As I’m walking through the airport, I can’t help darting my gaze around.
My heart drops when all I see are strange faces.
Stupid.
Did I really think he would chase me?
Try to stop me?
I feel more tears stinging my eyes but I blink them back.
I’ve done enough crying for one day. Kaden has probably already found a replacement for me. My leaving wasn’t even a blip on his radar.
I collect my tickets and a couple of hours later, I’m boarding my flight.
Sitting numbly, I watch as the plane slowly fills up with people taking their seats all around me. I just want to sleep and wake up back in New York, back where I belong.
The two women in front of me are chatting in front of me, and a couple of seats over a man is complaining about the fact that he has to have his chair upright during takeoff.
Suddenly the words start to grab my attention.
It’s kind of like the two women in front are talking at each other or they’re having two separate conversations.
Maybe they’re on their phones?
Or maybe I’m just exhausted.
I shut my eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” one woman says.
“I’m so blind sometimes,” the other woman replies.
“And I know I made a huge mistake.”
I open my eyes, frowning.
Something feels off about how they’re talking.
The first woman says, “I never meant to make you feel...”
Then the second woman replies with, “Like you didn’t matter.”
Suddenly the man who’d been complaining earlier starts talking on his phone. “Losing you is the worst thing I can imagine.”
The flight attendant leans closer to the man as though to ask him to turn his phone off but instead she says, “Before you go, I had to try, one last time.”
The man looks at the attendant as though telling her that he’ll just be another minute, but instead says, “To show you how much you mean to me.”
The intercom beeps and the voice of the pilot says, “You’re my whole world, Claire.”
I look up to see the attendant standing over me with an amused expression on her face. She holds out a mobile phone and I take it.
Kaden’s deep, husky voice makes everything in my chest melt.
“Claire,” his voice rasps through the tiny speaker. “I love you. I should have told you first, not last, that I was giving up everything for you. I followed you here, because I would follow you anywhere. You’re all I want and there’s nowhere else I need to be.”
I laugh and I can feel the tears coming again. “This is possibly the creepiest romantic gesture ever.”
He laughs too and I hear him sniff and cough. “It worked better in my head.”
I look out the window and gasp when I see him standing out on the runway.
He’s standing alone in jeans and a T-shirt.
Just him.
One man alone begging for me to give him another chance.
“How did you even do this?”
“A lot of money and a lot of begging. Your friend Damon sets up party flash mobs as a side business.”
“I don’t need all this,” I say. “I don’t need expensive presents and huge gestures. I just need you.”
“You have me,” he says and I can feel the truth in his words. “I’m yours, Claire. Body and soul. If you want I’ll strip naked right here.”
I laugh and I see his shoulders shaking.
“That also sounded more meaningful in my head.”
As I look at him down there, alone and unprotected, I suddenly see him, the real him.
Not the business man, not the billionaire, the man.
He’s vulnerable and awkward and real.
And he’s mine.
I make my way off the plane to the sounds of cheers and calls of encouragement from the other passengers. I climb down the steps and run across the runway, into Kaden’s outstretched arms.
He spins me around in a wide arch and I can’t stop kissing him.
His mouth, his cheeks, his eyes.
He puts me back on my feet and looks into my eyes.
“I love you.” He grabs my hand and places it against his rapidly beating heart. “I’m yours. Forever.”
“And I’m yours,” I reply, the words cracking as I say them. “Always.”
He pulls me against him.
“Always,” he whispers against my mouth before claiming my lips in a kiss that makes my knees buckle.
Always…