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“What do you want?”

Riley showed no signs of being surprised that Elle cut right to the chase. “Want?” She put her hands on her hips, her leather bag standing stalwart beside her. “I don’t want anything. This isn’t me blackmailing you, Elle. If anything, I should be congratulating you, because Arianna is a lovely lady who matches your intense standards.”

“You sound like you want something.”

Even in her uniform, Riley knew how to show off the insolent child within her. “Please. What are you going to give me? Money? I make a good enough income these days. Even for relocating to LA! Which I feel like is your doing somehow.”

“I don’t control personnel and routes. You know that.”

“But it would look very poor if you were dating a flight attendant. Especially in America, where we’re from, if you haven’t forgotten. The public doesn’t like that kind of thing from their young, fledging corporations attempting to take over the industry.”

“Yet a pilot dating a flight attendant is fine?”

“Tale as old as time! Don’t get your panties in a twist, though. I’m not looking to have Arianna for myself. She’s cute, but it was obvious that she was taken. Except I do like her. And I like you well enough.”

“So? Jump for joy on our behalf.”

“If this gets out, you’re fucked. Does she even know who you are, Ms. Sparrow?”

Elle’s hand curled around her luggage handle. “No.”

“Fuck, girl!”

“Would you lower your voice? Clearly, I did not intend for this to get serious. Things have… escalated.”

“Obviously. And I know how you escalate!”

“Like I don’t know how you like to turn things up to eleven?”

“Stop being so pretentious. This isn’t about us. This is about me flying a plane that might blow up when word gets out you’re fucking a foreign flight attendant in your company.”

“You think I don’t know how it might look? I’m risking Aria’s job.”

“You sure are. That woman breathes that job. I’ve never seen anyone, even from Singapore, take that stupid hospitality gig so seriously. Any other woman I flirt with would start calculating how quickly she could lock my ass down. Arianna barely looked my way when I tried flirting with her!”

“So you admit you tried to take her out?”

“Like, duh. Have you seen her? No offense, but if she wasn’t distracted with you, she’d probably be spending the night with me by now.”

The mere thought made Elle’s blood boil. Not because Arianna wasn’t allowed to have eyes for anyone else before meeting her current girlfriend, but because this was Riley. Elle knew first-hand how this woman made love. More like how she completely consumes you, regardless of who’s on top. Half of their experience together had been Elle vying for control before she completely lost herself in the darkness of her bed.

The thought of her with Arianna… acting like that… God, Aria would love it. That was what made Elle see red. A situation from a parallel universe, in which she played no part.

“Stay away from her.”

Riley guffawed in a humorous mix of shock and disappointment. “I’m not going to try to steal her from you! Do you think I’m stupid? I don’t waste my time on happily taken women, anyway. The whole reason I’m confronting you about this is because I don’t want this company’s first scandal to be a sapphic one. Do you know what that would do to me? To every woman like us in the company? We’d be under more scrutiny than ever. This country in particular is so conservative I have to go to underground bars to get some action. You’d never guess it was legal! Throw in a woefully dramatic story about an American board member seducing an Asian flight attendant, and we’d never be allowed in the skies again. Not unless we’re flying to Taiwan or wherever gay marriage is legal!”

“I know, thank you. For fuck’s sake, you could have kept this to yourself. Aria and I have been together for months. Nobody has said anything. Except for you.”

“You’re getting sloppy, Liz.”

“Don’t fucking call me Liz. Who the hell is Liz?”

“I dunno. Is that Elizabeth Sparrow’s nickname?”

Elle’s cheeks were hotter than the blazing summer sun. “I go by an alias because I was checking things out while undercover. Figured I might as well since I had to fly back and forth a lot these first few months…”

“Uh-huh. When was that supposed to end, by the way? The pretending you didn’t work for Royal Asia?”