Chapter Thirteen: The Ride

Elena’s POV

“You were going to the Fairmont, weren’t you?”

The words landed harder than they should have. I stared at him, the weight of the sling suddenly more noticeable against my body. My fingers curled into the fabric of my dress without meaning to. For a second I thought I might have misheard him. The road noise, the residual heat rising off the asphalt, the faint smell of something burning coming from under the hood of Samantha’s car,any of it could have distorted the sound. But the way he watched me told me I hadn’t misheard anything.

“How…how do you know that?” I asked. My voice came out quieter than I intended.

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed on mine, calm in a way that felt deliberate. The same unreadable expression he’d worn on the plane when the turbulence hit and his hand closed around my wrist.

I waited.

The silence stretched long enough that I became aware of the light wind catching the edge of my dress and the distant sound of another car passing without slowing.

Before he could speak, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He glanced at the screen. Something shifted in his face,so slight I almost missed it. A tightening around the eyes, gone almost as soon as it appeared. Then he stepped several feet away from us, turning his back and lowering his voice as he answered.

I watched the line of his shoulders. Whatever the call was about, he didn’t want us hearing it. That alone made the air feel thinner. I tried to catch any fragment of the conversation, but the wind and the distance worked against me. All I got was the low murmur of his voice and the occasional brief pause that suggested he was listening more than speaking.

Samantha shifted beside me, arms still crossed. “Do you know him?”

“No,” I said. The word came out flatter than I meant it to. “Not really.”

We stood there on the shoulder while he spoke in a tone too low to catch. Another car passed, the sound of tires on asphalt filling the quiet for a second before fading. My arm throbbed in a dull, steady rhythm. I adjusted the sling without thinking and immediately regretted the movement. A sharp pull traveled from my shoulder down to my elbow. I breathed through it and fixed my gaze on the back of his head again.

He ended the call after less than a minute and walked back toward us. By the time he reached the car, his expression had smoothed over completely, as if the interruption had never happened. The calm was back in place, seamless.

“I have a meeting not far from here,” he said. “If you don’t mind, I can give you both a ride.”

The offer landed without pressure.

No urgency in his voice.

No attempt to convince us.

Just a simple statement, delivered the same way someone might comment on the weather.

“No,” I said immediately. “Thank you, but no. We don’t even know you.”

He didn’t argue.

He simply glanced down the empty stretch of road and said, “Then wait for the next car.”

I followed his gaze.

Nothing.

The few vehicles that had passed earlier were long gone. The heat from the asphalt pressed up through the soles of my shoes. My phone still showed no bars when I checked it again, as if hoping the signal might have miraculously returned while we stood there. It hadn’t.

Samantha exhaled through her nose. “Elena.”

I looked at her.

“We’re stranded. You’re hurt. Neither of us has a signal. And standing out here hoping someone pulls over is not a plan.”

“But we don’t know him,” I repeated, quieter this time because I already knew where this was going.

“I know.” She reached for my bag anyway, sliding the strap over her shoulder with the kind of practical finality that meant the discussion was over. “But right now that feels less important than getting somewhere with working phones and a mechanic.”

I opened my mouth to stop her. She was already moving toward his vehicle,a dark, expensive-looking thing that had no business being on a roadside like this. The kind of car that looked like it belonged in a private garage rather than pulled onto the shoulder of a half-empty highway. I had no choice but to follow every step carefully because of the sling. The gravel under my shoes made the movement uneven. I kept my free hand lightly against my side, as if that might steady the rest of me.

He opened the rear door and got in first.

I stopped short.

Samantha looked at the available seats, then at me. An awkward beat of silence stretched between us. The open door of the car waited. The front passenger seat was empty. The back seat was partially occupied. She finally climbed into the front without a word, as if deciding that arguing about seating arrangements would only waste more time.

Which left the back.

I stood there longer than I should have, staring at the open door. The idea of sitting beside him felt wrong in a way I couldn’t fully name.

Too close.

Too sudden.

Too many unanswered questions already stacked between us. On the plane he had been a stranger who happened to be in the next seat. Here he was a stranger who had appeared on the exact stretch of road where our car died, who somehow knew the name of the hotel we were heading to, and who was now offering us a ride like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

Samantha twisted around in the front seat. “Need help?”

Before she could get out, he stepped out again and came around the side of the car.

“I’ve got her,” he said, calm as ever.