I should move my hand. Should break the contact, reestablish the appropriate distance between us. But I don't. Instead, I let myself feel the warmth of his skin, the gentle pressure of his fingers.
"Thank you," I whisper.
We stay like that for a heartbeat too long. Then Grant pulls back, reaching for his drink, and the spell is broken.
The flight stretches on. Dinner is served—mediocre pasta that we both pick at while talking about Florence, about the art and the architecture and the best places to get gelato. Grant knows the city well, has been half a dozen times for various projects, and he tells me stories that make me laugh, his voicewarm and animated in a way I've never heard when he's with my father.
With my father, Grant is measured, controlled. The consummate businessman.
With me, right now, he's something else. Someone else.
Somewhere over the Atlantic, the cabin lights dim for the overnight flight. Around us, passengers burrow into blankets and neck pillows, the cabin filling with the quiet sounds of sleep. But I'm wide awake, aware of every shift of Grant's body beside me, every accidental brush of his arm against mine.
"Can I ask you something?" Grant's voice is low, intimate in the darkness.
"Sure."
"Why didn't you tell your father about this trip?"
I consider deflecting, but something about the darkness, the anonymity of being thirty thousand feet above the ocean, makes me want to be honest. "Because he would have tried to stop me. Or worse, he would have tried to come along. Make it about him instead of about me and what I'm trying to build."
"And you need it to be about you."
"I need something to be about me." The admission feels like exhaling after holding my breath for too long. "My whole life has been about being David Sullivan's daughter. His legacy, his reputation, his expectations. I need Essence to be mine. Just mine."
Grant is quiet for a long moment before he speaks again. "I hope you succeed. I hope you build your fragrance empire and take over the world and never let anyone—including your father—tell you what you're capable of."
The words hit me squarely in the chest, and I have to blink against the sudden burning in my eyes. "That might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."
"Then you haven't been spending time with the right people."
His face is just inches from mine in the dim cabin. This close, I can see the exact color of his eyes, the silver threading through the hair at his temples, the faint scar along his jawline that I've never noticed before.
This close, I can see the way he's looking at me.
Not like a friend's daughter. Not like a kid he's watched grow up.
Like a woman.
My breath catches. The air between us feels charged with something dangerous and thrilling and completely forbidden. I should look away. Should laugh it off, break the tension, remind us both of exactly who we are and why this—whatever this is—cannot happen.
But I don't.
And neither does he.
"Emma," he says, and my name on his lips makes me blush.
Someone behind us coughs loudly and the spell shatters. Grant leans back, putting careful distance between us, his jaw tight. I turn to face forward, my heart hammering so hard I'm sure he can hear it.
What the hell am I doing?
He must still think of me as the awkward teenager who spilled wine on his suit jacket at my high school graduation party, right?
Except that's not how he was just looking at me.
I pull out my phone, scrolling mindlessly through downloaded podcasts, trying to find something to distract myself. Grant reads something on his tablet, the glow of the screen casting shadows across his face.
We don't speak much for the remainder of the flight.
