38. Thirty Thousand Feet

[PRESENT] On a twelve-hour night flight, Bells learns three things: motion sickness is hell, her boss can be crueler than she thought, and his tenderness is more dangerous than his contempt.

BELLS

We moved through to the security queue. A whiff of sweat in the air, the scent of overpriced coffee, someone’s excessive perfume three people back. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everyone in the shade of exhausted that came standard with red-eye departures.

I stood next to Klar. Mark, Keith and Jack nearby. The two engineers ahead. A couple of strangers and then Jude. Even from here I could see the line of his jaw, the dirty blonde hair that never quite behaved, the breadth of his shoulders under that long black coat. And at his side, Yen, pressing into him like driftwood clings to ocean wreckage.

I couldn’t help but think her naïve, a glutton for punishment. Why would she do this? He’d rebuffed her touch twenty minutes ago coldly declaring their “relationship” dead in the water. Yet here she was again, spine curving toward him, desperate to feel warmth.

I exhaled and glanced down at my phone to check the time.

Suddenly Klar nudged me, her elbow sharp against my ribs.

“You seeing this?”

“What?” I asked. She made a small movement with her head, leading my eyes toward Jude and Yen again.

He put his hand on her back, his mouth dipped to her ear, intimate enough to make me look away and also incapable of looking away. That restrained closeness that he’d perfected on me before, when things were better between us. Whatever he said made her melt, shoulders dropping, face tipping up like he was sun to her sunflower.

I knew that feeling. I’d been that sunflower.

“Mm.” I replied.

Non-committal. Professional. Though my chest compressed, tight as a fist, ribs pressing against lungs that suddenly forgot their job description. Why exactly did this bother me? Did I really believe the “she’s not my girlfriend” assurance he’d made, spoken as if I was the only person at the terminal?

Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe he just didn’t like labels. Whatever. It didn’t mean he’d keep his hands clean. He’d take what she gave, then wash it off like blood after slaughter. I called Yen naïve, but I was the idiot still sniffing the blade.

The queue shuffled forward, trainers squeaking on polished floor. I moved with it, autopilot.

---

I caught up to him in departures, the carpet here plusher, muffling footsteps, the boards clicking their perpetual shuffle overhead. Yen hovering at his elbow. Poor girl, drowning in him and he threw her lead weights disguised as lifebuoys.

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

He looked at me like I’d asked for quarterly projections, blue eyes flat.

“Go ahead.”

I tilted my head toward privacy. He sighed, audible, pointed, stepped aside, the scent of him drifting past.

“What?”

“Are you okay? What Theo said back there was uncalled for. We’re going through a rough patch. I’m sorry.”

His eyebrows climbed, the left one slightly higher, the expression that meant he was filing this conversation under tedious.

“His territorial pissing?”

My fingers twitched against my sleeve. Tiny, treacherous movement.

“You joined in.”

He tilted his head, mouth ghosting a smile.

“Did I?”

“The voicemails. The ‘why hold back now?’”

“Just taunting him, Bells. Don’t read into it.”

He said it like boredom tasted good on his tongue. The phone chimed in his pocket and he was already gone. Eyes on the screen, thumbs busy, as if the conversation had been a pop-up ad he couldn’t click close fast enough.

“The bedroom line bothered you…” I said. Not a question. I’d seen it. The flicker when Theo dropped his ‘in bed with me every night’. It had hit him then, and it was still sitting under his skin now.

He looked back up from the phone, studying me the way you’d study a crack in glass - deciding whether it’s worth fixing or just let it spread.

“You think you’re in some romance, don’t you? Focus on the deal, not the melodrama.”

“Oh, don’t worry. No one sane would’ve ever casted you as romantic lead.” I replied, voice smooth as silk.

“Never said I was one.” He said, raising his brows, amused “A Freudian slip?”

Then checked his phone again as I stood there, feeling blood rushing to my cheeks.

“Yen, first class lounge is open. Let’s go.”

He raised his voice to catch her attention.

I stared.

“We’re flying first?”

