His Secret Love by Ava Ryan

11

Jake

I parkon the other side of the chain-link fence nearest the tarmac and enjoy the sight of the flight crew scurrying around the gleaming jet as they prepare her for takeoff. Then I get out, grabbing my overnight bag and smiling because the sun is bright, the sky is blue and it’s a great day for a flight.

Matter of fact, it’s also a great day for gloating.

So I pull out my phone and hit a couple buttons, positioning myself in the right spot.

“What’s up?” Liam says when the picture resolves to show him wearing scrubs and hurrying through the atrium at the hospital. “Why are you bothering me? Why aren’t you at work? This better not be anything else about Nanny-Gate. I’m sick of hearing about it.”

I scowl. Leave it to Liam to burst my bubble of euphoria at the first possible opportunity.

It’s my own fault. In one of the most misguided moments of my life, I told him about the situation with Skye. I don’t know what I was expecting. Empathy, maybe. Words of wisdom would have been nice, since he’s now happily engaged and has his personal ducks all in a row. I got none of that. Instead, he blabbed to Michael the first chance he got. Now the two of them view it as their solemn duty to give me shit at every opportunity. The result is that I spend a lot of time wishing I was never born and even more time wishing I was smart enough to make better selections when choosing best friends.

“It’s not, but thanks for that. I’m on my way to that conference I mentioned in Miami.”

“Thank God for that,” he mutters, hitting a metal plate on the wall and striding through a huge pair of double doors. “I have surgery in a few minutes. I don’t have time for talking you down from any ledges today, so I’m glad I won’t be called into duty. What time is your flight?”

“Whenever I get there,” I say, angling myself and the phone to reveal the jet behind me.

Liam stops dead, nearly getting plowed down by some woman walking behind him.

“Sorry,” he tells the woman, darting over to a waiting area and sitting in the nearest chair to peer more closely at the screen. “What the fuck is that?”

“Oh, that?” I repress a shit-eating grin with great difficulty. “Just a new purchase I made.”

Ever since Michael, Liam and I made our killing on the sale of Liam’s medical device, the three of us have had much fun enjoying the spoils of our labor. Throw in a healthy dose of competition between three Type A personalities and you get a lot of fancy new cars and expensive apartments.

No one else has a jet, though, so that makes me the clear winner as far as I’m concerned.

Liam continues to gape for so long that I begin to worry that his lower jaw is locked in that position. Honestly, this triumphant moment alone more than makes up for the cost of the jet.

“Is that a—”

“Gulfstream, yeah,” I say. “The latest model.”

“Fuck me,” Liam says weakly. “Has it got—”

“It’s got everything.” It’s impossible to keep the smugness out of my voice. “I’ll send you a link to the specs. You can enjoy them at your leisure.”

“Do that, jackass,” he says. “You should be ashamed of this kind of conspicuous consumption. And the carbon footprint on this thing. That said, can I borrow it next weekend? I want to impress Mia.”

“Not a chance,” I say, laughing. “You should’ve thought of that before you started calling me names. Be nicer to me and I might take you somewhere someday. Might. And if it makes you feel any better, I’m going to use it to transport kids back and forth for the foundation.”

I volunteer for a foundation that performs orthopedic surgeries for kids overseas.

“What, for surgeries?”

“You got it.”

“After the inaugural flight to Miami.”

“Obviously. Just to get the kinks out. I wouldn’t want to subject sick patients to anything dangerous. And if you’d ever flown commercial with two cranky little kids like I have, you’d agree that money is no object to avoid a nightmare like that in the future.”

“Oh, so the kids are going with you this weekend?” he says, brows going up.

The mild tone doesn’t fool me for a second. I recognize the dorsal fin and other signs of an approaching shark when I see them. I know where this is going and that I need to head it off at the pass.

“Yep,” I say lightly. “I forgot to mention the Corinthian leather seats. My ass demands nothing but the finest leather.”

