Chapter 5
5
CATHERINE
D isappointment flashes over Jacob’s face, making him look surprisingly young. I feel that from my heart down to my toes, because for some amount of time, when he was inside me and over me and kissing me like his wife , I let myself detach from the situation.
Or maybe my brain did that for me. Maybe my mind simply couldn’t handle the idea of dying in a plane crash or being murdered mid-plane crash, and my hot emotional wreck of a husband was something I could fathom.
Although now, as the plane jolts again, it’s a lot easier to fathom the plane crash part of this revenge plot.
Jacob rearranges his expression. It’s not quite calm. Not quite the self-confident amusement he wore to the ball a million years ago. It’s not fear, either. I can’t tell if he’s resigned to our fate or determined to change it.
We both get off the bed at the same time. My linen traveling pants are within reach. I catch myself lingering on Jacob’s body as he bends to pull on his trousers. The scratched skin at his sides hasn’t had time to heal. Oh, God, is this the last time I’m going to see him before the crash tears him apart?
No. Of course not. We’re going to survive. We’re going to be fine.
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
My face burns the second the words are out of my mouth. Jacob straightens, the trousers pulled up to his waist. A strange smile crosses his face like he wants to burst out laughing and our circumstances don’t allow for it.
“Is this what I’m wearing for our…arrival?”
“That’s a delicate way to put it.”
“Ah, well, Delicate is my middle name.”
The giggle that slips out of my mouth sounds nervous, bordering on terrified. Jacob’s eyes soften. A similar laugh caught me off guard a lot during the first few months we lived together. I’d been nervous bordering on terrified then, and why ? Because I chose to live with a charming, handsome man who catered to my every whim? Of course I had reasons to be nervous, even afraid, because of my past experience with an evil man otherwise known as my father, but I’m offended by my past self’s fear.
“What I meant to say was—did you bring any other clothes for when we land? I don’t think you should be wearing pieces of a tuxedo.”
I’m one to talk. I’m dressed in a lingerie set.
“I was going to put the other pieces on, too.” Jacob glances down at his trousers and sighs. “Honestly, I can’t remember.”
The plane rumbles underneath us, and I grab the side of the bed for balance. I find it so—so offensive that Raymond Harris would crash us like this, without any finesse. I find it even more offensive that my evil father’s actions have reached all the way into the present, where they’re attempting to ruin my honeymoon. My righteous anger gives me the strength I need to find my balance and pull on my pants and the lovely, soft shirt that goes underneath the linen top.
Jacob leads to the front of the plane, far too close to the cockpit. The door’s closed, but I listen hard in case Raymond Harris hears us first and comes out to investigate and/or murder us. Jacob’s bag is waiting on the seat across from the one he sat in before he realized I was here.
For a few seconds, I could swear I’m looking at Honeymoon Jacob, going through the bag I bought him last summer. Well—he paid for it, but I chose it. He’d had an appointment with his tailor on Savile Row. I went to Smythson on Bond and bought myself a pretty notebook, thinking I’d get into journaling, and then I’d wandered through a few other shops, finally ending up at Swaine. The holdall—a Cambridge Weekender in burgundy—had been lovely on a pristine white shelf. An unassuming salesperson told me it was a true classic, designed the same way for, like, a century, and I thought Jacob would like that.
A century. Something people had liked just as it was for a hundred years.
So I got it, and brought it home, and now he’s pulling a pair of jeans out of it in what could, in another life, be our honeymoon.
He finds a T-shirt and crew-neck sweatshirt next, both unassumingly plain and both custom-made for him by his tailor. He finds socks. His Italian leather sneakers. Jacob shoves the tuxedo trousers into the bag, then hefts it over his shoulder. When he smiles at me, all sparkling blue eyes and perfect, handsome features, it’s like I’ve gone through a mirror to a world where we really are going to land at a secluded resort property and have the time of our lives.
Then the plane tilts to the side, and I’m back in reality.
“He is not good at this!” I whisper-shout.
“I’m going to leave a terrible review,” Jacob says. “We should find our seats.”
When we get to the row with my bag in it, I yank it into my hands. “Just let me?—”
Luckily, Jacob doesn’t need a detailed explanation of my plan. He stows his bag under the seat, then follows me to the plane’s bedroom. He stays at my side, keeping his hand comfortingly on my arm while I screw the tops on the jars of nuts shut tight and toss them into my bag. It’s my favorite bag of all the ones I’ve ever owned, and I’m offended all over again that an Hermès travel bag—a Kelly Voyage!—that Jacob got for me after a gift because he loved his travel bag so much should be involved in this.
