Chapter 30
JAXON
Slightly hungover from my afternoon with my mother yesterday, I walked into the office fully geared for a fight. Over the years, I’d had a couple of offers from other airlines, but I liked where I was.
If they made me start over at a different company, I would, but I wasn’t just taking this bullshit termination crap lying down.
I was finally at the point here where I pretty much got to choose my routes, had more downtime between flights, and could theoretically be home more often if I chose to do it.
The airline was affiliated with one of the charities I volunteered at, and they were even counting my hours there now as actual work. It had taken me a long time to get to this stage of my career, and I wasn’t just leaving.
A young brunette girl greeted me in the waiting area of the office number she’d told me to report to. She sat with her back toward the runways, and her eyes widened as if she was in shock to see me there.
“Are you Mr. Scott?” she asked when I walked in. I was wearing my full uniform and had my hat tucked under my arm for good measure. It was time to remind them of who I was and that they’d be firing a pilot they’d courted for years if they went through with this.
I nodded once. “Yes. Ms. Bowman, correct? You summoned me?”
Her head bounced up and down, but there was definite tension in her movements. “We just need to discuss with you what has happened. Then you’ll be on your way. Today’s meeting shouldn’t take too long. If disciplinary steps follow, I’ll be in touch about the procedure from here on.”
Delightful. “Sure. Can I go in?”
“In a minute. They’re just finishing up a conference call about the strike.” She flushed like she knew she wasn’t supposed to have mentioned it and then cleared her throat. “It’ll just be a minute. Please have a seat. I’ll let you know as soon as she’s ready for you.”
“Guess I’ll wait some more.” I planted my ass on the seat closest to the door marked only with the airline logo, and I tapped out a text to Kavan, canceling the plans we’d had later this morning.
Shira wanted me to help with painting a rainbow on the baby’s wall.
Instead of being there helping them prepare for their new arrival, I was here trying to reason with a department that was clearly in disarray.
My knee bounced while I sat there, my mind half still stuck in Fiji as it had been since I’d gotten back, and half going over the job offers I’d had before.
One would require moving to New York, but at this stage, that didn’t seem as bad as it used to.
Except for the fact that Mom would never move and she’d have my diaper-cleaned balls as payment if I tried going without her.
But there was one in Dallas as well. She might go for that one if push came to shove.
A few minutes later, the receptionist cleared her throat again.
“Please follow me, Mr. Scott.” She smoothed out her skirt after she stood, giving a terse nod in the direction of a short hallway behind her desk.
I followed her to an opaque glass door at the end, my heart slamming into overdrive when I read the name on the door. There was no mistaking it, though.
In big, bold, capital letters, there was Lindsay’s name.
Ms. Lindsay M. Flinn.
Oh shit. Also, I wonder what the M stands for?
I had literally no time to think about how to handle facing her again. Her assistant rapped her knuckles against the glass and pushed the door open without even waiting for a reply.
“You can go in,” she said without making any move herself. “I’ll be at my desk if you need anything. Ms. Flinn will take it from here.”
I’ll just bet she will.
Lindsay rose behind her desk when I walked in, her hand stretching out ahead of her like she was about to shake mine, but then she lifted her eyes away from her computer and saw it was me. Her hand froze in midair before dropping back to her side.
I gave her a smile, but her eyes turned to steel as she glared at me like I’d never been glared at before. “Oh, joy. It’s you.”
Clearly, she was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. “Hey, Linds. You never told me we worked for the same company.”
“I didn’t know.”
I cocked my head, still clutching my hat underneath my arm. “You didn’t think to ask who I flew for when I told you I was a pilot?”
“We only ever talked about our current positions our first day there.” Her eyes spat fire at me while her voice was as cold as a fucking glacier.
“Forgive me for not taking more of an interest in the employer of the man who, shortly after asking me what I did for a living, told me I hadn’t cared about my fiancé. ”
“Come on, Linds. It wasn’t?—”
Her expression turned thunderous. Eyes narrowing into slits, her nostrils flared and she held up a hand to interrupt me. “Don’t call me that. Don’t you even begin to think about speaking to me like we’re still on that island.”
She marched out from behind her desk, but instead of coming to me, she walked around—giving me a wide berth—and slammed her door. I didn’t want to make her madder than she already was, but I was genuinely confused.
“Why are you yelling at me?”
