CHAPTER 2: The Choice.

The airport smelled like coffee and anxiety. I moved through it without seeing, security, gate, the endless corridor of shops selling things no one needed at 5 AM. My body performed the motions while my mind circled the same thought: I left. I actually left.

The gate agent scanned my phone. "Flight 1847 to New York. Seat 12B."

I found it. Economy, last row, window. The seatbelt clicked with a sound that felt final. I stared at the tarmac, gray and wet with dawn, and waited for the tears to come.

They didn't.

Instead: numbness. A strange, floating sensation, like the ground had dropped away but I hadn't started falling yet. I thought of David waking up. Finding me gone. The cake still on the floor, chocolate seeping into the wood grain. Would he clean it? Would Samantha? Would they stay in our bed, laughing about how dramatic I'd been?

The plane filled around me. Businessmen with laptops. A family with a crying toddler. No one looked twice at the woman in yesterday's blouse, no makeup, hands still shaking slightly as she gripped the armrests.

The engines started. The safety demonstration played. I watched the flight attendant's mouth move without hearing the words.

Then the curtain parted.

First class was separated by a blue curtain I'd barely noticed. It moved now, and a man stepped through, tall, dark hair catching the overhead light, shoulders filling the narrow aisle in a way that made people shift their knees, adjust their elbows, give him space without being asked.

He stopped at my row.

"Dianne Carter."

Not a question. His voice was low, controlled, the kind that didn't need volume to claim attention. I looked up.

Blue eyes. Not the soft blue of summer sky or the pale blue of ice. Something darker, deeper, ocean in winter, cold and assessing. They matched the slate gray of his suit, the black of his hair where it touched his collar, the absolute stillness of his expression.

He was handsome in a way that felt dangerous. Not pretty. Not approachable. I caught myself unconsciously sitting up straighter. And suddenly, I became more aware about the wrinkles on my shirt. 

Wonder if he did as well.

"You're in my seat," he said.

I checked my ticket. 12B. "I have 12B."

"So do I." He held up his phone, boarding pass displayed, same seat number. "Computer error. You're meant to be up front." A pause. "Consider it corporate policy."

"I don't work for you yet."

"You will in three hours." He didn't smile. Didn't offer his hand. Just waited, occupying space with the patience of someone who'd never been kept waiting long. "The offer expires when we land. I'd prefer to discuss it before then."

I looked at the seat beside me, empty, middle seat no one wanted. Then at the curtain separating me from first class, from leg room and free drinks and whatever conversation this man thought was worth the upgrade.

"I don't have clothes," I said. "A bag. Anything."

"Arranged." He turned, not checking if I'd follow, and walked back through the curtain. The blue fabric swayed behind him.

I unbuckled my seatbelt. The flight attendant watched, confused, as I gathered my purse, the only thing I'd brought, stuffed with my phone, my wallet, my keys to a house I no longer had, and walked past the curtain into a different world.

Leather seats wide enough to lie down. A woman offering champagne I didn't take. And him, already seated by the window, staring at the tarmac with an expression that suggested the plane was an inconvenience he tolerated.

I sat across the aisle. The leather sighed beneath me. The space felt excessive, almost embarrassing, room for my legs, my elbows, my existence.

"Alexander Blackwood." He didn't look at me. "You accepted my transfer at 11:47 PM. From a rest stop on I-95. After leaving your engagement."

How the fuck does he know that?

"I didn't know it was your transfer."

"Now you do." He turned. The blue eyes caught mine, held them. "I know you requested it six months ago. I know you withdrew it three weeks later. I know your fiancé—" the word sounded wrong in his mouth, like a technical term rather than a relationship—"convinced you to stay. To build something here."

"How do you know that?"

"I know everything about the people I employ." He reached for a glass of water on the console between us. His hands were large, unadorned, the nails cut short. No wedding ring. A pale line where one might have been. "What I don't know is why you accepted tonight. Why you're on this plane with one bag and no plan."

