19. Ava
Chapter 19
Ava
Jet’s a solid mass of tension beside me as we sit in the bar area of the hotel’s open air marble lobby.
I haven’t said a word to the bastard since I slapped him. He deserved it and more. Yet a tiny fragment of empathy still glows in my heart for him. I know a broken person’s outburst when I see one because I’ve had so many myself over the past ten years. Jet is grieving his mother’s passing. He rarely talks about her. Magnus has chosen to let his grief out, bring it into the light with happy memories and gratitude for the time they had.
Jet wears his like a shadow, clouding everything he does.
I get the need for control, at least I think I do. It’s similar to my reasons for not flying for so long. Because in a plane I have no control. Just like the day I lost my father. But it’s the turning his back on love that confuses me the most. Especially when I’ve seen those old news images of him and Francesca. He can’t seriously expect me to believe he’s never felt anything for anyone. Not when he looked at her like that.
“Do you see him yet?” I take a sip of my pina colada, enjoying the fresh burst of pineapple on my tongue.
“No.”
I sigh. I have a feeling it’s going to be one syllable answers for the rest of this trip. I pray to god that Callaghan is ready to sign a deal, because the longer I have to be in the vicinity of Jet’s foul mood, the more I’m in danger of slapping him again.
I slurp the remnants of my drink through the straw.
“Do you have to?” Jet scowls.
I hold his eyes and give my straw an extra-large suck, making the ice cubes rattle around the bottom of my glass. “Umm, yeah, I do actually.” I do it again, reveling at the tightening in his jaw.
He rolls his lips, his nostrils flaring, before his attention is stolen across the lobby to a man approaching the check-in desk.
“Is that him?”
“It is. Stay here,” Jet barks as he heads toward him like a missile on target.
I head toward the ladies’ room. Callaghan and Jet are standing talking across the other side of the lobby. Callaghan looks amused while Jet, the asshole, looks surprisingly calm, despite his stiff posture.
My eyes rake over his cream pants and white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, showing off tanned forearms. “Why do I have to find moody bastards hot?” I mutter .
“I used to ask myself the same question.”
I look at the woman waiting with a suitcase.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that out loud.” I give her an apologetic smile and she waves it off with a flick of her fingers.
“I think it’s the passion they have when they want something. It’s thrilling to be a part of it,” she muses, looking at the exchange between Callaghan and Jet with interest. “Although, they’re stubborn as old goats and need reminding you can’t get everything you want by butting heads.”
I laugh as Callaghan and Jet both shake their heads at the same time with matching hands-on-hips stances.
“I’m Ava. You’re travelling with Mr. Callaghan?”
The older woman with soft blonde hair in a chic bob smiles, extending her hand. “Ophelia Callaghan. James is my husband.”
I shake her hand. “Ava Roberts. Jet is my stubborn old goat of a boss.”
She laughs. “I’ve met Mr. Grant a few times over the years. I can’t say he’s ever been anything other than charming.”
My face must give away my surprise because her eyes light up as she looks at the two men again and then back at me.
“I don’t think either of us are going to get to enjoy this beautiful resort until those two sort out whatever business they have to discuss. And I don’t know about you, Ava. But I’d rather my husband doesn’t talk about work the entire time. This is supposed to be our anniversary trip.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t be, I’m used to it. One of us always brings work with us.”
“Maybe we can lock them in your villa until they sort it out and you can stay with me. I’ve got writing to do. Between us, we’ll be in calm, man-free heaven.”
Jet scrubs a hand around his jaw and the traitorous part of me swallows at how he can make something so simple seem sexy.
Ophelia chuckles. “I’ll tell you what. Let’s all have dinner this evening. If we can’t get this business sorted by the end of dessert, then I’ll take you up on that.”
“Deal.” I grin as she walks over to the men. Jet shakes her hand, exchanging some words with her. She motions over her shoulder to me, and his eyes meet mine.