He smiled. Slow. The corners of his mouth doing something that wasn’t kindness.

“Oh no. I am. And Yen. You lot are flying cattle.”

Cattle.

The word snapped across my face like a whip.

Not economy. Not coach. Cattle.

He walked away before I could form a response, leather shoes precise on carpet, Yen glancing back once with something that might’ve been sympathy or triumph. Hard to tell which. I felt as stupid as I must have looked, left standing there, stunned into silence.

---

I loved night flights. The sky at altitude, the blue-black beyond the windows, the illusion of floating above everything messy and complicated. Not that I flew often with my affliction. Then it hit me, a cold slap of realisation, my stomach dropping before we even left the ground.

My motion sickness tablets. Left them on the bathroom counter like an idiot.

Too late now. Last time Theo and I flew to France I’d been fine without them. Granted, that was a short haul. This was twelve hours. Maybe I’d outgrown it, I told myself, fingers curling against the armrest. Maybe my body had developed a sense of occasion.

I could do this.

Take-off came like punishment. My stomach lurched, gravity folding wrong inside me. The engines howled and I clenched my jaw so hard my ears buzzed. The seatbelt bit into my hips. But I didn’t die. The plane steadied, the cabin slid into a low mechanical hum, the sound of a thousand people pretending they weren’t all trapped in a metal tube.

Klar kept talking beside me, her chatter thin and human against the machine noise. I clung to it. That was the trick for motion sickness, wasn’t it? Anchor yourself to something - a voice, a word, anything that makes you forget the body you’re in.

I could do this.

“Can you believe our dick boss put us in economy while he’s sipping champagne in first?” Klar said.

“Well,” I said, sarcasm hissing through my teeth, “he is the founder.”

She laughed, warm and genuine.

An hour later, emboldened by denial and false confidence, I ordered food. The meal came on a plastic tray. Lukewarm, aggressively beige. I devoured it quickly, barely tasting it.

Mistake. Monumental, catastrophic mistake.

“Bells, you don’t look so well. Are you okay?”

Klar’s voice, concerned, her hand on my arm. I wasn’t okay. Nausea crawling up my throat like something with claws, cold sweat breaking along my hairline. The air suddenly too thick, too warm, pressing against my face.

I nodded anyway. Admitting weakness felt worse than vomiting.

“Motion sickness?”

I forced a smile, tasting bile.

“Looks like tonight’s my lucky night.”

She pivoted, asking the team for medicine, voices rising around me, a muddled chorus of concern. No one had any. Jack stood up, the rustle of movement, fabric, urgency - that masculine I’ll handle it energy. Said he’d check with Yen and Jude. Like this needed escalation up the chain of command…

Oh God.

Last thing I needed was Jude hearing about this. Me - a professional woman, someone who wanted to be his equal - too weak to ‘survive’ a simple plane flight without becoming a liability. Me - a pathetic mess who couldn’t manage basic bodily functions, interrupting his first class sanctuary, silk eye-mask askew.

As I pondered this humiliation, my stomach lurched violently. Quick strikes: nausea - again, saliva flooding my mouth, then the food came up, violently. Hot and acidic, spattering across my shoes, the floor…

The acrid smell of vomit filled the small space.

Someone made a sympathetic noise.

Klar pressed her hand to my back.

“Hurry, Jack!” she urged, her voice tight with concern.

Through the haze of mortification, I watched him stride toward the curtain, pushing through into the first class.

---

It must have been a minute or two.

I was wiping sick off my shoes with a scratchy napkin, the smell making my stomach threaten an encore, when I felt him before I saw him. He had this pull, like a blackhole, filling the aisle like gravity itself bowed for him. A cardigan on, simple, black, buttoned up over a grey t-shirt. Casual yet put-together - damn he looked good in knitwear - while I was actively falling apart. Could it get any more embarrassing?

He stood at the end of the row, Jack behind him. Uncomfortable. For a moment he just stared at me, something shifted in his face. The careful mask sliding just enough that I caught it. Worry, real and unguarded, tightening the corners of his eyes.

“Come with me.”

