I sent him a puzzled glance. “I’ll do it after the hot towels. It’s my turn, remember?”
It was our usual routine to help out in back when the first class cabin was light and the main cabin was at capacity. We certainly didn’t need two people to serve five passengers that were all probably about to pass out. But he had helped in coach last time, so we both knew it was my turn to help in back.
He just kissed the top of my head, shaking his. “I need to talk to Jake about that incident report from last week, and he’s got the front cart, so we can chat while we work. Good luck up here.” And with that, he disappeared. I sighed, exasperated. For once, I actually wanted to work back there. It would give me a little break from Mr. Beautiful up front. But I certainly wasn’t going to put up a fuss about it, so I would just have to deal.
Mr. Cavendish barely glanced at me now as I handed out hot towels, then collected them. Why did that bother me so much? I didn’t want to delve too deeply into the thought.
I took drink orders, and served the first round of drinks quickly. The couple on the last row of first class seemed to be heavy drinkers, but the others just had water and looked close to falling asleep. I’d be surprised if most of them weren’t asleep before I’d even finished my short service.
I took a cart out, offering cheese, crackers, and an olive basil dip. It took me less than five minutes to serve the entire cabin. Mr. Cavendish took a small plate of cheese with water, and the couple in back took some, but the other two declined and were sleeping before I was even back in the galley.
As I collected the plates, I was surprised to find that even the couple who’d been drinking cocktails had fallen asleep. I had read them all wrong. They were the ‘drink a few and fall asleep couple’. I had thought for sure they were just getting started.
Mr. Cavendish was suddenly the only passenger awake in my cabin. It felt strangely as though we were alone. The curtain was closed securely on main cabin, and the lights were dimmed to near darkness throughout the entire plane.
He was working quietly on his laptop, looking alert and nowhere close to sleep. Would he work straight through the night? I wondered. I couldn’t imagine him getting to New York and taking a nap. He likely worked around the clock. Our flight time was four hours and forty-three minutes, and it was now the middle of the night. Something urgent must be keeping him up if he couldn’t even take a small nap on the flight.
I approached him, leaning down to speak to him quietly, conscious of the other sleeping passengers, though they were all at the back of first class, and he was nearly at the front. “Can I get you anything else, Sir?”
For the first time since we’d taken off, he gave me his full attention. “May I ask you something, Bianca?” he asked me in a carefully bland tone.
I raised my brows in question. “Yes, Sir. What can I help you with?”
He sighed, indicating the empty seat next to his. “Can you sit for a minute to talk?”
I glanced around nervously, not knowing what to make of his request. It seemed unprofessional to sit down next to him, but he had asked, and he was the only one likely to see me do it.
“Sit, Bianca. Everyone else is beyond caring.” I loved the way he said my name. Loved it and was disconcerted by it. It was nothing I could put my finger on, but something about his tone made it sound almost intimate.
I took a deep breath and finally just sat down beside him. I angled toward him slightly, my hands in my lap, tugging my skirt down and smoothing the dark gray material nervously.
“Are you and Stephan together?” he asked frankly, when I finally looked up at him. I just blinked for a moment, stunned. I hadn’t expected his interest, let alone this kind of bluntness. I guessed that men so busy they couldn’t even take a nap on a plane weren’t the type to beat around the bush.
“No, Sir,” I answered, before I could really think it through. “We’re best friends, but it’s platonic.” Why am I telling him this? I asked myself, even as the words left my mouth.
I watched with an avid fascination as one of his elegant hands reached towards mine, long fingers circling my left wrist lightly. I looked back at his face, and he was smiling now. My chest was rising and falling so heavily that I caught the motion at the edge of my vision. My chest was ample, too much so, making me look disproportionate to my own critical eye. And suddenly, I was all too conscious of my heavy breasts, rising and falling conspicuously. My nipples were tightening up in a pleasurable way as my breath caught.
As though he read my mind, his gaze traveled down to my chest for the first time that I’d noticed. Some men only looked at or spoke to my chest, and up until now he’d done the opposite of that, which I had found refreshing.