The Girlfriend (The Boss 2)

Once inside, I was absolutely staggered. The immediate claustrophobia generally wrought by too many seats in such a small space never arrived. There were only twelve seats, three rows of two on each side of a center aisle, and the seats themselves were far larger and more comfy looking than anything I’d ever seen on an airplane. Beyond that was a partition, beside which was a small area with a microwave and complicated-looking coffee pot. There were two flat screen monitors on the walls, one of which was powered on and displaying projected weather conditions for our flight.

“Oh, wow.” I dropped my bag and turned to face Neil as he came through the door behind me. “This is...”

“Impressive enough for a blow job?” he asked, raising his eyebrows hopefully.

I gave him a little push, only partially feigning my outrage. “Shut up. This is amazing, though. Can I have one?”

That made him laugh, and he put his arms around me. “You just argued with me about paying for dinner, but you’re asking me for a plane?”

“Not seriously.” I leaned up for a kiss, and when he lifted his mouth from mine I asked, “Can I drive it?”

“No!” He was still laughing when a crewmember stepped into the cabin. She was a young woman with dark hair pulled into a neat bun, and she wore a black pantsuit.

She smiled brightly at us. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Elwood, Ms. Scaife. I’m Jackie, I’ll be servicing the cabin tonight.”

“I’d like the berth set up as soon as we’re in the air. We’re planning to sleep through most of this flight.” Neil told her, handing off his coat. She waited for mine, as well, and took them to stow somewhere. She also took our luggage to the next part of the cabin.

Neil looked so good tonight, it was impossible to believe he was sick. Dressed in jeans and an untucked white button-down over a black t-shirt, he should have been going to a rock concert, not flying somewhere on his private plane. He kicked off his square-toed Italian loafers and wiggled his bare toes on the carpet. “Make yourself at home, Sophie. No reason to be uncomfortable for the next eight hours.”

Eight hours. Yeesh. I knew the flight was going to be a long one— we’d be leaving at nine pm and arriving at around nine thirty am in England— but that was why we’d planned to sleep the entire flight, anyway. Now that I was here, though, I knew I was going to be too excited to close my eyes.

“The bathroom is back there, and the bed, but we’ll need to sit in here during takeoff,” Neil told me, moving toward the front of the cabin. “I’m going to go meet the flight crew.”

“I’m going to go snooping,” I said, and, still awe-struck, set off to poke around.

It’s a weird feeling to be walking around a private plane. Years of flying commercial had made me paranoid enough that I was pretty sure I’d get kicked off Neil’s jet for being a terrorist if I touched the wrong switch or sat in the wrong place.

I trailed my fingers over the back of one of the comfy-looking chairs. The seats were covered in soft tan leather that went well with the warm light and the dark wood accents. I went through the open door Jackie had gone through, and found her stowing our carry-on luggage in drawers beneath what looked like a full-sized bed.

“Can I help you with something, Ms. Scaife?” Jackie asked, straightening.

I shook my head. “Nope, snooping. I’ve never been on a private plane before.”

“Oh?” She looked surprised at that.

“I suppose you don’t get many first timers, huh?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I thought of Neil flying other romantic partners around the world. I decided I didn’t want to know. “Don’t answer that.”

She smiled. “Well, if you do need anything, don’t hesitate to ask.”

When she left, I sat on the edge of the bed. It was a little firm.

“Those are seats during the day.”

I looked up at Neil standing in the doorway. I tilted my head and pursed my lips. “If you have a plane, what were you doing in the airport six years ago?”

“I don’t keep the plane staffed full-time, it’s far more practical to hire flight crews from private companies,” he explained. “I got the interview with the heads at Daihatsu and had to leave before I could make arrangements for a crew.”

I quirked my lips to the side. “You know, if you had been able to hire a crew, we would have never met.”

He paused, a strange expression passing over his face. “I... Don’t want to think about that. Now that you’re here, I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

It was a grim thing to contemplate. If we hadn’t met in that airport, I would have gone to Japan. I wouldn’t have been working at Porteras when Neil bought it. The thought of missing the past two months— the good and the bad— deeply troubled me.