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“A cave in the middle of an iceberg.”
* * *
“I’d forgottenthat Gerri told me you could fly a plane.” Mila tried to keep her astonishment in check as they arrived at the airport she had flown into a few short days ago.
Was there anything this man couldn’t do? It felt like the more she got to know Cyrus, the more he surprised her. Mila would never have thought Cyrus had his pilot’s license.
“I always wanted to learn. It seemed like the closest thing to freedom.” He held her hand, guiding her through the large glass doors of the airport.
It was surreal walking around the familiar customs lines. The bustling workers directed a maze of foot traffic through the disgruntled fliers arguing for better amenities. The hordes of free-range children bolting back and forth, crashing into unsuspecting vacationers and their luggage. She couldn’t miss it less.
Sure, she’d loved her job, loved the rush of waking up in a different part of the world every few days, but it wasn’t anything like what she had hoped for. Not really. The hours were almost nonstop. She had no time for her family, a personal life, or even to enjoy the destinations. No. It wasn’t the adventure she had dreamed of.
It was just a different type of cage.
But it had served its purpose.
She could make out the obligatory newsstand behind the security checkpoint. She could already imagine the rows of overpriced snacks and mildly entertaining magazines and wrinkled her nose. She wondered why it took her so long to figure out she was unhappy. But that was life, complicated.
They took a right toward the private gates. Cyrus gave the security guard a nod as they passed, and he nodded back.
She had never been on this side of the airport. Most wealthy people had their own staff for flights, so they never needed the presence of a flight attendant. It was like stepping through a portal, the clean, stark walls and resounding silence a far cry from the commotion at the public gates.
“I never really wondered about flying before I was a flight attendant. I loved the thought of traveling wherever I wanted, but I didn’t actually think about getting there until I was on the planes.” She looked at him. “Can I tell you a secret?”
His eyes were calm, serious. “You can tell me anything.”
Mila made a show of looking around the mostly empty space before dropping her voice to a whisper. “I’m afraid of heights.”
“You’re joking.” The corner of his mouth raised a fraction.
“Nope. I’m very serious,” she said lightly.
He was grinning now. “So you’re a sadist.”
“No.” She bumped him lightly with her hip. “I’m a realist. You can’t hide behind your fears, or you’ll never grow. So when I have a fear, I face it head-on, especially when it stands in the way of something I want.”
Cyrus’s thick brows arched, and his eyes were bright and thoughtful. “So … you became a flight attendant because you were afraid to fly?”
Mila rolled her eyes. “No, I wanted to travel the world, and I thought being a flight attendant would be the perfect fit, but I was scared of spending all that time in the sky, so instead of letting myself ditch the application, I forced myself to do it. I can see how the desire for something can push you to do spontaneous things.”
“You think I’m spontaneous?”
“I’m learning you are,” she said matter-of-factly.
They walked through the boarding entrance and made their way down a line of private airplanes. A tall, slender man jogged up to them and waved a polite hello. Mila nodded to him as he and Cyrus fell into a discussion about the specifics of their flight.
She took the opportunity to turn her attention to the planes that sat around her. The variety of sizes told her that it wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for people to request to fly for themselves. Her mind jerked, and it hit her all over again that Cyrus would be the one flying the plane. She could feel the familiar mix of fear and adrenaline at the thought of hovering over the earth. She smiled.
It was time to put her life in his hands.
He already had her heart, so she may as well toss the rest of herself in.
“And you like that?” he asked, his voice glazed with curiosity as he led her away from the attendant.
Her mind went blank, all her focus zoned in on the small circumference of heat that Cyrus left on her lower back. The feelings his firm fingers sent to all the wrong parts of her body … or maybe it would be more accurate to say therightparts … rose to life inside her. She kept her thoughts bland to fight the steadily rising heat.
Would she always feel this way? Like her breath was being stolen, and her soul was being called into the most unimaginable heaven? A part of her knew it would. Somewhere deep inside, she knew that she would only want him more as time went on.
