Chapter One
Brooke’s POV
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
I glance over at Stephanie, our purser, as we begin taxiing down the runway.
“I’m fine,” I say quickly.
She tilts her head, unconvinced. “You’ve been weird since you got back from your break. Something happen with the boyfriend?”
I shake my head. “That ended months ago. I actually went to visit my dad. He’s sick.” I leave out thein-prisonpart.
She nods slowly. “I can understand that. Parents being ill is the worst.”
I give her a tight smile as the plane lifts into the sky.
The truth is, I didn’t go visit him in prison because my father is dying. I went because I wanted to look him in the eye when I saidgood riddance.
The man ruined our lives. He left, and then kept coming back, promising to change but always letting us down. Until one day my mom refused to believe him again, and his response was breaking into our house and killing her. For twenty dollars.
Even now, the number makes my stomach turn. Twenty dollars. That’s what her life was worth to him. Twenty bucks and whatever high they could buy.
I close my eyes for a moment, breathing through the knot in my chest, then force myself to straighten my shoulders. That was then. And this is now. I have a job to do. I can’t fall apart thirty thousand feet in the air.
Once we’re airborne and the seatbelt sign dings off, I head to economy while Stephanie takes first class. A few minutes later, she reappears, weaving her way down the aisle to where I’m walking with two other attendants.
“Brooke,” she says, gesturing me toward the curtain between first and economy.
“What’s up?”
She’s sniffling. “Someone in first class is wearing rose perfume and I forgot my antihistamine. Can you handle that section for me?”
“Of course,” I nod.
She squeezes my shoulder gratefully and disappears back toward the galley. I smooth my uniform and make my way to first class.
Halfway up the aisle, a magazine slips from a passenger’s hand and lands at my feet. I stoop to pick it up. “Sir, you dropped-”
And then I see his face.
Matthew.
For a heartbeat, the plane could be empty. His eyes widen, just as shocked. “Brooke.”
I smile despite myself. “Fancy seeing you here.”
He wipes a sheen of sweat from his brow and laughs nervously. “I have a meeting.”
“In Paris?” I ask, turning the overhead fan toward him.
He shrugs. “What can I say?”
I grin. “So are you-”
A service light goes off two rows ahead, pulling me back to reality. “It’s good to see you,” I say, and continue down the aisle before my heart has a chance to catch up with my feet.
I haven’t seen him since the week before graduation. One second, we were talking about nothing, and the next, I got a“Got a job”text and then nothing. I guess I could’ve texted too, but I didn’t want to seem clingy.