He said quietly, it wasn’t the judgment I’d braced for. His voice was soft, almost gentle.

I stared, vision slightly blurred. Come where? We were thirty thousand feet up.

“Please.”

Soft-spoken, utterly immovable. Not a request. A command gift-wrapped in British politeness. It made refusal impossible - not because it was loud but because it simply didn’t occur to him that I might say no. But underneath it, I heard the unspoken: Let me help you.

I stood, legs unsteady, squeezed past the team, murmured sorries, the brush of someone’s knee - until I reached him. The aisle seemed longer than it had been, narrower. Unsteady, the floor tilting beneath me or maybe that was just my inner ear staging a coup.

“May I?” he asked, extending his arm, but not touching me. A small turbulence hit just then and I fell sideways, grabbing the headrest of the seat to my right to steady myself.

“May I?” he asked again.

“What… Yes” I said. He finally put his arm around me, hand firm at my ribs.

“Clause four.” He said.

“Really? Terms of Engagement. Now?”

“No physical contact without prior agreement.” He said, but his faint smile faded quickly as he saw me struggling on my feet, the tremor in my hands as I gripped his cardigan for balance.

“Easy,” he said, low enough that only I could hear, his breath warm against my temple.

We walked together, his arm around my waist. I’d forgotten how solid he was, how warm. The strength in him not showy but absolute, the kind you could lean into and trust not to give way. He took most of my weight without comment, adjusting his grip when I stumbled, thumb stroking once against my side in a gesture so small and unconscious it undid me.

We walked through the galley where staff paused mid-task to watch, past the curtain that separated economy from privilege.

The difference was immediate. Amber lighting, soft and forgiving. The seats wide, wrapped in leather that probably had a pedigree. Quiet, insulated from the engine roar. The air even smelled different - agarwood and possibility.

He showed me to his compartment.

“Sit down” he said, already lowering me gently into his seat.

“Jude…”

“I’m not asking you.”

I relented. My back touched the leather still warm from his body, indented where he’d been. The scent of him everywhere, my chest compressed.

He crouched beside the seat, bringing himself to my eye level, and suddenly he was right there, close enough that I could see the faint stubble along his jaw, the way his hair fell across his forehead now made him look younger, less statue, more human. His hands moved over the controls, elegant and sure, long fingers that I’d spent too many meetings watching. That I could still remember on my skin. Between my legs.

“Here,” he said softly, pressing a button. The seat began to recline all the way back with a smooth mechanical hum. “And this one…” another press, his hand brushing my arm as he reached across, “…extends the footrest.”

His eyes flicked to mine, checking, making sure I followed.

“Lie back,” he instructed gently, his palm coming to my shoulder, guiding me down with a touch so careful it made my throat tight. “That’s it.”

I sank into leather and his attention, the seat cradling me. His hand stayed on my shoulder a long moment, thumb brushing gentle reassurance along my collarbone - familiar and devastating and nothing like the man who’d called me cattle two hours ago.

Then he stood, all that height suddenly above me. Turned to the flight attendant hovering nearby. His voice changed, the commanding edge snapping back in place.

“Do you have motion sickness meds?”

She shook her head, apologetic. “I’m sorry, sir, we don’t carry…”

“Then you’ll ask via PA.”

His voice stayed level, polite even, but the firmness made it clear this wasn’t negotiable.

“Someone on this aircraft will have what she needs.”

Embarrassment flooded me, hot and prickling, but I was too weak to protest, too grateful to be horizontal. Let him orchestrate my rescue. Let him be competent and overbearing.

A minute later an announcement boomed over the cabin’s intercom.

Three minutes lates: two pills in my palm, a paper cup of water that tasted of plastic and mercy, his shadow hovering over me, backlit by the cabin lights so I couldn’t quite see his face.

“Take them.”

I did, obedient, swallowing, the water cool down my throat.

The pills kicked in, relief arriving in soft waves. My eyes went heavy, the nausea receding like a tide. He turned, found a blanket in the overhead compartment, and when he draped it over me it wasn’t perfunctory. He took his time, unfolding it fully, settling it around my shoulders with both hands, tucking it carefully along my sides like he was putting a child to bed.

