Page 49 of Mile High Ruin

He leaves without saying anything else.

I remain where I am for a long time after he’s gone, listening to the low hum of the engines and feeling the remains of everything that happened between us settle into something heavy and deeply embarrassing.

I don’t see him alone again for the rest of the flight. When I enter the cabin, he is professional, painfully so. He asks for nothing he doesn’t need. He doesn’t look at me longer than necessary. He doesn’t come near the galley again.

By the time we land, I’m convinced I have ruined whatever this was and possibly my new career along with it.

I tell myself that is probably for the best.

Nearly three weeks have passed since my first private assignment, although it feels longer when I count time in aircraft instead of days. Three flights with Vadim Chernovar have somehow become enough for me to recognize the sound of his voice from the other end of a cabin, know exactly how he takes his coffee, and make several decisions that would have horrified the version of me who first walked onto his aircraft with my handbag sitting unsecured beside the galley.

I spend the next several days checking my phone too often. There are no more assignments. Of course, I’ve lost my only source of income thanks to my lust and stupidity.

By day four, I stop pretending I’m not worried.

Private aviation was supposed to be the thing that kept me afloat after losing the airline job, and I have somehow managed to turn my first few assignments into a series of increasingly questionable decisions involving one of the most powerful clients on the roster.

Then my phone rings. The staffing agency.

I answer so quickly I nearly drop it. “Yes?”

The coordinator gives me an international assignment departing the following afternoon. I accept before she finishes listing the rate. Only after the call ends do I realize my hands are shaking.

Camille is already inside the aircraft when I arrive, standing in the galley with a clipboard tucked beneath one arm while she checks a row of glasses against the light, and the sight of her gives me such an immediate rush of relief that for one ridiculous second I almost cross the cabin and hug her.

I stop myself before I can embarrass both of us.

She looks up, recognition softening her face almost immediately. “Sloane.”

“Thank God.”

Her eyebrows lift, and then she smiles in a way that makes it clear she understands I mean it. “That bad?”

“You have no idea.”

I set my bag down long enough to shrug off my coat, then immediately pick it back up again and store it properly because the memory of Vadim noticing it beside the galley wall on my first flight is apparently going to follow me until I die.

Camille notices that too. Her mouth twitches. “You learned.”

She laughs quietly and returns to the glassware while I start checking the catering inventory beside her, and for the first few minutes I let myself settle into the familiarity of working with someone I already know, grateful for the simple comfort of not having to learn another new attendant’s habits while pretending I’m not wondering whether Vadim is going to be on this flight.

I still don’t know if he is. The assignment details gave me the aircraft, destination, reporting time, and crew information, but nothing about the passengers, and I spent the entire drive here refusing to speculate because the last time I saw Vadim I accused him of treating me like a woman he could have whenever he wanted and then spent the rest of the flight wondering whether I had just destroyed my job.

The agency calling me again should be enough to tell me I haven’t, but it doesn’t stop the worry completely.

I glance toward the cockpit while Camille is making a note on the catering sheet. The door is open. A man steps out.

My stomach drops.

Warren Hale.

For a second, neither of us says anything.

He looks exactly as I remember him: immaculate uniform, carefully arranged hair, wedding ring still sitting on his finger as though it has never prevented him from acting like a man with no wife at all.

His gaze lands on me. Then stays there.

“Well,” he says. “Look who’s back.”