Chapter 47
OLIVER
“Where to, sir?” Ted slams the car door, reaching for his belt.
“Papua New Guinea. That’s in Melanesia, or so I’m told.” I suppose it might’ve been worse. She might’ve chosen somewhere slightly less accessible. Like the moon.
“Sorry, sir?”
“City Airport,” I amend, brushing aside Ted’s confusion and the dirt from my knees. Courtesy of Nora’s insistence that I grovel. As I dropped to that grimy pavement, I realized there was nothing I wouldn’t stoop to for a chance to see Eve again.
Hope, it seems, is a much stronger motivator than revenge.
“Isn’t Papua New Guinea rough? Dangerous, I mean.”
My gaze meets Ted’s in the rearview mirror as I make a vague noise from my throat. I’m trying not to dwell on the reality that Eve chose to move to a country where violent crime, kidnapping, and civil unrest are commonplace.
Am I really so awful?
Well, yes. I suppose I was . But that was before. Put simply, revenge blinded me, and there are none so blind as those who will not see. I only hope she’ll forgive me, let me spend the rest of my life making it up to her.
As for the place being dangerous, Eve is no fool. She wouldn’t have moved to the country recklessly. But in a fit of despair? No, nothing about this situation is the same as before. With the information she had, she put me in my place, there on the stage, and then moved to the end of the earth to avoid me.
“Sir?”
“Eve volunteered for an animal charity in the country.” She’s currently working out of a remote copper-mining town some hours flight from the capital. “I’m sure they’re taking good care of her.” It’s the only answer I’m prepared to give as I swallow over the sudden ache in my throat. How could I have ever believed I could atone for Lucy by hurting Eve? Enough. I’ve wasted so much time on regret. My actions will be different this time around. I won’t let Eve go, not without my love ringing in her ears. My love. My regret. How being with her, seeing life through her eyes, has made me a better man.
I can do this. I can convince her we’re worth the risk, and I have twenty-two hours, according to Andrew’s itinerary, to come up with the right words. I also have Nora’s and Yara’s blessings, of sorts. And my friends’ best wishes for luck. Did they wish me luck, or did they say I’ll need it?
Not that it matters. I won’t waste this chance, Tucker or not.
A low grunt rumbles up from my chest. The man’s name is like my own personal rain cloud, pissing on my hope. I don’t believe Eve is dating already, though I’m sure it won’t be for want of trying on his part.
Tucker the fucker.
Actually, no. Tucker better not be a fucker, or I’ll twist his testicles off.
I wonder if I can hire a llama in Papua New Guinea.
But as my phone rings, my plans drift away like a daydream.
“Peanuts?” The flight attendant smiles as she offers me the ridiculously tiny packet.
I shake my head. What kind of an idiot doesn’t have a spare private jet? And what kind of fuckery is at play when an airport the size of Heathrow has not one first-class ticket available to Australia? Hell, business class! Instead, I find myself flying economy on some el cheapo airline. In coach, for fuck’s sake!
Andrew tried to warn me against flying commercial ... after I’d stopped swearing at his news that my jet was out of commission. A technical issue. Three days to fix. He’d sourced another, he’d added happily, no doubt anticipating my appreciation for his diligence. But a flight scheduled to leave in thirty-six hours was of no interest to me. Not when I’m crawling out of my skin to see Eve again.
I found myself redirecting Ted to Heathrow Airport, which led to this, a flight to Brisbane—with a small detour through hell—in a seat that doesn’t recline, situated next to the toilets.
First world problems? I prefer the first-class kind. Private pods, china plates, and actual silverware in the place of school cafeteria trays and the indignities of a plastic spork. No one in their right mind would choose to travel this way, but I would go through worse, I know, just to see Eve again.
God, I hope she wants to see me, that she’ll give me a chance to explain. To tell her how my life is empty without her.
“Did you really trade a week in the Saint Kitts for a dining reservation?”
“Sorry?” I look up to find the young woman next to me holding a baby—a baby who seems to have materialized out of nowhere.
“I heard you going through the other cabins, trying to get someone in business class to swap seats.”
“It was worth a try,” I answer in a tone much more even than how I feel. Which is impatient, bad tempered, and generally fucked off. A muscle in my left eye begins to twitch with tiredness as I watch the one thing that could make this journey worse: a grizzling infant.
“I’m holding this little one for my sister,” my neighbor says, beginning to bounce him—her?—against her knee.
“Won’t that ...” I make a gesture similar to that of opening a lively bottle of champagne.
“Nah, she likes it. Don’t you, Maisie?” the woman coos. “You know, if I’d been sitting in the good seats, I would’ve sold you mine. For a hundred grand,” she adds with a grin.
“And I would’ve paid it.” My answer melts her expression, her eyes suddenly wide. Not that it matters, because I’m here, and I would suffer through much worse deprivations. Not that I hadn’t tried everything to avoid this particular one. Extorting the loan of a jet, bribing the ticket agents—I even tried the “do you know who I am” ploy, which only left me looking like a twat. “In fact, I would’ve paid double, because this experience has been— oh, fuck! ”
And now I’m a twat covered in baby vomit.