Chapter 2
“Well,” he murmured.
“This is unexpected.”
“Very.”
He glanced at his boarding pass.
Then at the seat beside me.
2B.
Of course.
Because apparently the universe occasionally got bored.
Declan removed his jacket, handed it to the flight attendant, and sat beside me.
I opened my book.
He fastened his seat belt.
Neither of us spoke.
For perhaps twenty seconds.
Then he said, “How have you been, Cassidy?”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all I get?”
I turned a page.
“It’s the amount I intended to give you.”
A quiet laugh escaped him.
“Still angry.”
I looked at him then.
“No, Declan.
That would require significantly more emotional investment than I’m willing to make.”
Something flickered across his face.
Gone almost immediately.
The flight attendant interrupted us before he could answer.
After takeoff, I tried to read.
Declan tried to pretend he wasn’t studying me.
I could feel his eyes moving over my clothes.
Navy trousers.
Cream blouse.
Small gold earrings.
No obvious designer labels.
No enormous diamond.
No performance.
Declan had always understood wealth only when it announced itself.
His father had raised him that way.
A person’s watch mattered.
Their address mattered.
The restaurant where they were seen mattered.
The schools their children attended mattered.
Appearances were not simply appearances in the Hawthorne family.
They were currency.
And apparently my refusal to decorate myself like a luxury storefront allowed Declan to reach a conclusion.
“So,” he finally said, “you’re working?”
I slowly closed my book.
“Yes.”
“What kind of work?”
“Environmental consulting.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Still doing that?”
Still.
The word annoyed me more than it should have.
Before marrying Declan, I had earned a master’s degree in environmental engineering and worked for a regional sustainability firm.
After the wedding, his mother, Eleanor, had repeatedly suggested my career was “a sweet little passion.”
Declan had been less cruel.
He had simply expected me to stop eventually.
Wives in his world chaired foundations.
They did not crawl through wetlands in boots, review soil samples, argue with industrial developers, or walk into boardrooms carrying environmental compliance reports.
I smiled.
“Yes.
Still doing that.”
“Same company?”
“No.”
“You quit?”
“I started my own.”
That surprised him.
Not much.
But enough.
“What’s it called?”
“Carter Environmental Strategies.”
“You used your maiden name.”
“I did.”
“How many employees?”
“Forty-three.”
His eyes shifted.
There it was.
The first crack.
Small.
Satisfying.
“Forty-three?”
“Last time I counted.”