My graveyard.
My battleground.
My throat tightened so sharply I had to pinch the bridge of my nose just to breathe.
The cabin hums around me, low and steady, the kind of sound that’s supposed to calm a man. It doesn’t. Not even close.
I sit back in the wide leather seat, one elbow braced against the armrest, staring at my phone like it might conjure her name again. Penn.
Jesus.
She has no idea where I am right now. No idea who I really am. No idea that the mail run I play off as a casual favour is the only part of my week that feels remotely sane, even though I’m the one who signs half the company’s bloody pay checks.
She thinks I’m just… Dane. Some guy who shows up. Some guy who sees her.
And I can’t…won’t ruin that yet.
“Penn,” I whispered into the humming cabin. “I’ll be back before you even have time to miss me.”
But the truth sat heavily in my chest
I was already missing her.
More than I ever missed anything.
More than I ever let myself need.
Leaving her, even for a day, felt like losing her all over again.
The jet engines hum beneath me, a low mechanical growl that vibrates straight through my ribs, but it’s nothing compared to the way she does.
Penn.
God, even her name feels like a bruise I press just to feel something.
I settle deeper into the leather seat, long legs stretched out, tablet idle in my hand, though I haven’t turned a single page. Numbers blur. Contracts blur. Australia, the boardroom that’s waiting for me, the sons whose father trusted me, it all blurs.
The only thing that doesn’t blur is her.
The way she’d stood there earlier today, arms wrapped around herself like she was holding her own pieces together.
The way her laugh snagged in her throat before sliding free. The way her eyes tracked me like she wasn’t sure if she wanted to step toward me or shove me away.
I should be thinking about the deal. The restructuring. The signatures waiting for me in Melbourne tomorrow.
I’m not.
The engines roar as we pick up speed, the runway stretching out in front of us, but all I can think about is her that soft, shy smile she tries to hide behind sarcasm, the way she leans herhip against a doorway when she’s nervous, the way her eyes go glassy when she talks about pain she doesn’t think anyone sees.
I saw it.
Hell, I felt it.
The plane lifts and Wellington falls away beneath us, shrinking into a small, glittering cluster of lights. Somewhere down there, she’s walking through the end of her day, probably thinking I’m still nearby, somewhere close, not thousands of feet above the Tasman heading toward a boardroom full of suits waiting for a signature that’ll shift an entire company's future.
I scrub my hand over my jaw, jaw clenching.
Two days.
