“I heard you going through the other cabins, trying to get someone in business class to swap seats.”
“It was worth a try,” I answer in a tone much more even than how I feel. Which is impatient, bad tempered, and generally fucked off. A muscle in my left eye begins to twitch with tiredness as Iwatch the one thing that could make this journey worse: a grizzling infant.
“I’m holding this little one for my sister,” my neighbor says, beginning to bounce him—her?—against her knee.
“Won’t that ...” I make a gesture similar to that of opening a lively bottle of champagne.
“Nah, she likes it. Don’t you, Maisie?” the woman coos. “You know, if I’d been sitting in the good seats, I would’ve sold you mine. For a hundred grand,” she adds with a grin.
“And I would’ve paid it.” My answer melts her expression, her eyes suddenly wide. Not that it matters, because I’m here, and I would suffer through much worse deprivations. Not that I hadn’t tried everything to avoid this particular one. Extorting the loan of a jet, bribing the ticket agents—I even tried the “do you know who I am” ploy, which only left me looking like a twat. “In fact, I would’ve paid double, because this experience has been—oh, fuck!”
And now I’m a twat covered in baby vomit.
Chapter 48
EVIE
I throw my bush hat to the tiny, lumpy bed and brush my sweaty hair from my face as the video call attempts to connect. I’m just about to hang up when a telltale tickle at my ankle draws my attention. And my slap.
“Eve?” A melodic, cut glass accent fills the air, and I spring upright, like one of those crazy inflatable dancers outside of a car dealership.
“Hey, Lucy!”
Yes, that Lucy.
“I’m good. Exceptionally good, actually.” She smiles, and my heart twists at the familiarity. “What where you doing just now? When the call connected?”
“Zumba?” I answer, my voice rendering the answer a question. I was swatting at a mosquito, but the jumpy reaction was more about the sound of her voice. It’s not deep like Oliver’s, but the cadence is so similar, it caught me off guard.
“Ah. I thought Tucker might’ve been touching your bottom again,” she says with a soft chuckle.
“We left Tucker in Port Moresby.” Thank God.
“He is so sweet.”
“Easy to say when it’s not your butt he’s feeling up.”
“I do think my life could only be improved by some bum touching.”
“I’ll drop him by your apartment in Singapore on my way back home.” Home. It’s such a small word, but it fires a thrill through me. I can feel its pull, his pull.
Will he forgive me?
“You’ve decided?” It’s not hard to see her pleasure, despite the grainy internet connection.
“Yes.” My shoulders lift with a deep inhale. “I have.” It’s time to be brave. I shouldn’t have left in the first place, but in that moment, I let fear rule me. I let it convince me that it was happening all over again—a proposal by the wrong man for the wrong reasons—that I was about to be made a fool of again. But I see things clearly now. Oliver isn’t a thing like Mitch. He was acting out of love, not opportunity. Sure, his timing might not have been great, but I know his heart was in the right place.
“Eve?”
I come back to myself and Lucy’s concerned expression. “Sorry, I zoned out.” Oliver was about to propose, and I cut him dead in front of all those people.
“You’re worried.”
My stomach sinks to my boots. “What if he never wants to see me again?”
“He will.”
“What if it’s too late? What if he can’t trust me again—it’s not like it’s the first time I ran.” If only I’d trusted myself, listened to my heart and not my overcrowded head.
