Chapter Twenty-Six
Henry smooths the back of his windswept hair down. “Had to wake my
chopper pilot up. He wasn’t planning on flying me in again so soon.”
“Neither were we.” Jack chuckles and clasps hands with Henry.
“Grab a seat. We’re ready to go.”
My heart is pounding like a jackhammer in my chest. Henry’s here?
He’s going to fly to Pittsburgh with me?
Crystal-blue eyes land on me, weighing me down with a hundred
emotions. “Where are we refueling?”
“Just outside Seattle.”
“Perfect.” Instead of taking a seat, Henry ducks into the cockpit, and I
hear him exchanging greetings with someone else. The captain, I presume.
I watch quietly, brimming with excitement and trepidation, as Jack
seals the door. Henry reappears. “Cooler’s stocked?”
“Yes, sir.” Adjusting his hat, Jack disappears into the cockpit, pulling
that door closed.
Henry sets a brown paper bag on the table in front of me. “Figured
you didn’t eat, so I had the kitchen make something for you.”
“Thank you.” I’m starving, actually.
He peels his jacket off and tosses it onto the seat. I admire the soft
charcoal-gray t-shirt beneath, and the simple way it hangs over his jeans, in
just that perfect way: not too tight, but enough to show his muscles.
How I miss the feel of him beneath my fingertips.
To think I was allowed to touch that—that he was mine—for even
just a short period of time.
Until I got jealous, and possessive, and mistrusting.
And there’s nothing I can do to change that, or make it better. If I
regret anything for the rest of my life, it’ll be that.
Folding into the seat across from me, he fastens his seatbelt and
begins fiddling with the media system, until soft music fills the cabin. “You
should eat, Abbi.”
The world outside us begins to move as the plane rolls into position
for takeoff. To distract myself, I dig out the contents of the bag and set them
in front of me. Granola, yogurt, fruit, an omelet, bagels with various cream
cheeses, lox, bacon, and danishes. Basically, most of the breakfast menu.
“I didn’t know what you would want. I figured I’d give you options.”
Henry opens the fruit container and pops a grape into his mouth. “It’s going
to be a long flight.”
“How long?”
“Nine to ten hours. We won’t get to Pittsburgh until late tonight.”
I take a deep, shaky breath. Nine to ten hours. Way better than fifteen
to twenty, but will my father still be alive when we land?
“I almost forgot.” He reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out two
sticks of turkey jerky, tossing them onto the table alongside everything else.
“Just in case.”
I can’t help it, I burst out laughing, thinking of that first day with
Henry. All the hope and excitement and nervousness. The wonder. The
impossible what-if.
Before I screwed everything up.
It’s not long before my laughter morphs into tears. I’m not even sure
what I’m crying about anymore. Henry, my dad. Leaving Alaska. Nothing
seems to be going well right now. “I’m sorry.” I wipe the tears with the
back of my hand, but more replace them instantly, until I can’t even see
through the blur.
I hear his seat belt unfastening and then, a moment later, so is mine,
and strong arms are lifting me out of my seat. Together we sit on the other
side where there’s no table, with me on his lap, wrapped within his arms,
my face burrowed against his neck.
“Don’t we have to be in our seats for takeoff?” I whisper, inhaling
Henry’s scent, hoping it will help calm my nerves.
“This is my plane. We can do whatever the fuck we want.”
“Okay.” I don’t want to move. Ever. I curl my fingers around his t-
shirt and stay put as the engine roars with the sudden increase of speed, and
then we’re off the ground and climbing high into the sky.
I don’t want to say anything to scare him off, so I bite my bottom lip
and keep quiet, letting the moments pass, memorizing the feeling of being
in Henry’s arms again—how lucky I was to ever experience it in the first
place.
“I wish I could go back in time,” I whisper against him.
His chest swells with a deep sigh. “Not now, Abbi.”
He’s shutting me down.
I close my eyes and let myself dream about his mouth, and his hands,
of his bare skin against mine.
Wishing it was mine again.
And that’s how I drift off.
~ ~ ~
I awake in Henry’s arms to the captain’s voice over the intercom, telling us
that we’ve begun our decent into Seattle.
The awful reality of the situation hits me like a brick to the chest. My
dad. The accident. I instantly reach for my phone.
“He’s still in surgery as of half an hour ago. I’ve been keeping an eye
out,” Henry says.
“I guess that’s good?”
He pushes my matted hair off my forehead and then, as if catching
himself, pulls his hand away. “Yeah, that’s good.”
