Someone steps onto the plane, a last-minute passenger.
My fingers tighten around the armrests, bracing against the metal as he comes into view.
Tate.
My stomach constricts, watching him walk down the short aisle and stop in front of me.
He found me. He did do this. After all these months, we’re now face-to-face again. Casually, he slides down into the seat beside me. He’s wearing a dark sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head—as if it were enough to keep his identity hidden. The air is instantly engulfed with his scent, subtle and cool and almost undistinguishable if you didn’t know it was him—if you didn’t know what Tate Collins smells like. But I do.
The same flight attendant who led me up to first class approaches our aisle and asks if Tate would like anything, but he waves her away. He stares straight ahead, not even looking at me, like we are two strangers who just happen to be on the same flight, in the same row. And just when I open my mouth, about to ask what the hell he’s doing, he cuts me off.
“I missed you,” he says, turning finally to look at me. The shock of his eyes, dark and pained, is almost too much—I had forgotten the way it makes me feel, like my insides are unspooling.
I can’t look at him, so I turn away, can’t see his gaze like a blade driving into me. Outside, people in reflective red vests direct our plane toward the runway.
“Charlotte,” he says, and I can tell he wants me to turn around, but I refuse. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I tried to go on tour—I thought it was what I wanted—but it felt wrong without you. All the songs were for you, and you weren’t there to hear them.” I hear him take in a shallow breath. “When I found out you were in LA, I had to see you.”
I look back at him, my heart racing at being so close to him again, his body only inches from mine. The memories are still too vivid and my body aches with the memory of him.
“Don’t go back to Italy,” he says. “Stay here, stay in LA.” His hair looks grown-out beneath his hooded sweatshirt, dark and messy, a new image for his tour, I imagine. He looks good, really good, but I tamp the thought away.
“Why would I do that? Don’t you think you’ve had enough chances?” The tension crawls up my throat, making my voice sound brittle and cracked.
“It’ll be different this time. We can make it work.”
I finally swivel around, looking him dead in the eye. “Funny, I’m pretty sure you’ve said those words before. But I’m not the same girl I used to be. You hurt me, Tate—you screwed up. You pulled away when you realized I was falling for you, when I was willing to give up everything for you—you just abandoned me. Worse, you claimed it was for my own good. You kept thinking you were protecting me, when really you were just protecting yourself.”
“That’s not it.” He shakes his head and leans forward, his hands flexing against his knees. “I didn’t want you to give up your life for me. I was trying to do the right thing for you.”
“I was following my heart. I wanted to be with you, of course I did. But I also wanted it for me. Being with you was maybe the first thing I ever did that was just to make me happy.” It hurts to say it out loud, to know how desperate I used to be for him. “But you didn’t trust me to know what I wanted. You thought only you could make my decisions.”
The flight attendant passes by us again and I lower my voice. “You broke my heart, Tate. And there’s nothing you can do to fix that.”
Without thinking, I unclip my seat belt, reach down for my bag, and stand up. “You can’t buy me back into your life with a first-class seat—it doesn’t work like that in the real world.”
I step in front of him to reach the aisle, trying not to let any part of my body graze any part of his. But even without touching, only fractions of an inch apart, my skin ignites at the memory of his hands on me, his lips sliding across my neck while my heartbeat pulsed beneath his touch. He left scars all across my skin, invisible marks I can’t scrub away no matter how I’ve tried.
I pause in the aisle. A few of the other passengers glance up at me. “And don’t follow me anymore,” I hiss down at him.
But he doesn’t even look up.
When I shuffle into my original seat, the guy in the suit looks over at me and frowns. “Didn’t like the first-class treatment?”
“Overrated,” I answer.
I’m not the same girl I used to be, I think again. And it’s true. I’m not. I am stronger because he broke my heart. I’m stronger without him. And I won’t let him to do it to me again.
TWENTY-SEVEN