“Get some sleep” he said quietly.

“Where are you going to go?”

“The cattle class.” He replied, a smile tugging at his lips at the irony of it.

I let my eyes close.

---

Morning came with daylight and consequences. I woke to golden light slipping through window crevices, thin and sharp, painting lines across my lap. My face felt creased, mouth dry as regret and tasting faintly of bile and those chalky pills. For a disorienting moment I couldn’t place where I was or how I’d gotten here, my brain still sluggish, thoughts moving through honey.

Then: first class. Jude’s seat. The leather under my cheek expensive and butter-soft. Vomiting in front of the entire team. Him leading me here like I was fragile, something that needed protecting, his arm solid around my ribs.

His unsettling tenderness. A puzzle piece that didn’t fit. Or did it?

Yen sat in the compartment beside mine, watching. Not hostile but assessing, her gaze steady. Tired in a way that went beyond jet lag, dark circles under her eyes like she’d ground thoughts all night until they turned to dust.

“You’re lucky, you know.”

I blinked at her, still foggy, my tongue thick. “What?”

“He watched you fall asleep like you were precious.”

The words hit strange, landing somewhere I wasn’t prepared for. I sat up straighter, the blanket - soft cashmere, I realised now - sliding from my shoulders. The cabin smelled of coffee and breakfast service, oranges and warm bread.

“Who? Jude?”

She nodded once. Curt. Something in her expression - resignation, maybe. Or acceptance of a verdict she’d been avoiding.

“I have a fiancé, Yen. I don’t know what’s between you two, but you don’t need to worry about me.”

“There’s nothing between us,” her voice barely audible over the ambient hum of engines. “Not for years. Because he only has eyes for you. Always had.” Pause. Breath, shaky at the edges. “And the business, of course.”

“Of course.”

The word hung there, bitter. We looked at each other and something passed between us - an unexpected understanding, the kind shared by those who touched the same fire and learnt the same lesson.

I felt a laugh bubble up, slightly hysterical. She smiled too, sad but genuine, her lips pressing together.

“Whatever you decide to do, I won’t be in your way.” Direct. Honest, meeting my eyes. “Not that I ever really was.”

I wanted to protest, to offer comfort, the platitudes rising automatically. No Yen, he does like you! or He just needs time! All the pretty lies women tell each other about men who will never love them enough. But what if she believed it? I’d feel better now at the cost of her pain later. She deserved better.

“My uncle had me book you two into a marital suite,” she said then, voice so meek I almost didn’t hear it “Since I’m technically still his PA.”

The cost of that. My stomach twisted, imagining it - her fingers on the keyboard, typing in the reservation, booking the man she wanted into accommodations with another woman. I didn’t need to look at her face to understand, but I did anyway. Saw it there, clear as the daylight streaming through the windows.

“Yen…” I started, but had no idea how to finish. It’s not what you think felt like a lie I couldn’t sell, not even to myself.

“Perhaps you two will finally work it out,” she said, looking away toward the window, her reflection ghost-pale in the glass, “and stop hurting others in the process.”

Silence, thick and uncomfortable. The landing announcement crackled through speakers, the captain’s voice professionally cheerful. She gathered her things, tucking items into her bag one by one, each movement deliberate.

“Say goodbye to Jude from me. I won’t be joining you at the hotel.” Pause, her fingers stilling on a zipper. “Not that he’d notice.”

I stayed silent, my throat tight, surrounded by evidence of his attention. The blanket, still warm where it had covered me. The empty pill cup on the side table. The seat he’d given up, his cedarwood scent still clinging to the leather. Yen’s words echoing in the space between my ribs.

He only has eyes for you.

Stop hurting others in the process.

How she’d decided she wouldn’t even say goodbye after months - years - spent hoping he’d turn around and see her, the way he’d apparently watched me sleep.

Clearly wanting Jude had always meant collateral damage. Yen was just the latest casualty.