Page 130 of Top Shelf

“I was thinking your pillow technique is poor.”

I crack an eye open. “That’s physical therapy-related.”

He shrugs. “It is also true.”

“I’m on vacation.”

His mouth twitches, and he starts working his thumb into the tight muscle below my ear. I should object on principle, but unfortunately, I left my principles somewhere back over Greenland where my sense of time, lip balm, and ability to ignore this man were lost in the abyss.

It’s probably because Viktor’s hands have become a problem. They’ve always been a problem, technically. But over the past months, they’ve become familiar in ways that make my chest feel strange. His hand on the small of my back when a room gets too loud. His fingers brushing my waist in the kitchen when he moves behind me. His palm resting against my thigh under the blankets of our bed like it belongs there. Which it does.

Temporarily.

The word sits in my mind with all the grace of a brick through glass. I shift in my seat, and Viktor’s hand slides away.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” I say with a nod. “Annoyingly.”

He hums, and I glance out the window where the world beyond the glass has been nothing but clouds and dark water for long enough that my brain is struggling to comprehend distance. Somewhere ahead of us is Sweden. Stockholm first, then a drive through places with names my mouth has been practicing badly for three days, then Solvik, the Karlsson family estate outside Malmköping.

There, I’ll meet his parents and his sister, her husband and their children. His favorite person in the world: Grandma Ebba. And his uncle, aunt, cousin Anton, and Anton’s girlfriend. A whole family tree, waiting in a country where I’m supposed to convince everyone this marriage is solid enough to satisfy a dead man’s will.

My phone buzzes in my lap as the plane Wi-Fi limps back into usefulness.

Mila: Reformer delivery confirmed. I bullied the supplier politely and he apologized twice.

Mila: Also filmed three setup clips. You don’t have to use them, but the light in the studio was too good to waste.

Viktor looks over. “All good?”

“Yeah.” I turn the phone so he can see the messages. “The studio hasn’t burned down without me.”

“It has been ten hours.”

“Exactly! A strong start.”

He reads the messages, his thumb brushing over the side of my hand. “Mila is good.”

“She is. It’s weird leaving it.”

“The studio?”

“Everything.” I lock the screen and rest the phone facedown on my thigh. “For months, it felt like this thing I was dragging into existence, and now it has keys and a staff member and delivery schedules. It finally feels real… and I’m flying across the world.”

“You are allowed to leave the room and still be building it.”

“I know.”

I hate that he says things like this now. So simple and direct and true, as though he knows exactly how to reach into the messy knot inside me and pull the thread loose.

“You hired someone who understands it.”

“I know that too.”

“And Sloane is watching Mila.”

The plane shudders. It’s small at first, a rough ripple through the cabin that makes the plastic cup on Viktor’s tray jump against the rim. Then the aircraft drops hard enough that my stomach is left somewhere above us. My hand clamps around Viktor’s.