Chapter Six

(Laura's POV)

Who would have thought I would still feel this way after two years of staying away. As I stared into Nathaniel's eyes, I could feel the current flowing between us.

"Uh… sir, should I come back later?" I heard Elena's voice behind him.

Without breaking eye contact, Nathaniel moved back, his hands sliding down mine before he finally took his seat.

"There would be no need for that."

"I would just take that," I said, my face burning from what had just happened. Taking the water from the tray holder and gulping it down too fast, I almost choked on it.

"Sorry, ma'am, should I get you something else?" Elena said, turning around to pick up a napkin and hand it over to me.

I waved it away between coughs, my eyes watering, though I wasn't entirely sure anymore whether it was from the water or from how close I'd just let Nathaniel Cross get to me.

"I'm fine," I managed, dabbing the edge of my mouth anyway. "Thank you, Elena."

She gave a small, polite nod, clearly sensing something. She retreated toward the front of the cabin without another word, her heels barely making a sound against the carpet.

I kept my eyes fixed on the window after that, watching the clouds pass beneath us in slow, indifferent drifts, anything to avoid looking at the man sitting across from me. My pulse hadn't settled. If anything, it felt louder now that the moment had passed, like my body was replaying it in slow motion just to torment me the warmth of his hands against mine, the way neither of us had pulled back first, the current that had run through me the second our eyes locked, exactly the way it had the first time two years ago when we got too close.

Two years, two whole years of reminding myself that it was just my imagination. Two years of convincing myself that whatever had existed between us was nothing more than proximity and adrenaline.

Apparently, my body hadn't gotten the memo.

"You're staring very hard at nothing," Nathaniel said after a while, his voice quieter than his usual dry drawl.

"I'm processing a lot of things right now," I said, still not looking at him. "Forgive me if I am distant."

"For what it's worth, I wasn't trying to make this harder for you."

"Weren't you?" I finally turned to face him, arms crossed, though the effect was probably ruined by how flustered I still looked, my cheeks no doubt still faintly pink. "Because it felt a lot like you were."

A look flickered across his expression and before I could acknowledge it, it was gone. "Old habits, I guess they die hard, " he said simply. "And I forget, sometimes, that two years is supposed to mean something."

"What is it supposed to mean," I said, sharper than I meant to. "It's supposed to mean” I took a deep breath “I feel…" I stopped myself, my jaw tightening, furious that I'd almost said it out loud, furious that the sentence had even formed in the first place.

"Feel what?" His voice had gone from his dry drawl to sharp.

"Nothing. It does not matter again." I looked away from him to the window, my arms tightening across my chest like they could hold the rest of the sentence in "It doesn't matter." I murmured to myself.

He didn't push for answers, even though I could feel him wanting to ask questions. But instead he leaned back into his own seat, the silence between us thick with everything neither of us was willing to say.

I closed my eyes, the memories of our banter flashed through me the moment I looked forward to anytime we had a company party and the night also I wish I could forget all together. The humiliation of wanting a man who was engaged.

I'd built an entire life out of not needing people. It had taken two whole years to get good at it. It had taken exactly one seatbelt to nearly undo all of it.

Elena reappeared a few minutes later with a small tray of tea, this time a plate of fruit I hadn't asked for, and a blanket she set gently over the arm of my seat without a word like she'd read the room and decided the kindest thing she could do was leave both of us to our silence a little longer.

"Thank you," I murmured, grateful for the distraction.

"Of course, ma'am." She hesitated, glancing briefly between the two of us, and something in her expression suggested she'd clocked exactly what kind of tension she'd walked in on earlier, though she was professional enough not to say a word about it. "Let me know if you need anything else."

Once she'd gone, I busied myself with the tea, wrapping my hands around the warmth of the cup mostly to have something to hold onto that wasn't my own spiraling thoughts. Nathaniel had pulled out his phone at some point, scrolling through something with the same composed, unreadable expression he wore in every boardroom I'd ever watched him dismantle a competitor in. It was strange, sitting across from him like this not fighting over a contract, not circling each other at some gala with champagne flutes as armor, just two people on a plane, caught in something neither of us had asked for.

"Can I ask you something?" I said finally, surprising myself.

He looked up. "That depends on the question."

"Why did you actually offer me the plane?" I turned the cup slowly in my hands, not quite looking at him. "You could have let me sit at that gate for forty eight hours. It would've been easier. Cleaner. You wouldn't have had to deal with any of this."

He was quiet for a moment, considering the question with more weight than I expected. "Maybe I didn't want easier," he said finally. "Maybe I've spent two years wondering what happened to you, and forty-eight hours felt like a long time to wait for an answer I might never get otherwise."

I wasn't expecting him to be so honest and it caught me off guard, more than the touch from earlier ever could have. I didn't have anything ready to say back no sharp comeback, no defensive wall to throw up in time so I just sat there, holding my tea, feeling the plane hum steadily beneath us, carrying me somewhere I'd sworn I would never go back to, with a man I'd sworn I was done wanting.

"We'll land in a few hours," Nathaniel said eventually, his tone shifting back to something more businesslike, more distant, like he too had decided it was safer that way after all. "Try to get some rest, Laura. You're going to need it."

I closed my eyes and let the hum of the engines fill the silence, though sleep, when it finally came, was thin and restless, chased the whole way by amber eyes I hadn't managed to forget in two years, no matter how hard I'd tried.