The intensity in his stare roots me to the spot. I lift a hand in a small wave. He says something that makes Ophelia laugh, then walks over to me.
“What did you say?” he murmurs in my ear as he places his hand on my lower back and leads me out of the lobby.
“Just chatting about goats.”
“Goats?” His dark brows furrow, and the hint of a growl in his throat sends a shiver up my spine.
“Yeah.” I shrug as he walks us along a wooden walkway toward our villa .
“Well, whatever it was, a few minutes with his wife and you’ve got us a meeting that I’ve been trying to get for days.”
“Is that a thank you?” I tilt my head to look up at him, but the sun makes me squint. “Is it?” I press. “Because you’ll have to warn me if you’re about to start being civil. I might faint in shock.”
“It’s a thank you,” he replies gruffly.
“Pardon? I didn’t hear you.”
His fingers flex on my lower back. “Yes, you did.” His tone softens. “I said, thank you, Ava.”
“Do you think it’s working?” Ophelia asks as we walk down to the water’s edge.
I glance back at the candlelit table we’ve dined at on the beach. This place would be ridiculously romantic with the right person.
Jet and Callaghan are deep in conversation. Jet looks calm, like always, but the way he cracked his neck before Ophelia and I excused ourselves to take a little walk tells me otherwise. She thinks giving them some time alone to talk business will help. But I don’t share her optimism. Dining with James Callaghan taught me one thing: he’s as much of a control freak as Jet. And he’s incredibly proud of Skyline. He kept talking about its history, and how they started off after the second world war with just a few planes. He sounds like he was a total plane enthusiast from a young age, unlike Jet who had to learn to like flying. Callaghan talked about all sorts of vintage aircraft designs I’ve never heard of before.
“I hope it’s working. I could really do with some peace to write.”
“And I to read,” she agrees.
“What are you reading?”
“Oh, some work things. Scripts—”
“Darling? Are you ready?”
James and Jet approach us. James smiles, reaching for Ophelia, and slides his arm around her waist.
“Done already? That was quick.” She places her hand on his chest as I flick my eyes to Jet. His jaw is set, his lips in a grim line.
“Maybe we can do this again? It’s been lovely,” I offer.
I step forward and kiss Ophelia and then James on the cheek. Jet nods a curt good evening to them, and they walk away up the beach. I wait until they’re out of earshot before I turn to him.
“It didn’t go well, did it?”
He’s already walking off over the sand, and I have to run to catch up with him.
“Jet? ”
“Leave it, Ava,” he spits. “I don’t feel like talking right now.”
I grab his bicep, making him stop. He whirls to face me, and the hardness in his eyes makes me flinch.
“What did he say?”
“I said leave it. Why the hell can’t you just fucking listen?”
“Why the hell can’t you just talk to me?” I fire back.
“Not now. Go back to the villa.” He pulls our key card from his pocket and pushes it into my hand.
“Jet?” I call after him, but he ignores me, storming off toward the main hotel bar.
I rub the back of my neck as I pad barefoot into the kitchen to get a drink. It’s 2AM and I spent a couple of hours writing when I got back from dinner before heading to bed. Jet never appeared during that time. Whatever Callaghan said to him can’t have been good. I’ve seen him angry before. But this time, there was something else in his eyes. Something desperate.
The door to the deck is open and a familiar outline is slumped on the outdoor sofa. I grab a couple of bottles of water and walk out into the moonlight.
“Maybe it’s time you switched refreshments.”
Jet looks at my outstretched hand for a moment. Then he nods, placing a tumbler of amber-colored liquid onto the table and taking the bottle of water.
“Thanks,” he murmurs.
I sit beside him on the sofa.
“What does it mean if you can’t reach a deal?” I ask softly as I stare out over the calm surface of the ocean.
His hoarse whisper has my heart clenching. “ Everything .”
He’s already looking at me as I turn toward him, his eyes glassy.