“One second. Just so I’m clear… The kids are going to the workshops with you? They’re going to, what, sit quietly in the corner with their coloring books and tablets while you attend lectures on, I don’t know, disc replacement for lumbar degenerative disc disease?”

I consider pretending that the connection has gone bad so I can end the conversation immediately but decide to stick it out and take my medicine like a man.

“Skye is, ah, also coming,” I say. “I’ll obviously need childcare while I attend workshops.”

“Obviously,”he says, smirking.

There’s a pause.

“You dumb fuck,” he says, regarding me with what can only be described as horrified wonder with a liberal dose of amusement thrown in. “You actually bought an airplane to help you get into a woman’s panties. That’s the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard.”

I wince, because what can I say? He’s not technically wrong. On either count.

Not that I plan to admit it.

The sad truth is that, in the couple weeks since Marlene left for Tokyo, Skye and I have settled into a delicate dance of a routine that leaves me increasingly wired and frustrated. She gets the kids ready for school in the morning and brings them back in the afternoon. Some nights she cooks dinner. Some nights she orders dinner. Some nights I cook. On all nights, she takes off for a jog when the kids and I sit down to eat and returns in time to kiss the kids good night. While I tuck the kids in bed, she grabs her dinner and retreats into her bedroom, where she stays for the rest of the evening. I’ve never checked, but I assume she also keeps her door locked and props a chair against it lest I get any bright ideas about nocturnal visits.

She has, in short, robbed me of enjoying the pleasure of her company for longer than two-minute snippets. It’s like she’s wrested control of the sun from the sky and only allows me glimpses of it when she feels like it.

I, meanwhile, feel like a house of cards atop a picnic table as a light rain begins to fall. Barely hanging on, in other words. I survive on those snippets of Skye like a neglected dog who staves off starvation with only four or five bite-sized treats per day. I look forward to those treats. I live for those treats. Every night after the kids go to bed, I sit in the living room fiddling with my book and praying for another glimpse of her. Her eyes. Her smile. I go so far as to hold my piss every single night because I’m terrified that she’ll sneak to the kitchen and back to her room again if I take a bathroom break.

And Liam thinks the most pathetic thing I’ve done lately is to buy a fucking private jet?

Please.

Is this rational? No. I know that. I know I need to rein it in and get a grip on this growing obsession with the worst possible person. But tell that to my knotted gut. Maybe it’ll listen to you. It’s damn sure not listening to me.

The bottom line is that I can’t get her out of my mind, and I also can’t go on like this. I’m sleepless at night. Irritable during the day. Vaguely aroused twenty-four seven. The sound of her laughter and whiffs of her perfume torture me. I’m like a whipped dog and a bloodhound on the trail of her scent, all rolled into one, overwrought as that sounds. Swear to God, I’d rather just spend a few minutes getting cranked on someone’s rack and be done with it. At least then I’d have the end in sight.

If I need to manufacture a reason for an impromptu trip to Miami to try to break this interpersonal stalemate, so be it. And I was thinking about buying the jet anyway. Eventually. I just moved the timeline up a bit. If a little strategic planning gives me the chance to impress Skye and spend more time with her in one fell swoop, you’d better believe I’m going to do whatever it takes.

Not that it’s any of Liam’s fucking business.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him.

Disbelieving snort from Liam, which does nothing for my fragile mental state. “Whatever you say, Casanova. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“So do I,” I say before I can stop myself.

Liam opens his mouth to give me additional shit, but a new distraction arrives before he can get going. It’s a car. The car I hired to pick up Skye from my apartment so she could meet me here, to be exact.

My kids are hopefully also in the car, but I can’t worry about those two gremlins right now.

“Gotta go,” I quickly tell Liam, sudden excitement snapping me to attention and causing me to abandon all pretense before I can stop myself. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” he says, chuckling. I hang up and head for the car as it parks.

