[Maverick’s POV]
I've been thinking about her all day.
How she felt curled against me that morning in her suite, warm and trusting, her breathing slow and steady against my chest. The way she nuzzled closer in her sleep like I was safety instead of danger.
Dangerous thoughts I shouldn't allow about my fake fiancée, my employee, the woman who signed a contract with an expiration date.
I try to shut them down. Focus on emails, spreadsheets, the quarterly projections James sent over. Fail spectacularly. My brain keeps returning to her laugh, her terrible chess strategy, the way she looks at me like I'm something worth seeing.
This is a problem. I'm aware it's a problem.
And problems are supposed to have solutions, and I don't have one for this particular catastrophe unfolding in my chest.
At the bar that evening, I secure a corner seat with decent sightlines and nurse whiskey I don't particularly want. The crew filters in gradually—Derek and Marina maintaining careful distance that fools absolutely no one, Sam already too loud, the others settling into the cozy mountain-town atmosphere with visible relief.
Then Floris walks in, accompanied by Katie and May, two other flight attendants, and my brain short-circuits entirely.
She's wearing a green dress that should be illegal. It's not revealing, not particularly provocative, but the color makes her eyes luminous and the cut follows her figure in ways that make rational thought impossible.
Her hair is down, loose around her shoulders, and she's done something with makeup that makes her look like she's glowing from the inside.
I take a very large sip of whiskey and remind myself that staring is impolite. Also potentially actionable by HR.
She spots me, brightens, and slides onto the stool beside mine. Her knee presses against my thigh under the bar, and neither of us moves away. The contact burns through layers of fabric.
"You're brooding," she announces. "Very dramatic. Very tortured-hero-in-a-period-drama energy. Should I be concerned?"
"I don't brood. I contemplate strategically."
"That's brooding with a business degree." She orders something colorful and ridiculous, then gestures at my whiskey. "Is that your dinner? Because that's concerning. Even billionaires need actual nutrients."
"I ate earlier."
"Did you, though? Or did you have coffee and call it a meal? My mom does that—works doubles at the hospital and thinks caffeine counts as food groups." She shakes her head fondly. "I keep telling her she's not twenty-five anymore, but she just sends me recipes for casseroles I'll never make and ignores me completely."
"Your mother's a nurse?"
"Best one in four counties, according to everyone except her, because she's pathologically humble."
Floris accepts her drink from the bartender with a grateful smile that makes me wanna do something bad to the poor guy. I don’t want anyone else to receive her beautiful smile except me, and that’s pretty concerning.
"She makes these pancakes on Sundays—refuses to share the recipe, claims she'll take it to her grave. I've tried bribery, emotional manipulation, even attempted theft. Nothing works. The woman is a vault."
I could listen to this forever.
The way she talks about her mother—warmth and exasperation tangled together, love so obvious it doesn't need to be stated. Her knee is still pressed against mine, and I'm cataloging the sensation like data I'll need later.
"What about you?" she asks. "Any secret family recipes? Does the Finley dynasty have a signature dish passed down through generations of intimidating ancestors?"
"We have a personal chefs."
"Of course you do." She laughs, amused by my obvious answer. "I walked right into that one. Okay, different question—what do you actually want to do? Not what you have to do. What would you do if the company and your grandfather and all the expectations just... disappeared?"
Before I can even think of an answer, my phone buzzes. Grandfather. Of course.
"I need to take this," I say, already standing. "Don't go anywhere."
Outside, the mountain air is sharp and cold. Harrison's voice is sharper—nothing out of the ordinary, latest news from the board, but delivered with a tone that reminds me of every single transgression against him I’ve done in my life.
I handle it in clipped sentences while watching through the window as Sam's descent into chaos begins inside.
When I end the call and push back through the door, my seat near Floris is already occupied. What the fuck?
There's a man leaning into her space where he’s sure as fuck shouldn’t be. He says something, and she laughs—that bright, surprised laugh that I've started thinking of as mine.
Jealousy hits like a physical blow.
Hot, possessive, and completely irrational.
She isn't mine. We have an arrangement, not a relationship. A contract with clauses and conditions and an expiration date circled in red. I have no right to feel this way, no claim on her laughter or her attention or the warmth of her knee against my thigh.
I'm at her side in a few strides anyway until my hand lands on her lower back, warm and deliberate.
"Work emergency," I say, voice cold enough to freeze the whiskey in my abandoned glass. "We need to leave. Now."
The stranger reads something in my expression that makes him vanish without protest. Gone in seconds, leaving nothing but the ghost of his proximity in her space.
She looks startled. I almost feel guilty.
The drive back is silent, I don't trust myself to speak. My hands grip the steering wheel like it's personally responsible for my lack of control, and fury churns in my chest—at the stranger, at myself, at wanting something I shouldn't want this badly.
At the lodge, I walk her to her door while everyone else is probably already asleep in their rooms and she turns to face me, confusion written across her features.
"Did I do something wrong?" she asks, so vulnerable and guilty, and I resist the urge to kick myself. "Because you seem angry, and I don't understand. What is it that I’ve done?"
"You didn't do anything wrong,” I deflect.
"Then why are you upset?"
"It's not you." I exhale roughly. "It's the guy. It's me. It's this whole impossible situation."
"What does that guy have to do with anything?" She's pushing now, demanding answers I don't want to give. "He was harmless. We were just talking. Since when do you care who I talk to?"
It was honestly stupid to try and hide my distress in front of her. First of all, because I’d hidden it terribly. Second, because she learned when I’m cold in a matter of a couple days, just by observing my tells.
As I’ve said. Stupid.
The truth tears itself from my chest before I can stop it. "I was angry. Seeing you with him, watching you laugh—I was angry that your attention wasn't on me. That you were talking to him instead of me."
"Oh," she breathes, and that single syllable carries everything.
"Yeah. 'Oh.'" My hands find the doorframe, bracketing her without touching. "So go inside. Shut your door. Lock it."
"Why?"
"Because I can't handle knowing you're one room away from me tonight." My voice drops lower, rougher. "Not after watching him lean into your space. Not when you're looking at me like that."
"What if I don't want to lock it?" she whispers. I call her name, try to stop her train of thoughts, but she’s like a freight car sometimes. "What if I leave it unlocked? What happens then?"
My control shatters.
She reaches behind her, turns the handle, steps backward into her room, her eyes never leave mine.
"Goodnight, Maverick," she says softly, and closes the door between us.
I stand there, hands still braced on the doorframe, listening. Waiting for the click of a lock that would end this before it begins.
It never comes.
Five agonizing seconds. Maybe three. Maybe thirty—time has lost all meaning. I tell myself to walk away. Go to my room. Maintain the professional distance we agreed upon.
Fuck it.
When I open the door, she’s standing exactly where I knew she'd be—just inside, waiting, eyes bright with something that looks like hope and fear and want all tangled together.
"I didn't lock it…" she says breathlessly.
"You didn't lock it," I repeat.
I cross the room in two strides, take her face in my hands, and finally kiss her like I've been drowning and she's air.