“You could have moved me.”
“I didn’t want to wake you. You looked comfortable.”
“Yeah, I didn’t sleep much last night, and the anti-nausea meds
sometimes knock me out.” I let my eyes wander over his handsome face.
“And I was comfortable.”
He offers me a tight smile in return. Suddenly I feel awkward, like I
should either climb off him or kiss him. He hasn’t given any indication that
he’d be okay with me kissing him, so I climb off his lap.
He must have been waiting for that because he stands and, stretching
his arms over his shoulders, he makes his way to the tiny restroom in the
back.
The food he brought is still all laid out on the table. I shift over to that
seat and pick at the cold bacon and chewy omelet, too hungry to be grossed
out.
“Don’t worry. We’ll have something hot delivered in Seattle.” Henry
slides into the seat across from me, checking his phone.
“I’m fine. I like fruit.” I shift over to the yogurt and granola,
accidently knocking a lid off the table in the process. When I reach down to
collect it, I get a good look at Henry’s shoes and socks.
I press my lips together to hide my smile but it doesn’t work.
“What?”
“I take it you don’t ask Miles to dress you?”
His eyes narrow. “Why?”
I purposely stall answering by dipping a strawberry into the yogurt
and then sucking it off the end. I feel his eyes on my mouth and I revel in
the moment of attention, remembering when those heated eyes would be
looking down on me, when I was allowed to suck him like this. “Because
you’re wearing two different shades of blue socks.”
He groans, but then he’s chuckling at himself. “Dammit. It was nice,
not to have to worry about doing that for a while.”
Until I fucked it all up.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t, Abbi.” His jaw tightens as he pulls his phone from his pocket
and begins scrolling.
I do my best to keep my tears at bay. “Do you have a lot of work to
do?”
“Always,” he murmurs absently.
I sense he doesn’t want to speak, so I focus on the view out the
window as we approach Seattle.
~ ~ ~
“What’s taking so long?” Henry doesn’t hide his irritation well.
“There was a delay with the fuel truck. We’ll be back in the air
shortly,” Jack promises on his way out the door.
Henry looks to me.
“Jed says he’s still in surgery.” That means he’s still alive.
With a slight nod, Henry dials someone on his phone. “Yeah.... Where
are we with the specs?” I stare unabashed at him as he watches the refueling
truck outside the window and listens to someone one the other end of the
phone.
Have those full, soft lips touched anyone? What about those hands.
My eyes drop farther, to his jeans, and his belt.
What about the rest of him?
Not that I’d have any right to ever say a word, given what I’ve been
doing. Both Connor and Ronan texted me to see if I was okay. I haven’t
answered. That world, them, me with them... it’s already so far from my
mind.
“Okay, here we go.” Jack is back and carrying two food trays toward
the table.
“Here.” I scramble to help clear what’s left of breakfast.
“Thanks. I don’t have this flight attendant thing down pat yet,” Jack
mumbles.
“They don’t teach that in flight school?”
He chuckles. “I guess I missed that day. All right. We’ll be taking off
in a few minutes, in case you want to stick your head out for some fresh air
before you’re trapped in this tin can again.”
I giggle. “I think I can handle this tin can.”
“Not a bad way to travel, hey?” He winks. “Come up and check out
the cockpit later, if you want.”
“I will. Thanks.”
“...I don’t care if it takes another year, we need to open with at least
two runs!” Henry’s impatient “do as I say” voice is creeping in. “The
bottom’s been clear-cut for three years already. Yeah. We used the wood to
build the lodge.”
He’s talking about Wolf Cove. What is he planning now?
“No.... Shit, I can’t remember. Hold on.” Henry starts fumbling with
the dossier on his lap, unzipping it with one hand. A piece of paper slips out
and floats to the ground.
I don’t think twice, crouching to retrieve it for him. My hand freeze
when I realize that it’s a picture of me.
The one that Hachiro took that day, on the deck at his grandfather’s
cabin, when I was staring off into the water, my thoughts drifting into a life
with Henry.
Henry actually printed it off. He’s kept it all this time.
“The permits are as good as signed. That’s a nonissue.” Henry is still
staring out the window and talking. He doesn’t seem to have noticed the
picture. Would he be angry that I know? I never know with him.
I quickly tuck it into the back of my jeans.
“See if you can get a revised plan by end of week. I want to start the
work before winter, which isn’t that far off up there.” He hangs up with a
sigh. “What did they bring in to eat?”
