Hard Impact: An Alpha Billionaire Romance Novel
“I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
    “It’s an Agusta Westland. AW109 Grand Versace,” he told me.
    Versace? They made helicopters too?
    “Agusta Westland designed it with the Italian fashion moguls. She tops out with a speed of one-hundred-seventy-seven miles an hour and has a nearly six-hundred-mile range,” he said proudly. He led me toward the door to the cabin and opened it. What I expected was certainly not this. I’d never flown in a helicopter, but imagined the typical bubble with the front seat for the pilot and copilot, the cramped seats right behind. No, this was far from it. This one had luxury interior seating for six. Gorgeous upholstered seats with pull-down cup holders. Plush carpet on the floor, interior sidewalls like the inside of a luxury car or a limo. Black and gray upholstery, the carpeting a complementary silvery-gray.
    “Make yourself comfortable,” he said, gesturing for me to climb inside. “You can take any seat you want. You’re my only passenger today.”
    I climbed inside, not really surprised that it had a new car smell. I wondered how much something like this cost. Millions of dollars at least. The door closed and I leaned forward to watch outside of the window as Blake quickly made his way back into the hangar. I supposed he was talking to the pilot and would join me in the cab, or whatever it was called, in a few minutes. I pulled the strap of my satchel from around my shoulders and set it on the floor at my feet while admiring the interior, my fingers tracing gently over the soft leather upholstery.
    When I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, I glanced back out the window. I watched Blake approach the helicopter carrying a clipboard. He began to make his way around the aircraft, stooping closer to look at this or that, making notations on the clipboard. I waited patiently for him to open the door and join me in the cab. Instead, he moved to the front of the craft. Shortly, he opened the pilot’s door and climbed in, but left the door open.
    I stared in stunned dismay as he placed a clipboard on the copilot’s seat and pulled the headset from the console, placed it on his head, and then reached once again for the clipboard. As he flipped switches, my heart once again trip-hammered. Maybe he was just doing the pre-check, but I was getting a funny feeling.
    “Where’s the pilot?” I asked.
    He glanced over his shoulder at me and flashed a grin. “You’re looking at him.”
    I wanted to get out. Right now. To hell with Angela. To hell with the magazine. I had already experienced Blake’s driving. I wasn’t sure I was up to a helicopter ride. But I sat frozen, unmoving. I’d never thought of myself as a coward and certainly didn’t want to start now. Within a few moments, it was too late to do anything.
    He straddled the control stick, the instrument panels in front of him dotted with tiny and multi-colored light blue, green, red, and yellow bulbs lighting up the black console that reached from one side to the other, the fixed console in between, with its own dials, switches, and buttons. It looked incredibly complicated, but Blake seemed to know what he was doing as he checked one panel after another, toggled a switch here or adjusted a dial there.
    He placed the clipboard in a slot between the passenger seat and a console type thing in between the seats and then flipped another switch. I heard a distinctive whirring sound, then a higher pitch noise over that. Above me, the rotor blades slowly began to move. Good Lord. The blades started moving faster and faster, casting flickering shadows on the ground around the helicopter.
    He didn’t do anything at first. He seemed to be waiting. For what?
    “Just warming her up,” he commented, glancing back at me once again.
    I swallowed, my stomach turning a nervous somersault. I wanted to say something, but what? He spoke into his headset. Probably the airport control tower. I continued to watch in stunned

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