several came to mind, not the least of which was that the thought of it turned me on.

“How flattering that you’d deign to fly commercial just to ruin my day.”  My tone dripped with venom.

“How flattering that you’d put on your favorite red lipstick just for me,” he returned with his own bloodthirsty smile.

Fuck.

Point to The Bastard.  He must have gotten a glimpse of me before I’d put it on to notice the difference.

His eyes shot down to my feet, and a ghost of a smile flitted across his face.  “And the shoes.  I’m more than flattered.  Your efforts never go unappreciated, angel.”

Another point.

If I was fair, it was two.

Because angel.  The bastard.

I barely held my eat shit and die smile.

He didn’t call me that because I was angelic.

Obviously.  He was being ironic.

He thought I was the devil, and as far as he was concerned, I sure as hell was.

But that wasn’t why it burned.  It burned because it was a very old nickname, from back in the day, when we were just dumb kids in love, and he’d actually meant it.

Once upon a time, I’d been his angel.  The reminder was yet another reason I’d have loved to wring his neck.

“More champagne?” I asked him, holding up the bottle, wondering if the other passengers would notice if I quietly poured it over his head.

He looked away, and I saw his lip curl up in disdain.

That made me grind my teeth.

It was shitty champagne, cheaper than he was used to, and he couldn’t hide his distaste.

God, he was a snob.  It was one of the things I hated most about him.  At the top of a very long list.

“Oh.  The brand too low class for you?  You poor baby.  You should put it up on your blog:  Spoiledrottentrustfundbrats.com.”

Here was the part where he was supposed to make a biting crack about me being from a trailer park, or pointed out how far I’d fallen that I was slinging drinks on an airplane, or asked archly about how my failed acting career was going.

That’s how this little play worked.

Only he didn’t.

He just raised suddenly tired, sad eyes back to me and said, “We need to talk, Scarlett.”

That set me off.  Here he was, wasting my time, and he wasn’t even giving me the reaction I wanted.

Scratch that.

Needed.

“Oh yeah sure,” I said flippantly, fake-distracted eyes traveling away from him to skim leisurely around the rest of the cabin, letting him know that he was barely worth my attention.  “Go ahead.  Talk.”  I snapped my fingers.  “Be quick about it.  There’s still time for you to get your privileged ass off my commercial plane before we close the doors.”  My voice was dismissive to the point of rude.

“Not here,” he ground out.  I could tell by his tense tone that I’d gotten to him.

Score another hit for me and my fake nonchalance.

I knew how to push every single button he had.

I’d keep pushing them until my fingers fell off or he left.

I saw one of my other crewmates, Demi, giving me a strange look from the coach cabin.

Dammit, I’d forgotten for a second that I was working.  I had at least a hundred things to do in the next five minutes.  I didn’t have time to indulge in this hate-fest just then.