Trying my best to sound normal, I lift the metal cover. “Looks like
chicken parm.”
He moves in across from me, unraveling the cloth napkin for his lap.
“Good. I’m starving.”
I alternate my focus between my food, Henry, and the view outside,
as the engines roar and we’re speeding down the runway, into the sky once
again.
Deciding what to say. If I should say anything, or if I should just
ignore it.
I can’t ignore it. Why does he still have this picture of me in his
dossier, nearly two months after our disastrous downfall?
I’d love to think it’s because he still cares about me.
Finally, I decide to not say a word. I simply reach behind my back
and pull out the picture, sliding it across the table to sit next to his plate.
He pauses with fork midair, his steady gaze on it.
And then he continues eating. Not saying a single word about it. Not
until he’s cleaned his plate and is wiping his mouth.
“It was my fault.”
“What was?”
He tosses the napkin onto his dishes and then brings the can of Coke
to his lips. I count four throat bobs before he relents, setting it down in front
of him. “When you told me what Scott had done, I should have worried
about you. Not about me, not about what he was up to.”
“He was trying to have you framed for rape, Henry.”
Henry’s eyes drift out the window. “He scared the shit out of you. He
introduced doubt into your mind that I didn’t do anything to get rid of. Here
you are, this twenty-one-year-old who’s only ever been in one relationship,
with that fuckhead who crushed you. Of course you’re going to have a hard
time trusting anyone so easily again. I expected you to take what I said at
face value.” His eyes flicker to me. “That wasn’t fair to you.”
“What happened with Michael—”
“The asshole took advantage of a distraught woman. I saw the video.”
My mouth falls open. Oh my God. “There’s a video?”
“Security footage. Of you running into him, and him leading you back
to his cabin with his arm around you. And of you leaving the next morning.
I wasn’t sure you actually fucked him until I saw your face. Then I knew,
right away.” He shakes his head to himself. “I have to say, it’s the first time
I’ve ever had a woman I was with do that to me.”
His words are soft and without accusation, and yet I flinch as if
they’re a slap. “I wish I could go back in time and change it all. Really, I
do.”
His jaw tenses. “Did you enjoy it?”
“No. I mean....” I close my eyes. “I did, for what it was, at the time.
But I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be with you.”
“I should have made you come home with me that night, instead of
walking that....” His words drift off with a snort and an eye roll. “That piece
of work back to her cabin.” He sighs, chuckling to himself. “But I didn’t.
And then, to top it all off, I threatened you with a video. Knowing that
would terrorize you. Not one of my finer moments, Abbi. But...” He
hesitates. “I didn’t like how you made me feel.”
“Do you have a video of me? Of us?”
He pauses to peer at the bottom of his glass. “I would never do that to
you.”
“You did it to your last assistant,” I remind him.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You didn’t videotape the two of you together?” Was that a lie, too?
“No. To be fair, I asked if she’d be willing but....” When he looks up
to see my mouth hanging open, he chuckles softly. “There’s this table in the
foyer of my penthouse. One night, Kiera decided to surprise me by
stripping down and lying on it. She figured I’d enjoy stepping out of my
elevator to that sight. She didn’t realize that there’s a security camera there,
with a perfect angle.”
“So you got a video of everythi—”
“Right down to the happy look on her face as I fucked her.”
I cringe with mortification, putting myself in that unwitting position.
“But you knew the camera was there.”
“I did,” he admits with a sheepish smile. “I pulled the security footage
immediately after so no one could exploit it. The benefit of owning the
building.”
I frown. “But you kept it.”
“I did.” Heat flares in his eyes. “And I watched it. I enjoyed watching
it; I’m not going to lie to you. But I also tossed it into my safe and had no
plans of ever letting anyone else see it. I consider myself lucky for that
choice. And stupid, for all my other ones. Had I listened to my father, the
last eight months of my life would have been a lot easier. But it’s all over
and done with now, and everyone can move on.” He reaches for my tray.
“You done with that?”
I nod. I’m not sure if I feel better or worse about him taking some of
the blame off my shoulders. The way he’s speaking, it’s like he’s resigned
to the fact that it’s really and truly over.
“I guess we both made a lot of mistakes that we can’t take back.”
He carries the trays over to a small bar. “There should be some decent
movies to watch on the TV. I’m going to grab some sleep.” Reclining the
seat back all the way, he stretches his arms back behind his head, the move
lifting his shirt up to reveal that delicious thin line of hair that starts below
his belly button. “Wake me up if you hear anything.”