She spun to face me from the door, eyes still blazing as she planted her hands on her hips. “Who the fuck do you think you are, leaving me alone in that hotel room? I’m not some worthless slut you fucked on your way into or out of some country, and even those women aren’t worthless.”
Her chest heaved, but she wasn’t done yet. This was a side of her I hadn’t seen before, but I couldn’t deny that I liked it. Even when her fury was aimed directly at me, she was fucking hot.
Angry sex hadn’t really been my thing before, but looking at her now, I would definitely be okay with it. Not that I thought it was about to happen.
“Did you even think for one fucking minute what it would do to me to wake up alone after a night like that?” she asked.
“Not even just a night. A whole fucking week. A week where you pretended to be this good, supportive guy when you were really nothing but a bottom-feeding scum leaching off a vulnerable woman’s emotions? ”
Her words hit me like an arrow to the heart. “You know that’s not what it was. I thought it would be best for both of us not to say goodbye. We had a pretty fucking awesome night, and it felt right to leave it with that as our final moment.”
She’d walked back behind her desk and slammed her palms down on the glass top. “Right for who? Best for who? Not for me. That’s for fucking sure.”
With the amount of F-bombs we were both dropping, it was no surprise that the tension between us was thick enough to cut with a blunt knife.
That same electricity from before zapped between us, but this Lindsay, the one with the hair tied up into a firm, sleek bun and wearing a navy dress like it was body armor, showed none of the signs that had become familiar to me that she felt it too.
I showed her my palms after tossing my hat down on the chair I was supposed to have taken. “We need to talk. I’m starting to get that maybe I made a mistake, but this really isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
The only place it would get us was with her bent over her desk and her skirt bunched around her waist. If that was what it took, I wasn’t opposed to using our emotions against both of us.
She stared at me with her blue eyes wide. “It wasn’t going to get us anywhere for you to leave either, asshole. But I get it. You got what you wanted, so you left.”
Disbelief clouded my vision and scrambled my thoughts. “You were the one who said you didn’t want to say goodbye, Ms. Flinn.” I emphasized her name because she’d told me not to treat her like we were back in Fiji. “I gave you what you wanted. Let’s just be clear about that.”
“What I wanted?” She was practically shouting now, her body wound tight as the knot my earphones got into in my pocket. “None of this was what I wanted, Jaxon. It was never about what I wanted.”
I stiffened from head to toe, my own lids lowering until I was staring out of slits. “Can I just say, for the record, that you were complicit in everything? Consulted in everything. Don’t make it sound like I forced any of it on you, Lindsay. That’s beneath you.”
“Beneath me?” Wildness crept into her eyes as she jerked upright. “You know what was beneath me four fucking nights ago, Jaxon? You. Do you know what was there when I woke up? No one. Nothing. Not even a single fucking rose petal.”
“I took care of it before I left.” Admittedly, there were better things I could have said.
She let out an incredulous laugh. “That was so kind of you. I’m sure the staff thanked you immensely for your dedication to helping them when you had to have picked up each petal by hand and they could’ve vacuumed it all up after we left.”
“It felt important to do it by myself.” I stalked up to her, my eyes never leaving hers as I planted my face right in front of her. “I did it for you, Lindsay. Do you hear me? I stayed up, I cleaned up, and it was all for you.”
“None of it was for me.” She shoved me away from her and dropped into her chair, flicking a finger at the one with my hat on it. “Do you want to have this meeting? Or are you going to sign my forms, agreeing to mutual separation of employment, and get the fuck out of my life?”
I grinned but even I knew it didn’t reach my eyes.
“I’m not signing shit, baby. I made it easy for you to get rid of me once, and look where that’s gotten me.
Apparently, it was the wrong thing to have done then, and it sure as hell is the wrong thing for me to do now, so I suppose you’re stuck with me. ”
“Stuck with you?” she hissed out between clenched teeth. “No. I’m not stuck with you. I’m done with you.”
“What happened to our meeting?” I challenged her, not willing to walk away again until she asked me to in so many words. “I thought this was about my termination, not my actions taken in my personal capacity on my time off.”
“Your time off? You didn’t have any time off, Jaxon. If you think I’m going to do fucking shit for you to try to save your job, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“I suppose that’s fair.” I picked up my hat and leveled a stare at her. “But this is far from over, Lindsay.”
“Get out,” she ordered between shallow, panting breaths, her eyes still shooting daggers at me. The dark blue depths I’d admired so many times were black. “Get the fuck out of my office and don’t bother saying goodbye. You had your chance to do that, and you missed it.”