I dragged my hand through my waves. “I knew we couldn’t be together.”
At my voice, Abigail looked up from her tea, surprise written across her features.
“A guy like me, with someone like you, Abigail? I was your dog. I was only good enough to sleep at the foot of your bed.”
“Yup,” Gray said, without taking his eyes off his video game.
“Theo—”
I waved a hand, silencing her. I had to get this out.
“You weren’t just my best friend, Abs. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. I couldn’t lose you… but if I loved you, I would. Every day with you I got closer to telling you the truth and ruining everything. When you kissed me?”
For a minute I’d let myself believe I was worthy of love.
Let myself believe she might not abandon me.
I exhaled, shaking my head at the memory. When I looked up, our eyes locked across the small space.
“I just wanted to go back to being your friend—needed us to go back. I knew if I told Gemma what I felt, she’d give me the truth. She might stand a chance of fixing what I felt before it was too late.”
“What did she say?” Her fingers clasped the porcelain cup, joints white.
“That I wasn’t worthy of thinking those thoughts about you, let alone saying them aloud. She was right. She reminded me how lucky I was to just stand next to you.”
Abigail opened her mouth, but it was my turn to leave. At least five miles in the air, I could be certain the man who wanted to harm her wasn’t aboard. In a plane bigger than most houses, I could keep my distance.
Even still, I made sure she was always in my sights.
Abigail was oddly quiet. Maybe thirty minutes passed, and she didn’t so much as grumble, even when Gray elbowed her as he played his game.
When Gemma came in from the back of the plane, Abigail tracked her. I could see the tension rising in her neck. Gemma went to the cockpit, probably to ask on flight time. She had a bottle of wine in one hand and glass in the other, laughing at something the captain had said.
“Why is Story with you?” Abigail sniped, eyes still on Gemma.
“Who?” Gray asked.
“My servant.”
That’s when I realized why she was so familiar. When I lived at Crowne Hall, I’d seen her around, though five years had shaved some of the youth from her features, and she hadn’t been Abigail’s girl then.
Gray glanced at the girl to his left like he’d just noticed her for the first time. At the attention, the girl’s eyes widened like a bug under a magnifying glass.
“You took her from me. She doesn’t belong to you.”
Gray shrugged, eyes back on his video game. “Tell me her favorite food, and you can have her back.”
Abigail sputtered. “Are you kidding? Can you name any of you
r servants’ favorite food?”
Gray shook his head, an amused smile on his face. The girl rolled her lips, watching Gray.
“This is so. Fucking. Ridiculous,” Abigail practically screamed. She stood up, eyes still on Gemma, closing the distance between them.
I knew before she’d reached her, Abigail was going to explode, so I was already standing up.
“Bitch.” Abigail shoved Gemma. Gemma stumbled into the cockpit, hitting the back of the captain’s chair. The plane wobbled, the wine in Gemma’s hand miraculously unspilled.