CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

He slammed the door in his bedroom and pushed her back against the door- his big body holding her against it.

But she was still pleading. "Let me go, Jonni. I wanna get off this plane!"

"Listen to me, Vivian."

"Just let me go."

Tears began to stream down her eyes. Her heart was so deflated she didn't know what to do. "Why can't I ever be with a good man? Why do they all have to be cheaters? I've seen all kinds of women with good men. They get married, have children, and they grow old together. Why do I always have to attract the bad ones?

Giorgio hated that he was the source of her pain. "I'm not that man anymore, Vivian," he pleaded. "I'll never hurt you."

"That's what they all said to me! Every man I've ever been with has said that to me. And every one of them cheated on me. What's the damn difference with you? How can I ever trust you?"

She looked so flustered and so sincere that it broke Giorgio's heart. And as he stood there staring at her, and as she waited for him to give her something to hold onto, to believe in about him, to give him a chance, he couldn't do it. He couldn't beg her to stay with a rat like him because he knew he wasn't worth it. "I'm not different," he said to her. "And you're right: You shouldn't trust me. I'm not worth your love. I'm not worth it."

He looked so defeated to Vivian, and had said the exact opposite of what she expected him to say, that she didn't know how to take it. The anguish on her face was only surpassed by the anguish on his face. "Don't say that," she said to him.

"It's the truth. I'm willing to change. And I know I'm ready to change. But why should you settle for some beat up old man like me when you can get out there and find a good man like you said? Somebody without my baggage. You can do so much better than me. I know it and you know it too. Why should you give me a chance?"

Just seconds before, Vivian was ready to get off of that plane and never look back. She was ready to forget Giorgio ever existed. She would be alone. And she knew it was cold out there. But at least she would be free of the shackles of a man who didn't think she was enough for him.

But it was Jonni. It was the only person who ever helped her. He wasn't lying to her. He wasn't pretending he never cheated on any of the women he'd been with. He came clean to her. He took all of his awful cards and laid them on the table. She could take that hand and try to play it, or fold.

Looking at Jonni, and feeling his anguish, left her with only one answer. She decided, right then and there, that she was going to play the hand she was dealt.

"You weren't worth a damn when you were with those other women," Vivian said to him. "You were a cheater. And had you not shown me all the kindnesses you have shown me, then I would be out of here and never look back."

Giorgio knew it too. That was why it hurt so badly.

"But your actions have shown me what kind of man you are. And I can only go by what I know about you. Not who you used to be. But who you are now. And I'm going with now. Because I believe you are worth it," she said. And she could barely get the words out of her mouth before he was smothering her mouth with a kiss so hard and impactful and passionate that it reinvigorated the passion inside of her.

"I'll prove to you that I'll never cheat on you or hurt you ever in my life," Giorgio said to her. "Thank you for giving me a chance."

"You've been so good to me that I have to give you a chance. When you weren't telling me to kiss your ass, you've been very kind to me." And they both laughed.

But when he kissed her again, and their passion reignited again, it could not be quenched. They ended up naked in Giorgio's bed. When he entered her, and he began moving inside of her so slow and sweet that it was as if all of her anxiety and distress were gone in that instant. And she felt safe again. And protected. And even loved. She was home again.

Giorgio felt the fear and desperation seep out of him as he moved inside of her. Just minutes before he thought he had lost her forever. Just minutes before he thought there was no way she could hear his awful history and would want to be with him. But she saw him for who he was and not what he used to be. And as he leaned up and looked at her face, at her closed eyes, at the way she moaned as he did her, he didn't think it was possible to love a woman more. Because he knew, in that moment, that he loved Vivian Ellis. He loved her and was going to protect her and take care of her for the rest of her life. He knew it instantaneously.

They made love for nearly an hour. And when they came, they came together. They both nearly fell out of bed it was so intoxicatingly intense.

And when he finally pulled out and rolled off of her, and then pulled her on top of him, he realized she was smiling that smile he could not get enough of.

"What's so funny?" he asked her.

"I had no idea, in all my years on this earth, that they had beds on planes," she said. And the innocence of it just did something to Giorgio. He couldn't stop laughing.

But another hour later, after they showered and made it back up front with Frank and Howard and the rest of the flight crew, nobody was laughing. Howard got the news first from their guys on the ground in Oklahoma.

"What is it?" Giorgio asked when Howard ended the call.

"They were waiting for her to finish her shift at the diner where she was working. They had men stationed front and back of the diner and inside too. When she went to the ladies' room before she knocked off, they could even see her going into the bathroom from where they were sitting. And they waited. But she never came out."

Vivian touched Giorgio on the arm. She knew bad news was coming.

Giorgio knew it too. That was why he was frowned. "What do you mean she never came out? I thought you said they cased the place."

"They did. And that bathroom doesn't have a window in it. That's why they weren't worried about it."

"Then what happened to her?" Giorgio asked with an elevated voice.

Even Howard hated to say it. "They didn't realize the broom closet in that bathroom had a second door behind all the mops and buckets and other junk that hid it from sight. And when you open that second door, it leads into the alley. By the time they realized it, she was long gone."

Giorgio fell back in his seat. The incompetence of it just floored him! But instead of lashing out at Howard the way he would have done, he looked at Vivian. He was outdone.

She squeezed his arm. "We'll find her," she said. "We'll find both of them."

Giorgio nodded. She had a way of calming him down. And instead of lashing out, which would only make him feel worse, he ordered his pilot to turn the plane around.