Chapter 5
SIENNA
Seven Months Ago
My first flight, and I’m already making a mess of it.
The terminal is too bright, too loud, too full of people who seem to know exactly where they’re going. I’m trying to keep up with the signs, my carry-on, my phone, my boarding pass, my nerves, and the steady little flutter in my stomach that has been there since I got dropped off at the airport.
Maybe flutter is too gentle a word.
My stomach has been in knots for an hour.
I’ve checked the gate number so many times I’m starting to annoy myself. I’ve reread the boarding instructions. I’ve watched two separate YouTube videos about what to do during takeoff, which was a terrible idea because now I know far more about turbulence than I ever wanted to.
I’m telling myself to act normal when I walk straight into a man built like a refrigerator.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry.” The words come out in a rush as I bounce back a step.
He’s huge. Bald. Thick through the shoulders. The kind of man who looks like he should be standing outside a club with an earpiece in, not in an airport terminal in a black coat that probably costs more than my rent.
Our boarding passes slip from our hands at the same time and flutter to the floor.
“Sorry,” I say again, already crouching.
He mutters something low and irritated under his breath as he bends to grab one. I grab the other, and murmur another apology. He’s already straightening, walking away without so much as looking at me.
I stare after him for half a second.
Rude.
Then the announcement sounds over the speakers. Now boarding.
My pulse jumps. Right. No time for airport enemies.
I grip my carry-on, clutch the boarding pass in my hand, and hurry toward the gate with everyone else.
By the time I’m in the jet bridge, my palms are damp. By the time I actually step onto the plane, I’m trying so hard to look calm that I’m probably doing the opposite.
The air hostess at the door smiles brightly. “Welcome aboard.”
I smile back in what I hope is a normal, non-panicked way and hand over my boarding pass.
She glances at it, then at me, and her smile widens. “Welcome aboard, Ms. Yuri.”
I blink.
Wait, that’s not my name.
I open my mouth. “Actually, I think that’s not mine, I just—”
But she’s already turning away, gesturing smoothly toward the front of the plane. “This way, please.”
I stop for a second, confused enough that people behind me start bunching up in the aisle.
“Sorry,” I mumble, then follow where she pointed.
The seats get bigger.
Then bigger.
Then suddenly I am very much not in the section I thought I paid for.
Business class.
I slow, looking around at wide seats, soft lighting, little bottled waters already waiting in holders, blankets folded with suspicious neatness, and people who look entirely too comfortable with all of it.
This is definitely wrong.
I glance down at the boarding pass in my hand.
Yuri.
Oh.
Oh, no.
The bald man. We switched boarding passes.
Of course we did.
For one ridiculous second I consider going back, trying to explain, fixing it before someone notices and marches me out of this section like a trespasser. But then another flight attendant passes behind me, smiling as though nothing at all is wrong, and I realize two things at once.
One, I don’t remember my actual seat number.
And two, I’m now standing in the aisle of business class with other passengers watching, and if I keep hovering here much longer I’m going to make a scene.
So I sit.
Just for a second, I tell myself. Just until I figure it out. Just until the bald man comes stomping down the aisle looking for his seat and I can swap back.
I lower myself into the seat and set my bag down by my feet, trying not to touch anything too reverently in case that gives me away.
The leather is ridiculously soft. There’s an actual menu tucked into the pocket beside me.
A glass of something sparkling appears at my elbow as if summoned by class privilege alone.
I’m still trying to decide which option is least likely to kill me when a voice beside me says, smooth as dark liquor, “I think you may be in the wrong seat.”
I look up, and forget how to breathe.
He’s older. That hits me first.
Not old. Just older than any man I usually let myself really look at.
Maybe late forties, maybe a little past that.
Dark hair brushed back from his face, silver at the temples that somehow only makes him more attractive instead of less.
Broad shoulders under a dark coat. Strong mouth. Beautiful hands.
He’s standing in the aisle beside my seat, one hand resting lightly on the top of it, looking down at me with calm curiosity and not much patience.
And all at once I’m aware of everything.
My cheap sweater. My nerves. The fact that I’m probably sitting in the wrong seat in business class in front of a man who looks like he belongs in private jets and international scandals.
