Page 7 of Revere

“If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be so defensive about it.”

“Or maybe I’m just the right amount of defensive.” Jacob leans in, barely maintaining the invisible barrier created between us by the armrest.

Close enough for me to breathe in a tease of his warm, apple-scented cologne.

How good it could be. Just one bite.

“You’re awfully jaded for being only…” His eyebrow pitches. “How old are you?”

“You’re not supposed to ask a lady her age.” My chin juts up.

But he doesn’t back down. He simply stares and waits for me to answer.

“Twenty.” My stare doesn’t falter, even if I feel him judging me for my age like everyone else does, because he has no idea what I’ve been through in those two decades.

“You’re awfully young to be this jaded.”

I glare. “Call me whatever you want. I’ve been called worse.”

“Such as?”

“Bitch. Coldhearted.Ice princess.”

His jaw works as he thinks about that. His green eyes hold my stare, shrinking the space in the plane with every second he refuses to look away.

“You don’t seem offended by any of those names.”

“Because I’m not.” I shrug a shoulder. “I don’t care what people think of me. They don’t know me.”

He hums, his gaze dropping to my lips as I press them together. “I think you do care, but you’re just good at not letting it show.”

“Are you a psychologist now?”

“Something like that.” He smirks, and I realize I know nothing about him, but he continues talking before I can askwhat he does for a living. “They’re wrong about you, for the record.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because you’re not cold at all, Patience. You just burn so hot that ice is all they feel before you reduce them to ashes.”

My tongue swells. My heart thunders.

Jacob’s green eyes focus on me, and I can’t hear anything other than my heartbeat between my temples.

I swallow, and it’s rough with how dry my mouth is all of a sudden. “You don’t know me.”

“Maybe not.” He leans back in his seat. “But I don’t think you know yourself any better.”

“That’s a bold statement coming from someone who met me less than an hour ago.”

He smirks. “You’d think that.”

My eyebrows pinch, and I open my mouth to speak as the flight attendant’s voice cuts through the plane, informing everyone that drink service is about to begin.

I glance out the window, realizing we must already be at cruising altitude, when I don’t even remember the ascent. My hands are no longer gripping the seat, and my spine is relaxed.

“Told you a distraction would help.” Jacob winks.

He instigated this conversation to distract me. He irritated and challenged me to the point I stopped noticing anything but him.