Page 46 of Mile High Ex's Dad
What a mess.
I lie there for a second, staring into the dark, and try not to think too hard about the shape my life has taken. It would be easier if this were just one terrible mistake. It isn’t. It’s two. Or maybe one and a half, if I’m being honest with myself. Ethan was a long time ago now, and whatever I felt for him had already curdled into humiliation and habit by the end.
Viktor is different. Worse. Better. More dangerous because none of it feels stale.
I really did this, I think as I push myself upright. I somehow managed to get tangled up with both father and son.
I almost laugh, but there’s nothing funny in it.
By the time I’m showered and dressed, the sky outside the windows has only just begun to pale. I pull on one of my lighter dresses, pin my hair up, and tell myself I’m doing this because I have to work. Because breakfast won’t set itself. Because movement is easier than lying still with my own thoughts.
The hallway outside is cold and dim. I head downstairs with my binder tucked under one arm, already running through the schedule in my head. Halfway down the service corridor, I turn a corner too quickly and almost walk straight into someone.
I stop short.
A tall figure is coming the other way with a huge arrangement of white flowers balanced against one shoulder, half her face hidden behind roses and trailing greenery.
“Sorry,” I say automatically, stepping back.
The flowers shift, and for one split second the face, the expression, pulls something out of me before I can stop it.
A memory.
I’m standing in the plane bathroom afterward, staring at myself in the mirror like I’ve lost my mind. My hair is a mess. My mouth looks kissed raw. My thighs are trembling so badly I have to brace both hands on the tiny sink just to keep steady.
The private cabin is only a few steps away, and in it is a man I do not know, a man with silver at his temples and a body built like he’s still fighting wars with his bare hands, and I just let him ravish me several times at thirty thousand feet like I forgot every rule I’ve ever had.
In a private cabin.
On a plane.
With a stranger.
I remember looking at my reflection and thinking,What is my life?
Then, because humiliation apparently likes company, Ethan’s face flashes through my head too. Ethan, who had dumped me in Spain and was already posting polished, smiling pictures with a blonde before I even stopped crying over him. Ethan, with his neat little replacement and his expensive smile and his gift for making me feel like too much and not enough at the same time.
Maybe that’s why I let Viktor touch me.
No, notlet.
Wanted.
I wanted his mouth, his hands, his praise, the roughness of him, the way he looked at me like my body was something worth devouring instead of apologizing for.
So in that airplane bathroom, I had splashed water on my face, taken three impossible breaths, and told myself to get back out there before I made an even bigger fool of myself.
And when I opened the door, I nearly walked straight into a woman waiting in the passage outside the suite.
She looked me up and down once, cool and cutting and far too composed for someone standing outside a private flight cabin in the middle of the night.
“Stay away from Viktor,” she said.
I remember blinking at her. “Who are you?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
