“Would you like a drink to get this little vacation started?” I asked.
“That sounds lovely,” she said with a smile.
So, I pressed the intercom button.
“What can I bring you, sir?” the flight attendant’s voice echoed back.
“I'll have a scotch on the rocks,” I said. “Lilah?”
“A glass of wine. No preference. Just surprise me.”
“Coming right up, sir,” the flight attendant replied.
She arrived shortly with the glasses, and I selected a movie to play on the big screen as we drank. By the time the movie had finished, Lilah and I had not only finished our drinks, but we’d also finished her bottle of wine and an entire bottle of champagne. I was pretty buzzed—buzzed enough that the filter on my mouth wasn’t working so great, and I asked about Savage.
“Lilah,” I said, “I know it's probably not the right time to talk about this, but . . . Look, I just have to ask. Savage: you're seeing him, aren't you?”
A mischievous smile crept over her beautiful lips. “He thinks I am.”
I gave her an inquisitive look. “You’re going to have to explain that one.”
“Look, I'm sorry for keeping you in the dark about this. Yes, I have been seeing him. But, it’s not what it probably looks like from the outside. I am actually on a fact-finding mission.”
I was taken aback. “A fact-finding mission?”
“Yep. I'm sure he's behind the leaked tweet and the break-in. I've gathered some insight that supports my thought process. I just need the proof,” she explained.
I felt a surge of satisfaction spreading through me as she talked.
“Maybe if we combine what you know with what my private investigator has discovered, we can build a solid case against Savage,” I said. “Please tell me you haven’t put yourself in any compromising situations, Lilah. I would never forgi—”
“Asher! Of course not! I haven’t even let the sleaze ball kiss me. He’s lucky I let him touch me at all.”
Relief set in. The last thing I wanted was for Savage to know anything intimate about Lilah. I didn’t want to share that with anyone, especially not him.
“I can't believe that you were doing this! You're . . . you're something else, Ms. Maxwell. I never should have doubted you.”
“Doubted me? What exactly have you been doubting?” she asked pointedly, putting me on the spot.
I was pretty quick though, even in my tipsy state. “That you would even give the likes of Brendan Savage a second thought. I really should have known you’d have a plan. How’d you get to be so resilient, anyway?” I asked with a cheeky grin.
“Growing up in a family of boys, without a mother, and being raised by a distant father. That's how,” she replied. A sad look entered her eyes.
“I'm sorry,” I said. “You know I can sympathize. Hell, I can relate. You’re the only person I've ever told about my situation growing up. Maybe I somehow knew you’d understand.”
“It wasn’t just my childhood,” she said. “I was . . . I was in love once. Madly in love.”
“Well that's a good thing, isn't it?”
“I suppose it could have been. But it wasn’t. And heartbreak has a way of making you or breaking you. I didn’t have a choice but to strengthen my resolve. It was that, or wither in a corner. In the end, love turned out to be an awful thing.” Her eyes fell to the empty glass in her hand.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, I placed all of my trust in one man. I gave him my heart, my soul. Everything. One month before we were suppose
d to be married, he destroyed me. Told me he'd found someone else. He left, and we haven’t spoken since. It broke me. It broke me into thousands of pieces.
“But it also made me stronger than I ever imagined I could be. I took all of that emptiness I'd had growing up and mixed it with the heartbreak, and I used that to focus my energy, my drive, my motivation. I became fixated with work and my career, and became absolutely dedicated to it. That's what got me where I am now.”