One of the back doors swings open. Skye emerges and slings a bag over her shoulder, shooting me a wary look across the top of the car.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

“What is going on here?” she demands, gesturing over her shoulder at the plane.

“I told you,” I say in my best cool-cat impersonation. “Why did you think I asked you to pack for the kids? I’ve got a conference, and you’re all tagging along. We’re going to the beach.”

“Yeah. The beach.” She looks incredulous. “I thought that meant, I don’t know, a drive to Atlantic City or something. I didn’t know where the driver was taking us. I thought maybe he was kidnapping us for ransom. Not me, obviously, but the kids.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t do Atlantic City,” I say, deciding that now is not the time to mention that, at the rate I’m going, I’d be just as happy to pay a ransom to get her back as I would for my kids. “We’re going to Miami.”

She goes absolutely still, absorbing this information in silence for a beat or two.

“Did you hijack Oprah’s private jet for the flight?”

“Nope,” I say, trying to get a bead on her mood and failing miserably. “It’s mine.”

“Yours?”

“Mine.”

“Why am I not surprised?” she mutters, a wave of something dark crossing her expression. Hopelessness? Resignation? Despair is too strong a word, but it’s in that family. “Of course it is.”

Whatever she’s feeling hits me hard. This is not the reaction I expected.

“Most people enjoy the beach,” I say, stung. “Think of all the great pictures you can take.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” she says quietly. “But I’m doing the best I can.”

What the hell does that mean? And why does she look like she’s on the verge of tears?

Before I can ask any of that, she pastes a bright smile onto her face and ducks back into the car to help the kids.

“Guess what, guys?” she says. “Your dad has a surprise for you.”

A chorus of “What is it, Daddy?” rises from inside the car, leaving me no choice but to get my head back in the game. I open the door on my side and lean in to discover Charlie in his booster seat, feet kicking.

“We’re going to the beach!” I announce.

The kids groan loudly. You’d think I proposed a trip to the dentist followed by booster shots at the pediatrician’s office.

“Oh, no,” Becca says, smacking her forehead. “But I have plans.”

“We can’t go to the beach!” Charlie cries with top-level urgency as he unbuckles himself. “Not without a bucket!”

“A bucket?” I say, struggling to come up to speed. I really hoped that someone besides me would be excited by our weekend plans.

“A bucket! For the sand! And shovels! And a boogie board!”

“Daddy, I can’t go,” Becca says, also unbuckling and climbing out. “Rosie said she was going to invite me over tomorrow. We were going to go to American Girl.”

“Look, guys,” I say with rising exasperation as I grab Charlie’s hand and lead him around to the other side of the car. “This is going to be a fun trip. I feel confident that we can find appropriate beach gear when we get to Miami. And Becca, we’ll reschedule with Rosie.”

Becca looks unconvinced.

“But—”

“Look at the plane,” I say, excruciatingly aware of Skye’s silent presence and determined to salvage something from this debacle. “Aren’t you guys excited to ride on it and meet the pilot?”

The kids exchange a thoughtful look while I hold my breath.

“I’m betting a plane like this has snacks,” Skye says. “Maybe even movies to watch.”

Charlie whips his head back in my direction. “Are there snacks, Daddy? What about hot chocolate?”

I glance around at the tarmac, where I can see heat rising in the growing haze. “It’s late summer,” I say, aghast. “It’s gotta be ninety-eight degrees out here.”

“Hot chocolate does sound good,” Becca says happily, reaching for her brother’s hand. “Let’s go, Charlie.”

“Yeah!” Charlie says, doing a little jig as they set off. “We get hot chocolate!”

Skye gives me a raised-brow look.

I can’t even manage a wry smile.

“Money well spent,” I say, shaking my head and thinking of all the dough I just dropped on this new adult toy of mine as we follow them.

A lot of commotion follows while the ground crew finishes with the preflight check and the luggage. We meet the pilot and flight attendant, and the kids argue about who belongs in which seat and make their all-important snack selections. By the time the kids finally get settled with their headphones and movie selection and we achieve wheels up, I’m in sore need of a drink or three.