“We could lose the whole airline, Ava.”
“Jet,” I breathe. This isn’t him. The defeat in his eyes, the way his shoulders are sagged, conveying his hopelessness. I prefer asshole Jet to this version.
“Everything my great grandfather started and my family has built ever since, all lost because of me.” He turns to stare out over the water.
“That can’t be—”
“I’m the US CEO. It’s all down to me. Thirty-one percent of our fleet’s engines have a recently discovered design fault. They need replacing in the next two months, or we’re screwed. The only engines manufactured that can replace them with minimal disruption to the flying schedule are the ones Callaghan has the supply contract for. He could spare enough to get us through until we take our first delivery from Logan Rich ourselves. It won’t even affect his operation because he’s introducing them in stages.”
“Then why won’t he—?”
“Because this is business. We’re his biggest competitor. With Atlantic Airways gone, he’ll have the monopoly of all North American routes.”
“That’s wrong, though? He’ll be able to set his fares to whatever he likes.”
“Regulations won’t allow him to do that. But it’ll be too late, anyway. We’ll be finished.”
Jet takes the lid off his bottle and tips his head back, drinking half of it in one go.
“There must be something you can do. Did he give you any idea what it would take for him to change his mind?”
Jet’s eyes meet mine before he drops his gaze away. “Nothing that’s mine to give.”
I sink back into the cushion, my thigh brushing his as I look up at the starry sky.
“Don’t give up. There’ll be a way. You always win, remember?”
He exhales heavily. “I’ll never give up, even if it kills me. If I give up, everyone who works for us will suffer. It has to survive.” His voice drops to a hoarse mumble. “I’m nothing without it.”
“Don’t say that.” I turn to face him, resting my head against the plush sofa cushion.
“It’s true.” He finishes the water and crunches the bottle up in his fist. “It’s who I am. ”
“Maybe I can talk to Ophelia again, or to Callaghan myself. Maybe—”
“No.” His voice is fierce. “He can be a bastard. I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
“What’s he going to do? I’m no one to him.”
“But you’re someone to me, and that’s what he’ll care about.”
He turns back to stare out over the ocean.
Someone to me.
“I thought I was just a cunt you have a short-lived addiction to.”
His eyes shutter closed, and he draws in a measured breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m the cunt, Ava. You’ll understand that the more time you spend with me.”
I allow myself the indulgence of drinking him in. The sharp cut of his jaw, the days’ worth of dark stubble dusting his chin. His soft lips, the way his brows give away his emotions when they pull low or hitch up. I doubt he even knows they do it.
“You just want people to think that because it’s easier.”
He snorts out a humorless laugh.
“It’s easier than people knowing you fill hotel fridges with grapefruit juice and buy lingerie packing bags as gifts. You’re only a cunt sometimes.”
“Some?”
I want to smile at the way his eyes light up a little.
“Most of the time. ”
“What am I the rest of the time?” His eyes drop to my lips, and I shiver despite the air being warm.
“I’m not sure. I’m still finding out.” I search his eyes.
He’s silent for a beat.
“You won’t like what you find, Ava, so stop looking.” His expression clouds over again and my heart sinks.
“Do you think you’re unlovable? Is that why you said what you did about hoping you never fall in love?”
“I didn’t say I hope I don’t… I said I won’t.”
“You said it’s a game you refuse to play. You’re scared.”
His jaw clenches.
“You’re scared because you can’t control it.”
“Enough, Ava.”
“That’s the whole point,” I press, determined for him to listen for a change. “You’re not supposed to control love. That’s the beauty of it… the unknown. It’s an adventure.”
He turns, capturing me with his brilliant blue eyes. “My mother and father had love. Until they didn’t. What’s the point if it can be ripped from you like that?”
His tortured eyes hold mine. He can’t see what he’s doing to himself. What he’s depriving himself of.
“What about Francesca? Didn’t you have feelings for her?”
“Who?”
