“Excuse me?” I say.
She touches her hand to the roof of the plane as we move through a stretch of turbulence, the cabin jerking from side to side before leveling out. Ordinarily, this would terrify me, but it’s like I’m blank inside.
“Tate,” she clarifies. “I haven’t seen him that happy in a long time.”
I let out a rush of air, and spin my mother’s ring around my finger.
When I realize that she isn’t going away, I ask, “Do you fly with him often?”
“I work most of his private flights. He likes to use the same crew.” She smiles. “His regular pilots were back in LA today, which is why you’ve got two new pilots—these guys are local, out of Denver.” She nods up to the cockpit, where the closed door blocks the pilots from view. “I stayed in Telluride. Figured I’d just wait, enjoy the snow for Christmas until you both were ready to head home. I don’t have much of a family anyway. My boyfriend and I split a couple months back.”
“Sorry,” I murmur. How many people have changed their plans, their lives, for Tate Collins? Everything in his world revolves around him. He decides what he wants, who he wants, and when. He’s so afraid of losing control that he ended up losing me.
She shrugs. “But Tate, he’s a tricky one. He’s been so different the last year. We used to fly him to Vegas every other weekend; him and a dozen friends, supermodels, and pop stars like him. He’d take impulsive trips down to Mexico or Miami. But in the last year, he’s hardly left LA. And then, the other day, he got on the plane with you, just you. I thought maybe you were the one.”
“The one?”
She smiles gently. “Well, he needs a dose of normal in his life.”
I should smile politely and go back to staring out the window. Wrap the numbness around myself like a shroud. Instead I turn to give her my full attention. “Do you know what happened to him a year ago—what made him change, leave the music world?”
The shrug is one-shouldered this time, as if the story annoys her. “Not sure. There were rumors of course, that he got a girl pregnant and he was trying to keep it secret; that he was involved with drugs. People talk. But none of it sounded like Tate. Something else made him quit music, something bigger than all that gossip.”
The plane begins to lurch as we enter more rough air and she grabs onto the back of a seat to keep from falling over. “Better buckle in.”
The jolting turbulence doesn’t bother me. I stare blindly out the window as we start to descend. LA reveals itself, silvery and blue. The ocean expands out to meet the sky and I feel a sudden sense of relief—I’m home.
The sun is high when we land at the same private airport. Tate’s town car is waiting on the tarmac, Hank standing beside the back door. Seeing him makes my throat swell, tears threatening to break free again. Someone else who’s given up his Christmas for Tate.
“Your chariot awaits, milady,” Hank says in a falsely cheerful tone as I slide into the back of the town car, and I wait while he loads my luggage into the trunk.
When he climbs in the driver’s seat, I can feel his eyes on me in the rearview mirror. I shrink back in my seat, praying he’s not going to mention Tate’s name, or try to tell me what a good guy he is at heart. As if reading my mind, he lets out a quiet sigh. “Let’s get you home, Charlotte.”
I roll down the window, wanting to feel the mild California air against my face. I lift my fingers through the window as we pull away from the tarmac, feeling the breeze. We pause at the gate, waiting for it to slide open.
But when it does, I hear the sudden rush of voices, the click, click, click I remember all too vividly. Men with cameras have gathered just outside the gate and now they are surrounding the car, clamoring next to the window, practically spilling inside. I don’t have time to block my face from view; it’s too late, they already have my picture.
“Charlotte!” they yell. And I realize: They know who I am. How? And how did they know I’d be here, getting off a plane on Christmas Day, when my plans didn’t change until the middle of last night?
As Hank curses, my thoughts tumble backward, to the crew, the new pilots the flight attendant had mentioned. Did they somehow tip off the media, give them my name, tell them I was the mystery girl Tate has been keeping a secret?
Either way, it doesn’t matter now. It’s done. Yet I can’t help but panic as my fingers fumble for the window button, trying frantically to roll it up as Hank inches the car forward through the small mob that has gathered. He pounds the horn and shouts dire warnings, all of which go unheeded.
“Charlotte, Charlotte!” they continue to call. “What’s it like dating the sexiest singer alive? Did you meet his parents? Is there a ring?”