“Allegra, wait—” he tried again, urgency bleeding into his words.
“Haven’t you done enough?” she said, cutting him off mid-sentence. The driver cracked open his door and slid out onto the asphalt. “You lied to me. I lied to you. Congratulations, we’re even.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Nope,” she said, snapping the word like a rubber band.
The rear door swung open. Warm air rushed in, tangy with rain and jet fuel, brushing her hair across her cheeks.
“Just… don’t contact me again, okay?”
A pause. A small, shattered silence.
“Fine,” he said, his voice hollow. “If that’s what you want.”
She swallowed. “It is.”
She ended the call before she could change her mind.
Chapter Twenty
Rock bottom, apparently, came with pretzels.
Nate stuffed the last one into his mouth, crushed the empty bag into a sad little ball and wedged it into the seat pocket, then leaned back against 14A. The flight tracker crawled slowly across the seatback screen:30,000 feet above the Atlantic.
Not close enough to turn back. Not close enough to arrive. Just… stuck. Which felt about right.
The seatbelt sign had blinked off twenty minutes ago, and the cabin had settled into long-haul mode. Headphones slipped on. Neck pillows inflated. Someone three rows back was already snoring like a chainsaw. A woman across the aisle applied moisturizer like she’d decided now was the perfect time for a spa routine.
Nate envied all of them. Their minds were shutting down for the night. His was just getting started. The adrenaline that had powered him through the airport, through security, through boarding had finally drained out of his system sometime during takeoff. What remained was a sour exhaustion that made his limbs feel like concrete.
Sleep was a distant fantasy. His brain had plans. Namely: replaying every moment with Ella. No, Allegra von Wildern. Over and over again.
Nate shifted in the narrow seat and dragged his phone out of his pocket before he could talk himself out of it.
Bad idea.
Absolutely a bad idea.
He opened the Photos app anyway. Tap. The Ferris wheel selfie appeared. He and Allegra squeezed together inside the tiny glass capsule, her arm extended to fit them both in the frame. Her grin stretched wide, sunlight catching in her hair like she’d bottled summer and worn it as an accessory.
His own expression hovered somewhere between joy and disbelief. Like he’d been handed something precious and was waiting for someone to tackle him and demand it back.
Nate remembered exactly when she’d taken it: right after the capsule had lurched at the top, right after she’d jabbed him in the ribs.
His thumb traced the edge of the screen, his jaw clenched so tight it ached.How did you fuck this up so badly?He should have told her. Should have just said it, instead of letting her find out like that. Because now? Now any chance they might have had was gone.
Not that there’d ever really been one.
A bitter grunt clawed its way up his throat. The businessman in the aisle seat glanced over, eyebrows raised in mild concern, then turned back to his movie.Good call, buddy. Nothing to see here. Just a grown man having an existential crisis.
But that was the truth, wasn’t it?
He’d never stood a chance.
Allegra was a princess. With a capital P. Women like her dated dukes and ambassadors. Men with family crests and Ivy League degrees. Pasts so polished they gleamed. Not guys who’d spent years on camera, fucking for a paycheck.
Nate stretched the image until her face filled the display. God, that smile. It had wrecked him from day one. He’d adored it. Worshipped it, if he was being honest. Somewhere beneath the bile and self-loathing roiling in his chest, he still did.
