“Okay?”

“We’re all going! Well, if you want to. He found a great spa for Penna and me, and I hear there’s some fabulous skiing…”

My eyes narrowed at her. “You’re dangling the carrot. You know how much I love to ski.”

“I do,” she admitted.

“Landon will be there.”

“He will…it’s actually his trip. He’s hung up on boarding some ridgeline up by Everest, and this is his shot. He thinks it would put the documentary over the top.”

He couldn’t mean… I shut down my train of thought. For God’s sake. I’d been in his presence all of one time and I was already concerned about him. I had no business even thinking about him, or wondering if he was actually going to try to hit the Shangri-La spine wall he’d always talked about. It was impossibly high, impossibly steep, and offered a high possibility of death.

“Ugh.” I leaned my head on the back of the couch. “I can’t escape him, can I?”

“Not if you want all the perks that come with traveling with the Renegades,” Penna said. “And if I recall correctly, you were always ready to jump in on anything we were working on. Hell, I think you were more fearless than Landon some days.”

She said it softly, without malice. Maybe this roommate stuff would work after all.

“I do love it,” I admitted.

“Do you think you can handle being around him so much?” Leah asked. “I’m still willing to leave if you need to. I love Paxton, but I hate what he did—tricking us both to get you on board.”

I squeezed her hand. She’d suffered so much in the last few years, and it wasn’t fair to take this from her. I could endure six months of hell for her—for the chance to touch a piece of my history after months of research, digging through my parents’ papers, looking for the location of that orphanage in South Korea, trying to be as covert as possible so I wouldn’t upset Mom… Was I really going to let Landon ruin that?

“I’ll be fine. I can handle being around him.”

A flicker of relief passed through her eyes, and she loosened her grip on my hand. “Okay. Then how do you want to handle things? Pax wants to include you on the trips.”

“Of course he does. He wants me accessible for Landon,” I snapped and then grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You can growl at my boyfriend all you want. He deserves whatever you want to dish at him for this.”

“It’s fine. I’ll only see him on shore excursions. I can duck him the rest of the time.”

“Well…” Leah started.

“What now?”

“This might not be the best time to tell you that you’re also in two of the same classes this term,” Penna answered. “So you’ll be around him for those classes, shore excursions, our trips, and any field studies those classes have.”

“Fuck my life.”

“I figured you would say that,” Leah said, squeezing my hand. “Still okay?”

I nodded slowly. “Just like you, I’m a lot stronger than I used to be. Besides, just because I have to be around him doesn’t mean I have to talk to him.”

“Rachel,” Leah cajoled.

“He can be pretty insistent…and convincing,” Penna said.

“Yeah, well, I can be as stubborn as he is, and I’ve had way more practice at ignoring him than he has at seeking me out. There’s nothing that guy can do to force me to talk to him.”

I didn’t miss the glance Penna and Leah shared.

“I’m serious,” I said.

“I know,” Leah answered. “Your stubbornness has never been up for debate.”

“If I have to be stuck in this thing,” Penna said, nodding toward her cast with a slow smile, “at least I’ll have something entertaining to watch.”

How hard could it be to ignore Landon Rhodes?

I had the feeling I was about to find out.

Chapter Three

Landon

At Sea

“What the fuck did you do?” I asked Paxton as I slammed the door behind us, leaving the cameras in the hallway. I didn’t give a shit if our producer, Bobby, fined us for banning him from the suite—it was either that or I have this conversation with Pax in the fucking bathroom.

I loved Nick, and for him, I would endure the cameras for stunts, preparation, classes, hell, even at the bar where I scored my hookups. But Rachel? No one got to drag her out and air our shit for a documentary.

“Okay,” Pax said, putting his hands up like he was under arrest. “Don’t kill me.”

“Don’t kill you? How the hell can I kill you if I need you to give me answers?” I shouted, uncaring if our neighbors heard us. Given the parade of women I’d had in and out of here, they were used to far worse sounds coming through their walls.

“Let’s have a beer,” Pax suggested.

I silently seethed while he popped the tops on two Coronas and shoved lime wedges through the bottle openings. Then I chugged half the bottle. Seeing Rachel up close had hit me like a punch to the nuts. She was still so damn beautiful, her frame and face perfect, delicate porcelain, but she had a steel core that I more than admired. She was a tiny piece of dynamite, smooth and pretty but capable of blowing your damn head off.

God, I’d loved that about her.

She was a puzzle I’d never figured out. She’d never bored me, always left me craving her, wanting more, and chasing her down. Given the physical reaction I’d had the minute I’d realized it was really her—the way my heart lurched toward hers like a damned magnet—it was safe to say that hadn’t changed.