CHAPTER 4: "PRIVATE JET"
1228 Words
POV: Dual (Maya & Julian alternating paragraphs)
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Maya:
Eight hours ,two people and one very small plane.
Maya buckled her seatbelt and immediately regretted every life choice that had led her to this moment.
The private jet was very large and extremely luxurious. It had cream leather seats, polished wooden tables, and a mini-bar filled with drinks she couldn’t even name. But sitting across from Julian Croft with just a small aisle between them made the space feel cramped.
She had brought three books, two podcasts downloaded, and a plan to sleep for most of the flight.
She was not going to sleep.
Julian:
Julian opened his tablet and stared at the quarterly reports without seeing a single number.
Maya was wearing linen which was surprising to him because had never seen her in anything except column dresses and block heels and that one time she'd worn a pencil skirt that still haunted him at 2 AM. But today she was wearing loose white pants and a blue shirt that buttoned up the front and flat sandals that showed her toes.
Her toes had tiny flowers painted on them.
He closed the tablet.
Maya:
"Don't you have work to do?" she asked.
"I'm doing it."
"You're staring at the same page you've been staring at for twenty minutes."
Julian looked up. His grey eyes were calm. His dark blond hair wasn’t as neat as usual because of the humidity at the private airport. He looked a bit younger, and also tired.
"I'm thinking," he said.
"About what?"
"The island."
"Why?"
"Because I haven't been there in two years. I'm not sure what condition it's in."
Maya picked up one of her books. She opened it to page one and closed it.
"Rosa takes care of it, doesn't she? The housekeeper?"
"Rosa takes care of the house, not the memories."
Julian:
He shouldn't have said that.
He could see it on her face—the way her dark eyes widened, just a fraction, before she looked down at her book again. The small scar on her left eyebrow caught the light. The scar from falling off her bike at age nine in front of the Morris Avenue bodega.
He knew that about her.
He knew too many things about her.
"How long have you worked for Rosa?" she asked.
"Rosa's been with the family since I was a child. She was my mother's housekeeper first."
"Your mother?"
"She died. A long time ago."
Maya looked up. "I know. I read the file."
"Everyone reads the file. No one asks."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "How did she die?"
Julian turned to look out the window. The Atlantic was a sheet of blue below them, endless and empty and exactly the right color for not answering questions.
"Cardiac event," he said. "That's what the file says."
"But that's not what happened?"
He didn't answer.
Maya:
She wanted to push him for answers. She wanted to know more. For three years, she had studied his silences and learned which ones meant “stop” and which ones meant “try again.”
This one meant stop.
So she stopped.
"The books," he said suddenly. "What are they?"
She looked down at her stack. Jane Eyre—dog-eared, spine cracked, the one from her nightstand. A romance novel with a cartoon cover that Priya had given her as a joke. A biography of Aretha Franklin.
"Nothing you'd be interested in," she said.
"Try me."
"Jane Eyre."
"The Bronte novel?"
"You've read it?"
"My mother had a copy. I saw it on her nightstand once. I never opened it."
"Why not?"
"Because my father said it was sentimental garbage."
Maya put the book down. "Your father sounds like he was a joy."
Julian's mouth twitched. It wasn't a smile but it was close.
"He was excellent at finance," Julian said. "He was less excellent at everything else."
Julian:
The plane hit turbulence.
It wasn’t serious, just a small bump, the kind that happens on almost every flight over the ocean. But Maya grabbed the armrest tightly, her knuckles turned white, and her breathing changed.
She was afraid.
Julian had never seen Maya Reyes afraid of anything.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"Fine."
"You're gripping the armrest."
"I like the armrest."
Another bump, Harder this time. The plane shuddered, and Maya's eyes went wide, and without thinking , planning , calculating, or any of the control he had spent twenty-two years perfecting—Julian reached over and put his hand on top of hers.
Maya:
His hand was warm.
That was the first thing she noticed. Warm and solid and completely unfamiliar after three years of almost and never.
She looked down at their hands. His long fingers covered hers completely. The Omega watch glinted at his wrist. She could feel his pulse through his skin.Faster than it should be.
"Turbulence," she said.
"Turbulence," he agreed.
He didn't move his hand.
She didn't move hers.
The plane became steady again and the sky calmed down. Four or five seconds passed.
Then Julian pulled his hand back. He turned the page of his tablet. He looked at the quarterly reports like they were the most interesting thing he had ever seen.
Maya stared out the window.
Julian:
The island appeared at dusk.
Green and gold and nothing like Manhattan. Volcanic hills rising out of turquoise water. Black-sand coves that caught the last light of the sun. A villa on the eastern cliff, white walls and glass and a red-tiled roof, surrounded by flowers Maya couldn't name from this distance.
He had seen this island a hundred times.
He had never seen it like this.
Because he had never seen Maya see it.
Maya:
The plane descended. The water got closer. The trees got greener. The villa got bigger.
Maya pressed her face to the window like a child. She didn't care how she looked. She didn't care that Julian was watching her.
She had grown up in two rooms in the Bronx. Her mother's apartment smelled like sofrito and White Linen perfume. The windows faced a brick wall. The closest she had ever come to turquoise water was the community pool in Morris Park, which was closed for repairs more often than it was open.
This place was not real.
"Oh," she whispered.
Julian didn't answer.
She turned to look at him.
He wasn't looking at the island.
He was looking at her.
Julian:
Her face looked different, open in a way he had never seen before. No mask, no professional act, no distance. Just Maya—the real her, hidden under the neat bun, formal dresses, and her habit of drinking cardamom tea.
She was beautiful.
He had always known she was beautiful.
He had never let himself look.
"The villa," he said. "It's the one on the cliff. The eastern point."
"It's—" She stopped. Swallowed. "It's not what I expected."
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Something less... overwhelming."
"That's the word for it."
She looked at him. "What word?"
"Overwhelming."
The plane landed. The wheels hit the runway, the engines slowed it down, and the cabin filled with the noise of the plane coming to a stop.
The door opened.
The air smelled like salt and flowers.
Neither of them moved.
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END OF CHAPTER 4
- Writer