Neither of us deserves this.
I might deserve some of it, a little, but the bag deserves nothing but the best.
The bags of pecan-and-almond granola go in, too. Two bottles of water, which is all that was in the bedroom. I feel like the honeymoon version of me is controlling my hands. The honeymoon version of Jacob might laugh at her for putting plane snacks into her bag, but he wouldn’t really mind, and he’d eat them with honeymoon-me in our bed at our honeymoon resort.
At least honeymoon-me is relatively collected. Freaking out wouldn’t help, so it’s a good thing she can keep my hands from trembling too badly and keep my eyes dry.
As soon as I’m finished, he takes my hand. Jacob gestures to the row I was sitting in. We’re in front of our seats when the plane changes directions and the upward shift sends us tumbling backward. Jacob catches me with an arm around my waist as if the plush leather seats can’t be trusted to cushion me.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” My voice shakes. “Why is he going up?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob says. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes.” I give him a perky nod to convince him. Jacob drops a kiss to the top of my head and keeps his arm around me until my seatbelt is buckled. Then he stands, the calm in his expression radiating through his body. He gets our two steak knives first, tucks them into the pocket on the side of his seat, and moves on to the compartments.
He’s so good at faking it. I wish, for a few seconds, that I could be so good at pretending, but then…
The scratches on his sides. His too-sharp cheekbones. The way he said I hate myself.
The plane we’re on right now. The one that’s supposed to be carrying him to somewhere he can hide and pretend to be dead, because he thought I’d be better off without him.
Clearly, nobody’s been able to convince him otherwise. He was on his mission to apologize for all the things our fathers did for months before I had any idea. If he’d been worse at pretending, maybe I could have changed things.
It’s too late now.
Jacob does something to two of the other seats, and when he straightens, he has two bright-yellow life vests. He puts one in my lap, then takes his seat and fastens his seatbelt with steady hands. I wedge my bag closer to my side. Outside my window, the moon rolls around in the sky at nauseating angles.
Probably better not to look.
Jacob takes my hand in his. “Still all right, kitten?”
I take a breath to answer, and honeymoon-me decides to bail. “If we crash into the ocean, we’re screwed, right? Like…is there a lifeboat? Or do we have to hope someone notices we’re out here?”
“Yes. It’s under those seats.” He indicates two seats not far from ours that face the interior. “I don’t know how easy it will be to get out or inflate, but we do have one. This—” He pats my life jacket. “—goes over your head, and then you pull the tab to inflate it. I’ll help you if it comes to that.”
“What about—is anyone going to be looking for us?”
“There’s a transmitter in the baggage compartment as long as Harris didn’t think to rip it out. If it’s there, it should last for three days.”
“That’s—” Honeymoon-me plops down in my head again. One of us is embarrassed to have freaked out even a little about the lifeboat. I think it’s me. “That’s better than nothing.”
“Far better than nothing.” Jacob squeezes my hand.
“We should put that on a throw pillow later. The theme of our trip.”
“Multiple throw pillows, I’d say. One for every room.”
“How would we explain it?”
Jacob leans in, his breath warm on the shell of my ear. “We wouldn’t.”
It makes me laugh. If this were a freak plane crash and not attempted murder, I’d still only have Jacob. I’d still be here with my husband, facing it together.
The plane tilts, heading down again and picking up speed.
“We’re going to brace ourselves.” Jacob talks over the wind, which has taken on a high-pitched whine. I’ve been on plenty of flights, but I can’t ever remember the air sounding like this. “Push yourself as far back as you can in the seat.”
I do. Jacob tugs on my belt, tightening it across my hips, then tightens his own belt. “Now we’re going to put our feet flat on the floor.” Jacob demonstrates, tapping his feet a few times. “And keep those as far back as we can as well.”
“Okay.”
He guides me through leaning my head against the seat in front of me and tucking my arms alongside my body, my hands over my head. It feels ridiculous at first, like I’m a kid playing hide-and-seek, and then the plane tilts on a wild, steep angle and oh, God, it’s actually a matter of life and death.