I looked at my hands. At the keys in my purse, useless now. At the phone I'd turned off to stop David's calls.

"I had two hundred forty-seven dollars," I said. The number felt shameful, exposing. "A lease I couldn't break. A mother who'd mailed the invitations. And a man who looked at me like I was interrupting his Tuesday." I met his eyes. "I didn't have a choice."

I almost cried but I stopped myself, I looked away from his gaze.

"Everyone has choices." He drank, set the glass down with precision. "You chose to run. That's what interests me."

The engines roared. The plane pushed back from the gate. I gripped the armrests as we taxied, as the acceleration pressed me into the seat, as the ground fell away and the city shrank below, buildings becoming blocks becoming nothing.

He watched me. Not with concern. With assessment, like I was a spreadsheet he was evaluating.

"Why?" I asked, when we leveled off. "Why upgrade me? Why follow me onto this flight?"

"Because I need someone who can't go back." He turned to the window. The clouds were thick, gray, endless. "The Henderson account. Land acquisition upstate. The owner won't sell to me—old family dispute. But he'll sell to a young couple. A love story."

"A love story."

"Performance." He looked back. The blue eyes were colder now, if that was possible. "Six months. Public appearances, social functions, the appearance of stability. In exchange: Director-level salary, corporate housing, references that open doors when we're done."

"You're asking me to pretend to be your wife."

"I'm asking you to be useful." He reached into his jacket, withdrew a folder, held it out. "The contract. Read it. Decide by the time we land."

I took it. Heavy paper, legal language, terms spelled out in numbered clauses. Separate residences. No emotional attachment. Termination at either party's discretion. The salary figure made my breath catch, more than I'd made in two years.

"Why me?" I asked again. "You could hire an actress. Someone trained."

"An actress wants to perform. You want to disappear." He leaned back, closing his eyes. Dismissal, or rest, or the simple confidence that I'd read what he'd given me. "There's a difference. I need the difference."

I read. The words blurred, steadied, blurred again. I thought of David, probably awake now, finding the cake, the note I hadn't left, the empty closet. I thought of my mother, the invitations, the dress hanging in her guest room that I'd never wear.

I thought of this man, cold, closed, offering me escape in exchange for an act, and knew I should refuse. Should land in New York, take the coordinator job, rebuild slowly, carefully, normally.

But normal had never been an option. Not really. Not when I'd been ignoring my own intuition for years, telling myself I was paranoid, telling myself to trust, telling myself love meant doubt.

"There's a clause," I said, finding my voice. "About children. A custody arrangement."

His eyes opened. Just that. No other movement. But something changed in the cabin, some current of tension that hadn't been there before.

"My daughter," he said. "Ava. Seven. My ex-wife challenges custody monthly. The court wants to see a stable home." A pause. "A maternal figure."

"That's not in the job description."

"It's in the contract you hold." He sat up, turned to face me fully. For the first time, something like emotion crossed his face, not warmth, exactly. Urgency, carefully contained. "She's the only thing I won't negotiate. If you do this, you do it for her too. You become someone she can trust, for six months, whether you mean it or not."

"And if I can't? If she sees through me?"

"Then we're both lost." He said it simply. Fact, not drama. "She's been disappointed by enough adults. I won't add another without warning you what you're risking."

I looked at the contract. At his hands, gripping the armrests now, the only sign that this mattered beyond business. At the blue eyes that watched me with something I couldn't name,hope, maybe, or the memory of hope, or the determination to never feel it again.

"Separate bedrooms," I said.

"Of course."

"Financial independence. My own accounts. No oversight."

"Standard."

"I can leave. Anytime. No penalty."

He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "You won't want to."

"Say it anyway."

He nods.

"The contract terminates at either party's discretion." He extended his hand. "Welcome to Blackwood Industries, Ms. Carter. Or should I say...Mrs. Blackwood?"

I didn't shake it. "I need to think."

"You have two hours." He closed his eyes again. The conversation was over. I had 2 hours to decide whether to marry a stranger.