I crush it immediately. I ease out of her carefully. She sucks in a breath. I turn her around before her knees can fail and pull her against my chest. For once, she does not argue. Her forehead rests against me, and her hands clutch weakly at my shirt.
Neither of us speaks.
There’s nothing to say that would not make this worse.
Finally, she laughs. A tiny, stunned sound against my chest.
I look down. “What?”
She tilts her face up. Her eyes are hazy, bright, wicked. “I think,” she whispers, “that repays the ticket.”
I stare at her.
Then despite every ruined thing inside me, I smile.
“No, Katerina,” I say, brushing my thumb over her swollen mouth. “We’re just getting started.”
6
KATERINA
The plan is simple,which means it fails immediately.
I’m supposed to leave the washroom first, walk back to my seat with whatever dignity remains after letting a man I met hours ago ruin me at thirty thousand feet, then Roman will wait a minute or two before following.
Very civilized. Very discreet. Very not what happens.
Roman opens the door a careful inch, looks down the aisle, and pauses.
“What?” I whisper from behind him.
His shoulders shift. That’s not an answer.
I rise onto my toes and peer around his arm.
A man is standing directly outside the washroom.
He’s maybe sixty, deeply irritated, and holding a small leather toiletry bag with the kind of moral authority only a passenger waiting for an occupied airplane bathroom can possess. His grayeyebrows lift when he sees both of us packed inside the tiny space.
For one horrifying second, nobody says anything.
Then Roman, calm as ever, steps out as if finding two people in one aircraft lavatory is a perfectly normal logistical arrangement.
The passenger looks at him. Then at me. Then back at him.
“I was waiting,” the man says.
Roman inclines his head. “Clearly.”
My face burns so hot I’m surprised the smoke alarm doesn’t go off.
I try to slip past Roman, but the space is narrow, my skirt is still slightly twisted, and my hair is probably screaming the truth louder than my mouth ever could. I clutch my coat around me like that will help.
The passenger’s gaze drops to my shoes.
One of them is not fully on.
I want to open the emergency exit and throw myself out.
