“First class,” she repeats, with that serene patience only flight attendants and kindergarten teachers possess. “Let me show you.”
I look down at Lily, who’s now half-awake and eyeing the situation suspiciously. “Big seats?” she mumbles.
“Apparently very big seats,” I mutter, following the attendant back toward the front of the plane.
And wow.
The first-class cabin feels like another world. It’s quiet, softly lit, all muted champagne and dove-gray tones. Each seat is tucked inside its own little suite—sleek walls, sliding doors, a touch-screen control panel that looks more complicated than my laptop.
My assigned suite—2A—is gorgeous. A wide leather seat that reclines into a bed, a quilted blanket folded neatly on top, a plump pillow that looks like it belongs in a hotel. There’s a glass partition for privacy, a rose-gold reading lamp, even a little storage nook with bottled water and slippers.
Lily’s eyes go huge. “We can lie down?”
“We can,” I say, still half in disbelief. “But we’re not touching any buttons, okay? Mommy’s barely functional right now.”
She giggles and climbs up onto the seat like she’s boarding a spaceship.
The attendant helps me fold up Lily’s stroller and pack our bags away into the overhead compartment. I tuck my daughter in with the blanket and hand her a tiny bottle of water, then drop into the seat beside her.
Oh, it’s heaven. Pure, plush heaven. The kind of comfort that makes you forget flight delays and crying toddlers and every bad decision you’ve ever made involving airport coffee.
I close my eyes for a second, letting the hum of the air-conditioning wrap around me. The scent here is different—fresh linen and a faint trace of citrus. Calm. Expensive.
Finally, I think. A break.
And then a shadow falls across the suite’s doorway.
Someone steps in beside me, the movement smooth, unhurried. The air seems to shift, heavier somehow, as a deep, familiar scent cuts through the sterile calm—amber, cedarwood, something clean and distinctly male.
My eyes open.
He’s handing his jacket to the attendant, thanking her in a low, polite voice that tugs at something buried deep in memory. Broad shoulders. A tailored dark suit. Hair just slightly longer than I remember, with just slightly more silver in it than I remember, catching the cabin light.
And when he turns, when his gaze meets mine across the narrow aisle?—
My breath catches.
It’s Aleksander.
2
ALEKSANDER
Moscow meetings are always a gamble—younever know if you’ll walk out with a handshake or a bullet.
Tonight was supposed to be simple—finalize the merger between Antonov Holdings and Zaroksiv Shipping, a neat little corporate front to move certain assets quietly through the Baltic. Kirov Zaroksiv had insisted on the face-to-face, which should’ve been my first warning. I hate that puny little sucker. But unfortunately for me, he’s a big deal in Moscow. At least here, I am out of the shadows of my mother.
But I don’t want to think of that.
By the time I arrive at the glass-walled office overlooking the frozen river, he’s already pacing, tie loose, temper brewing.
“You want twenty percent more than we agreed,” he says, slamming his palm on the table.
I don’t flinch. “You were paid for silence, not the other way around.”
That seems to fluster him more as he grows redder by the second.
His men shift behind him—three of them, heavy coats. I know exactly why they are there.