Heat climbs into my face. “I…” I glance down at the boarding pass, then back up at him. “I think I might be.”
One dark brow lifts.
I hold up the pass helplessly. “There was a man at the gate. We bumped into each other. I think we switched these by accident.”
He takes the paper from my hand. His fingers brush mine, only for a second, but even that brief contact is enough to make something low in my stomach tighten for no good reason.
He reads it once and a strange look flickers over his face.
Then he huffs a quiet laugh through his nose. “Of course.”
My embarrassment deepens. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize until I was already getting on the plane and then the flight attendant said a name that definitely wasn’t mine and I tried to tell her, but she was gone, and now I look insane.”
His mouth curves. Not a smile exactly. Something smaller, more private.
“You don’t look insane.”
That shouldn’t feel the way it does.
I push out a breath. “That’s generous.”
“No,” he says, still looking at me. “It’s accurate.”
He glances down the aisle behind him where people are still boarding, then back at me. “But it appears,” he says, “that my bodyguard is currently on his way to economy with your boarding pass.”
Despite myself, I laugh. It slips out before I can stop it, thin with nerves but real.
His eyes stay on my face, and something about that makes my pulse trip.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “The bald one?”
“The bald one,” he says.
“Rude.”
That gets a real smile from him this time. It changes his whole face.
Makes it feel more dangerous somehow.
“Yes,” he says. “He can be.”
I look down at the pass still in his hand. “So I should move.”
His gaze flicks over me once, slow enough to make me intensely aware of the seat, the smallness of the space around us, the fact that I’m looking up at him while he fills the aisle like he was designed to dominate narrow places.
Then he says, “Probably.”
But he doesn’t move, and neither do I.
He glances once more at the boarding pass, then reaches into the inside pocket of his coat for his phone. “Excuse me,” he says. His voice is low enough that I feel it more than hear it.
He dials without looking away from me. When the call connects, he says, “Where are you?”
A pause.
Then, with the faintest change in his expression, “Turn around.”
My stomach flips.
He listens for a second, then his mouth curves. “No. The woman whose boarding pass you stole is with me.”
I blink.
Stole?
The man on the other end must say something indignant, because the stranger’s smile deepens just a little. “Accidentally,” he says, in the tone of a man who doesn’t believe in accidents at all. “Yes, Yuri. I’m sure.”
The stranger glances down the aisle behind him, then back at me. “Stay where you are for now.”
Another pause.
“No, you’re not coming back up here. Sit down and be useful for once.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to smile.
He ends the call and slides the phone away, all smooth efficiency, as if he’s used to giving orders and being obeyed immediately.
Of course he is.
“He has your boarding pass,” he says. “And now, unfortunately for him, your seat.”
I chew the inside of my cheek. What am I even doing here? Why don’t I want to leave? I never thought I was someone who would be attracted to someone so much older than me. I don’t have daddy issues.
He studies the layout beside me for a moment, then nods toward the seat by the window. “Shift over.”
The words should sound rude. They don’t. Not from him. From him they sound inevitable, like there was never any real possibility I would do anything else.
I move across, my body brushing the leather, suddenly too aware of the small private shell of the seat and the fact that he’s about to occupy the space beside me.
“I can go back to economy,” I say. “Really.”
He takes the aisle seat, settling into it with a lazy kind of grace that makes the whole cabin seem smaller. “You can.”
I wait.
He unbuttons his coat and folds it aside with careful hands. “But you’re not going to.”
My breath catches.
He says it calmly, without arrogance, without pushing, and somehow that makes it worse. Better. More dangerous.
He turns his head and looks at me fully.
This close, he is devastating. The broad line of his shoulders under expensive fabric. He smells clean and masculine and expensive, something dark underneath the cologne, warm skin and restraint. He should make me nervous enough to want distance. Instead I feel heat unfurl low in my belly.
“Why not?” I ask, and I hate how soft my voice sounds.
“Because,” he says, “the universe is obviously trying to tell us something.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. Not because I believe him, but because the line should be ridiculous, and somehow, in his mouth, it isn’t.
His eyes stay on me while I laugh.