“Thanks,” I say when the flight attendant brings our drinks. I take a grateful sip of wine.

“I’ll check back in a few minutes,” he says before returning to the galley.

Skye, who’s been sitting in front of me with the kids and therefore probably needs a drink more than I do, glances around looking disgruntled. Just the opening I’ve been looking for. I catch her eye, raise the glass of Sauvignon Blanc I ordered for her and pointedly put it in the holder belonging to the seat next to mine. Then I shrug.

The choice is yours.

Her eyes begin to glow with something that suggests sudden demonic possession with criminal intent. She turns back around. Sits quietly for a couple of minutes. Runs a hand through her hair. Generally ignores me.

I enjoy my drink and wait.

She holds out for a solid five minutes before whispering something to the kids, who nod. Then she gets up and walks back to my row with all the enthusiasm of Marie Antoinette on her final approach to the guillotine.

I watch as she sits without a word and helps herself to her drink. She seems determined to ignore me.

I’m equally determined to wait her out. Funny how relaxed I feel about it now that we’re in the air and on our way. This whole thing between us is inevitable, and I’m confident we both know it. That being the case, why worry? Why fight it? Do you shake your fist at the sun every morning when it rises even though you’d prefer to sleep in? What sense would that make?

“I wish you’d make this easier for me,” she says at last, keeping her voice low and her eyes resolutely on the kids.

That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

“Why? It hasn’t been easy on me.”

“What are the sleeping arrangements on this little trip of yours?” she says. “Just out of idle curiosity.”

I sip again and take my time answering. “The kids and I have a suite. Your room is down the hall.”

I hear her soft sound of derision (dismay?) as clearly as I hear her churning thoughts as she runs through the logistics and what this means. I’m betting that a secret part of her wishes I just showed up at her bedroom door one of these nights and gave her the hard sell, seducing my way in and taking the lion’s share of the decision out of her hands. But I need to remain within earshot of the kids at all times, meaning that I won’t be creeping down the hotel hallway to her room. And this weekend’s forced proximity is worse than usual, what with the plane…the beach…the sexy new locale…the balmy tropical air.

She may want to do the right thing. Hell, I want to do the right thing. But we’re only human. And we really want each other.

So she’ll come to me. If not tonight, then tomorrow night or the next night. But before our return trip to New York. Without question. And she won’t be able to claim plausible deniability or otherwise blame it on me.

She leans back against the headrest, blowing out a breath as she looks up. I guess this is the moment I diagnose myself as a horrible human being. Because I sense her growing turmoil and don’t give a fuck. I want her that much. I need to be able to eat, sleep and work again without this looming obsession with her sitting in the dead center of my life.

Worse, I need something else from her. Something indefinable and unquantifiable. Whatever that elusive thing is, she’s the only known source of it in my universe. And the scariest thing is that the physical portion isn’t even the half of it.

“I’m not coming to your room tonight,” she says, her voice husky now.

I shrug. “We’ll see.”

She looks away from the ceiling and faces me at last, her expression turbulent enough to catch me like a punch to the throat.

“Marlene expects me to spy on you for her. She told me the other day. She wants to know about your personal life and who you’re exposing the kids to. She says you’re screwing everyone in sight since the divorce and that none of them last longer than ten minutes. Which makes me feel like a snake and a fool.”

I cringe, my heart plummeting the thirty thousand feet back to earth. I can only imagine.

Leave it to good old Marlene, boy. Now that her relationship has gone belly up, she’s got plenty of free time to invest in my personal life. Such as it is. Not that she suspects anything is going on between me and Skye, thank God.

But still, I’m having a tough enough time regaining lost ground with Skye. I don’t need this obstacle on top of everything else.