“Francesca Callaghan.” I straighten in the seat, lifting my head off the cushion.
“Oh.” He shakes his head. “No. That was nothing.”
It didn’t look like nothing to me .
I study him.
“I never got my question.” He eyes me with growing interest.
“Huh?”
“I answered four of yours but never got to ask one.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “That’s because you shouted and then told me that I was—”
“I should never have spoken to you like that.” His eyes glisten with regret as his gaze roams over my face. “I’m sorry.”
It’s not, ‘I didn’t mean it. You aren’t just a warm body for me to enjoy when I feel like it’ . But I guess it’s all I’m going to get.
“Okay. What do you want to ask me?” I pull my legs up beneath me, twisting my torso to face him.
His thigh brushes my knee.
“Tell me about your father. What was he like?”
“You want to know about my father?” My heart clenches painfully as I think about my story. All the words that I’ve managed to get down. Each one harder to type than the last.
“He died when I was thirteen. The pilot re-routed to avoid a storm, but he flew too low and lost control. They crashed in a forest.”
“Tell me about your father, Ava,” Jet repeats gently. “Not the way he died. Tell me about who he was. What he loved. What you remember about him.”
A lump forms in my throat, making my eyes burn.
“He was…” I wring my fingers. “He loved to fly. He loved exploring.”
Jet’s long fingers brush against mine, tracing across the back of my hand. I turn it without thinking and he slides his thumb over my palm, massaging it, before he runs it up to my wrist and places it over my racing pulse.
“What did you like to do together?”
I smile. “We used to go to the waterlily lake at the Silver Estate every time they had an open day. We’d sit and watch the fish, make up stories, skim stones. I’d splash him and he’d pick me up and run toward the edge of the water and pretend he was going to throw me in. Mum and Gramps would go sometimes too. The last time we were all together there was the day before he died.”
“I’m sorry.” Jet’s soft tone makes me bite back tears.
“I miss him every day.”
“I understand.” His thumb strokes over my pulse in a way that has calmness washing over me.
I look into his eyes and smile sadly. “Do you think of her much?”
“Every day,” he answers without missing a beat.
“What was she like?”
His lips curl into a ghost of a smile. “Fiery. Even up until her final day in hospital, she still glowed. She was amazing. So full of life, until she wasn’t…” His lips flatten. “I fucking hate hospitals. She didn’t belong in one.”
“She sounds special. ”
“She was. She challenged my father. Pushed him to do more. Be more. She was everything to both of us, the strongest of all of us, fighting until the end.”
“Was that her in the photo at the head office? Wing-walking on that plane?”
Jet’s eyes soften. “That’s her. Always pushing her own boundaries, chasing excitement… letting go.”
“Giving up control,” I whisper. My breath stalls as he exhales slowly and gazes at me.
“I feel my control being tested with you. You push me, Ava. All the fucking time. I hate it… And I love it too… I crave it.”
His thumb moves in slow circles over my wrist, and warmth bursts up my spine like a shooting star, despite knowing this is just lust. We’re two people who have sexual chemistry and have been spending time together, that’s all.
“I mean, someone’s got to push you. Imagine how big of an asshole you’d be if everyone let you get your own way all the time.”
The rumble in his throat almost sounds like a laugh. “Imagine that.”
We fall silent with only the sounds of the ocean drifting around beneath the deck.
“I am sorry for what I said earlier,” he whispers, holding my eyes.
“I know. You told me.”
“Forgive me . Please .” His breath stutters as he runs a hand around his jaw. “It’s this deal with Callaghan, the airline, I… Fuck… ”
“Don’t.” I take his hand as he teeters on the edge; a wild, ravaging despair growing in his eyes. “Don’t.”
He looks at me and my heart sinks into my stomach. I don’t know what to do to bring the Jet I know back to the surface again.
I don’t know what to do.
So I do the thing that I know we do well together.
I cup his face and pull his lips to mine.