Chapter 2 - Ten Thousand Feet of Tension
Hanscom Airfield was shrouded in heavy pre-dawn fog when Emma arrived at five-twenty the following morning. The sleek, matte-black Gulfstream G650 sat humming softly on the tarmac, its turbine engines throwing heat into the biting New England chill.
She wore a tailored charcoal pencil skirt, a silk cream blouse, and her sharpest heels, determined not to let Nathaniel see her rattled. She had spent the entire night staring at the ceiling of her North End apartment, tossing between incandescent rage and a strange, electric flutter in her chest that she refused to acknowledge.
When she climbed the airstairs into the cabin, she stopped short.
The interior was outfitted like a penthouse suite—butter-soft leather club chairs, warm wood paneling, and a private stateroom sealed behind polished doors. Nathaniel was already seated at the forward conference table, his laptop open, a crystal tumbler of black coffee resting beside a stack of confidential acquisition folders. He had traded his suit jacket for a dark cashmere sweater, his sleeves rolled to his forearms, revealing the corded muscle and the edge of a faded, jagged scar running past his left wrist.
He didn't look up from his screen as she stepped inside. “You’re late.”
“My watch says five-twenty-two, Mr. Kane. I am eight minutes early.”
“If you are not ten minutes early, you are late,” he replied without missing a keystroke. “Sit down. Review tab three on the red tablet. We are meeting the Vance family in Chicago to acquire their rail freight network. The patriarch, Julian Vance, is an arrogant bastard who thinks women belong in decorative social committees. He will try to dismiss you. Don't let him.”
Emma took the seat across from him, opening the tablet with deliberate calm. “Is that an order to defend myself, or permission to humiliate a business associate?”
That made him look up. A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched the corner of his lips. “Consider it an executive directive to eviscerate him if he steps out of line.”
As the aircraft climbed through the clouds, leveling off at forty thousand feet, the quiet hum of the cabin became intensely intimate. Every breath, every rustle of paper felt amplified. Emma devoured the briefing files with razor-sharp focus. She was good at her job; she possessed an encyclopedic memory for shipping tariffs, logistical bottlenecks, and regulatory loopholes that even Kane’s top lawyers often missed.
Two hours into the flight, the aircraft struck sudden, severe turbulence.
The jet lurched violently to the left, dropping several hundred feet in a split second. The cabin groaned. Emma gasped, her tablet flying out of her hands as she was thrown forward.
Before her head could hit the mahogany edge of the table, an iron arm shot across the gap, wrapping firmly around her waist. Nathaniel hauled her across the table and into his lap with blinding speed, securing her tightly against his chest just as the plane took another nauseating dive.
Emma was frozen, her hands clutching his broad shoulders, her face buried into the crook of his neck. His heartbeat was pounding hard and steady beneath the soft cashmere. She could feel every ridged muscle of his torso beneath her, his breath warm against her temple.
“Hold on to me,” he ordered, his voice low, gravelly, and steady as an anchor in a hurricane. “I’ve got you, Emma. Look at me.”
She pulled back slightly, her wide green eyes meeting his dark ones. The sheer proximity was dizzying. His hand was pressed firmly against the small of her back, his fingers gripping her with an intensity that bordered on feral.
“You’re safe,” he whispered, his gaze dropping to her parted lips before slowly rising back to her eyes. “Nothing happens to you while you’re with me. Nothing.”
The turbulence subsided into a gentle sway, but neither of them moved. The cabin fell deadly silent. The air crackled with a tension far more dangerous than the storm outside.
May you like
“Mr. Kane,” Emma managed to whisper, her chest heaving against his.
“Nathaniel,” he corrected softly, his thumb tracing the curve of her jawline, sending shivers straight down her spine. “Say my name again, Emma. Like you did yesterday.”
