The silence in the cabin has a texture—thick, suffocating, the kind that fills your lungs and refuses to let you breathe.
"Kelly Goodwin," Konnor repeats. "CEO of Goodwin Industries. Or should I say, former CEO?"
"Ex-CEO has a nicer ring to it." The words tumble out before I can stop them, sharp and defensive. "Less dramatic."
Jake moves first, crossing to the counter and picking up the magazine like it might bite him. His jaw tightens as he reads, and I watch my fabricated scandal play across his features in real time.
"Babytrap," he says flatly. "They're saying you tried to babytrap someone."
"Mason Railley." Oscar has retrieved his phone, scrolling rapidly. "Your fiancé. Who is now the interim CEO of your family's company." He looks up, honey-colored eyes stripped of their usual warmth. "That's quite a promotion for him. And quite a fall for you."
"Bird isn't even a family name, is it?" Jake's voice is quiet, but there's an edge underneath. "You made it up."
My face burns with the specific heat of being caught in a lie so stupid it circles back to humiliating.
"I saw a bird through the window. It was raining, I had a concussion, and my creativity was not at peak performance."
Oscar makes a strangled sound that might be a laugh. Konnor's expression doesn't change, but something flickers behind those dark eyes.
"And the rest of it?" Konnor hasn't moved from his position by the counter, arms still crossed. "The pregnancy accusation? The scandal?"
I take a breath. Then another. The room waits.
"Mason cheated on me." The words taste like battery acid on my tongue. "I caught him with his assistant. I'd just found out I was pregnant, and I was stupid enough to tell him right there in the doorway."
Jake's expression shifts—a complicated emotion moving behind his steel-gray eyes.
"He panicked," I continue. "Because if the story was 'Mason Railley cheats on pregnant fiancée who made his entire career,' he loses everything. The position I helped him climb to. The reputation I built for him. The access to my family."
"Wait." Oscar holds up a hand. "You made his career?"
"He was a junior analyst when we met. I mentored him, promoted him, vouched for him to my father until he became VP." The bitterness bleeds through despite my best efforts. "So when the press ran with 'Kelly Goodwin tried to babytrap Mason Railley,' everyone conveniently forgot that I was the CEO and he was the employee I elevated. As if trapping a man I already outranked would somehow benefit me."
"That makes no sense," Jake says slowly. "If you're already above him in the company, what would you gain from—"
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. That's the point." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "But Mason's PR team spun it beautifully. Poor ambitious young executive, preyed upon by his powerful boss, now bravely stepping up to lead the company she nearly destroyed with her scheming. It plays better than 'man bites hand that fed him his entire career.'"
"And your father believed that?" Oscar's voice has lost its teasing edge. "Your own father chose a VP you created over his daughter?"
"My father has been waiting for an excuse to replace me since the day I was born without a Y chromosome." I meet Oscar's gaze steadily. "Mason gave him the perfect out."
The cabin settles into a different kind of silence—less accusatory, more contemplative.
Konnor breaks it first. "You're actually pregnant."
It's not a question. Of course it isn't.
He's a surgeon who's been watching me decline alcohol and drift my fingers toward my stomach when I think no one's looking.
"Eight weeks." I meet his gaze without flinching. "And before you ask, yes, it's Mason's. No, he doesn't know for certain—I only told him I was pregnant, not that I had proof. And no, I haven't decided what I'm doing about it yet."
"That's why you came here." Jake sets down the magazine. "Not just to hide from the scandal. To figure out your next move."
"I needed time to think without cameras in my face and reporters in my bushes." I push hair back from my forehead. "The double-booking was genuinely an accident. Believe me, getting stranded with three attractive strangers was not part of my five-point recovery plan."
Oscar's mouth twitches despite himself. "Attractive strangers? Kelly, you flatter us."
"Don't let it go to your head. The bar was low. I'd been celibate for weeks, and my ex has the personality of a wet napkin with excellent hair."
"A wet napkin who stole your company," Konnor says.
"A wet napkin I trained, promoted, and handed a VP title on a silver platter." I hear the raw edge in my own voice and force myself to breathe. "I bet he's already proposed to Brittany—the assistant, because nothing says 'I was the victim here' like immediately marrying your affair partner."
Jake runs a hand through his hair, processing everything.
"You should have told us." His voice is rough. "From the beginning."
"And what would that have changed?" I step toward him, frustration bleeding into my words. "Would you have let me stay if you knew? Or would you have looked at me the way everyone else does—like I'm either a victim to pity or a scandal to avoid?"
"We're not everyone else," Oscar says quietly.
"No, we just met and you have absolutely no reason to trust me now." I gesture at the magazine. "I just didn't want to be that person here. I wanted to be Kelly Bird, tourist with bad luck whose biggest problem was a crashed rental car."
Konnor pushes off from the counter and crosses toward me. He stops close enough that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
"Whatever you decide," he says, "you don't have to figure it out alone."
The words hit me somewhere soft and unprotected. My throat tightens.
"You barely know me."
"I know enough." His hand finds mine—the same hand he held to his mouth yesterday. "I know you're smart and stubborn and spectacularly bad at aliases."
"Bird is a perfectly reasonable surname."
"You could have been Kelly Tree." He's almost smiling. "Or Kelly Raindrop. Or Kelly Roadkill."
"Now you're just being mean."
Jake's arm slides around my waist from behind, and Oscar steps closer on my other side. Suddenly I'm surrounded again—not with heat and desperation, but with steadiness.
"For what it's worth," Oscar says, "the babytrap story is obviously bullshit. You were the CEO. He was your subordinate. The math doesn't math, Kelly."
"Try explaining that to the court of public opinion. Nuance doesn't fit in a headline."
"Headlines are for idiots who can't read past them." Oscar's grin returns, softer than before but genuine. "Also, your ex sounds like a spectacular parasite."
"That's disturbingly accurate, actually."
"I have a gift for reading people." He taps his temple. "Chef's intuition."
"So," Oscar continues, breaking the heaviness with characteristic timing, "now that we've established you're a secretly pregnant, unfairly disgraced heiress hiding from a national scandal orchestrated by a man you literally created—and also that your fake name has the creative depth of a kindergartner's nature journal—I have one very important question."
I brace myself. "What?"
"Are you still planning to help with the car tomorrow? Because Jake's been making me do all the heavy lifting, and my biceps deserve a break."
I stare at him, caught between tears and laughter.
The laughter wins.
"Yes," I manage. "Yes, I'm still helping with the damn car."
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