I hesitate, wanting to give the right answer, because this feels ridiculously important. Plenty of ideas come to mind about Marlene’s lack of objectivity where I’m concerned and how I’ve recently been getting the vibe that she wouldn’t mind a reconciliation. Plus, I feel a strong urge to sugarcoat my activities since the divorce. But as a single adult who pays his own bills and generally tries to do unto others the way I’d like them to do unto me, I don’t think apologies are necessary for anything I’ve done.

“Look,” I say, “I’m not a saint. I never cheated, but I own my half of my marriage falling apart. And have I been with other women since my divorce? Yeah. I have. Several.”

Her expression sours as though she’s been drinking fresh lemon juice by the gallon. “I’m not asking about your numbers, if that’s where this is going,” she says. “That’s none of my business.”

“You’re right. It’s not.”

“Good talk,” she says, firing the words like bullets as she starts to get up.

I clamp a hand on her wrist, stopping her before she goes anywhere and quickly turning her loose again when she hisses with disapproval.

“Sit your ass back down so I can get to the important part. Please,” I say, throwing the nice word in as a last-second addition when she continues to glare at me.

A stalemate follows until she reluctantly resumes her seat and waits. I take a deep breath, determined to get this right.

“Here’s the thing you don’t understand,” I say, staring her in the face. “This thing right here? It’s not between you, me and Marlene. It’s not between you, me and the kids. It’s got nothing to do with what happened during my marriage or any hookups I’ve had with women since then. It’s about you and me and the way we feel when we’re together. The way we’ve felt together since the second we met. Which is different from anything either of us have had with anyone else. Unless I’m mistaken…?”

She hastily looks away. I guess the weight of my intensity overwhelms her. I’m doing a number on myself as well, to be honest.

“We’ve tried to ignore it, Skye,” I add. “I give us an A for effort.”

“I give myself an A,” she says with a sidelong scowl. “I give you an F.”

“Because it’s futile and I’m not in denial about it like you are,” I say with more urgency than is wise, but I’m beyond caring as I lean closer, leaving myself susceptible to her luscious scent of flowers and berries. This is a moment for laying all my cards out on the table if ever there was one. I’m not the dramatic type, but I’m dead serious when I say that I can’t keep going around in this tortured state. It can’t be healthy. For either of us. “I’m sick of playing these games when the writing is all over the wall and we could be together.”

Our gazes lock, connecting us with that crackling electrical charge again. There’s something vulnerable in her expression. She’s searching hard for something in my eyes. I damn sure hope she finds it.

Maybe she does find it, because she changes right before my eyes. She softens and brightens until it seems as though she’s glowing. I know it’s only a trick of the light as the sunset streams through the window, but I sure hope we’ve reached an accord. Otherwise this is going to be a long fucking weekend.

“Hold my hand,” I say. “Just for a second.”

I don’t give her time to overthink it. I just place my hand on the armrest between us, palm up, and leave the ball firmly in her court.

It doesn’t take long for her to blow out a breath and cover my hand with hers.

Our fingers react immediately, lacing, curling and tightening. There’s no sex or nudity. No hint of anything that would prompt more than a G rating if someone slipped in to film a movie about the unfolding scene.

None of that matters.

Believe me when I tell you that I’ve never been more aroused or less in control of my thumping heartbeat than during those precious few seconds when Skye and I hold hands and stare, absolutely still and unblinking, into each other’s eyes—

“Skye? Skye!”

The sound of Charlie’s voice is the rough equivalent of having the pilot toss parachutes at us while a trapdoor opens at our feet. We snap out of it at full speed and yank our hands apart with whiplash speed.

“Yes, sir?” Skye says in her normal voice just as Charlie leans around the edge of his seat and peers back at us.

“Something’s wrong with the sound of the movie!” he says. “Can you come help us?”

“Please,” I suggest.

“Please!” Charlie adds.

“Absolutely,” Skye says, getting up and going to him without a backward glance. Leaving me staring after her, drowning in frustration and adrenaline and wondering what about our inconvenient but burgeoning relationship, if anything, just got resolved.