The compartments above us open with a mechanical click, and Jacob’s hand is on my shoulder. He helps me sit up. Oxygen masks dangle over our seats. He pulls the strap of mine over my head, and?—
I didn’t have enough air before. It’s sweet, clean oxygen. Jacob fiddles with the strap, and it seals snugly over my face.
“I think you’re supposed to put your own on first,” I tell Jacob through the mask.
“Don’t tell anyone I broke the rules.” Jacob winks at me, then puts his own mask on.
We resume our braced positions, his arm around my shoulders.
“What about you ? Are you supposed to have your arm like that?”
“I won’t let go of you, kitten.”
Pure terror sloshes up into my throat. My eyes swim with tears, stinging. “No matter what?”
“No matter what,” Jacob promises.
The plane jerks upward again. Pressure builds at my ears. We’re tilting, or I’m panicking, and I can’t get my bearings until we tip down. My heart feels like a rock bouncing around in my chest. If it wasn’t for the oxygen mask, I think I’d faint.
The lights on the plane flicker. A faint glow comes from the floor. My feet are mostly in shadow. Jacob’s blocking the emergency lights.
“I have you,” Jacob says. “I won’t let go. You’re going to be all right, Catherine. I’ll be right here.”
The plan lurches. Lurches again . Rattles like it’s bumping over a storm. Is Raymond Harris changing his mind? He was brave enough to tell us he was going to kill us, but when he had the chance to shoot us, he didn’t. Now he has the chance to plane crash us to death, and he’s…
Having trouble flying? Maybe he’s not willing to die for the cause.
I’m offended by that. If I could give Raymond Harris a piece of my mind…
I probably still wouldn’t waste my time. Nothing I could say would sway him. He’s too far gone.
“I just want it to be over,” I shout over the wind and even louder rattling. What is that? What part of this private plane is coming apart? Is the plane in league with Raymond Harris? “I just want to land!”
“I know. So do I. We’ll land soon.”
I believe him.
He’s my husband, and I believe him, even though he can’t possibly know when we’ll land.
“We’re going to keep bracing, Catherine. You’re doing so well.”
It warms me up to hear that. I can’t help it.
“You’re doing pretty well, too.”
“Thank you.” Jacob gets out of his brace position to kiss my hair, which is more symbolic gesture than actual kiss when he’s wearing an oxygen mask. “We’re going to keep breathing. I’ll be all right. You’ll be all right.”
“I’m going to have a honeymoon, damn it.” The last few words are mostly a wheeze.
“Yes, you are. I’m going to take you. Where do you want to go?”
I can’t think of a single location on the planet.
Then one comes to me.
“The villa by Mougins.” I want to be in the house with its cheery blue shutters and sparkling pool and hundred-year-old olive trees in a grove that people have taken care of for longer than Jacob and I have been alive put together. I want to go with Jacob to the hilltop city with its curving cobblestone streets and sit at a table with him while the sun goes down. My favorite place to eat in Mougins is also the place where I learned Jacob speaks French when he launched into a conversation with the waiter like it was no big deal. “That’s where I want to go. For a month. ”
“Two months,” Jacob counters. His tone is easy, but his hold on me feels solid enough to survive a plane crash.
I hope it is.
“The whole summer!” Is this how I die? Planning a honeymoon we’ll never have? Believing in it like I should believe in God? I have more faith that this honeymoon plan will save us.
“Kitten, you don’t have to beg.”
“Next summer, then.”
“Consider it done.”
I take a huge breath and choke on it. Then I can’t stop coughing. The plane shakes. Is it air we’re speeding over or trees? Is this my last heartbeat on earth? This one? This one?
“I’ll protect you,” Jacob says. “No matter what.”
I know it’s not true. There’s not much a man can do to knock a bullet out of the air or stop a fireball from consuming the entire plane. I throw all of my faith and hope and belief at Jacob, silently, desperately, bracing myself against the seat like he told me.
The front of the plane bounces up, then jerks down. I open my mouth to scream but I can’t get the sound to come out. All I can see is my custom Charlotte Hill travel pants. I don’t know if the screech in my head is the wind or the metal of the plane coming apart or me .
Jacob’s talking to me. His voice hums through his body. I can’t understand most of the words. Kitten and breathe and I have you.
It’s so loud—the plane, my complete bewildered terror, the wind—that it seems like it’ll go on forever.
Until it stops.
For a heartbeat, all I hear is the wind.
“Catherine,” Jacob says.
Then the plane slams into the ground.