There was always that one arsehole. In this case it was Terrence Goff, who’d raised his window shade to enjoy the Arctic sunrise. Never mind that it was still the middle of the night in Boston and everyone else aboard the flight was trying to sleep.
Not everyone, Channing conceded. Her seatmate had kept her promise to go to sleep immediately after dining but now was up and about, presumably in the loo preparing herself for arrival. On her seat was an unzipped overnight bag, its luggage tag identifying her as Lark E. Latimer, MD. Perhaps on her way to an international medical conference.
Her snap judgement of Latimer as a privileged slacker obviously had been well off the mark. To say nothing of the fact that her own impending inheritance of millions hardly left her in a position to scoff at someone else’s entitlement.
Muriel materialized at her shoulder with a breakfast menu. “Tea or coffee?”
“Tea, please.” Of the things she missed most about England, a proper cuppa tea was high on the list.
Latimer returned, a fresher version of the woman who’d plopped into the seat last night on the verge of exhaustion. She’d changed into a shirtwaist dress, its hem well above her knee. A touch of makeup smoothed her complexion and highlighted her unusual eye color, an amber tint that almost perfectly matched her hair. Quite attractive, Channing decided. A pleasant personality would easily carry her across the line.
“Here you are,” Muriel said, depositing a tea tray. “And for you?”
“I’ll have tea also,” Latimer replied.
Rested and in a more charitable mood than the night before, Channing felt compelled to prove she could be personable. “I’d have pegged you for coffee.”
“A few years ago, you’d have been right. I switched to tea when my work started taking me abroad. Turns out there’s a lot of really bad instant coffee out there.”
“And a lot of bad tea as well.”
“I suppose, but my tea palate isn’t refined enough to know bad tea from good.” She put away her toiletry bag and swapped her flats for woven leather pumps with sturdy heels. Other than the daring hem, it was an understated business look that didn’t boast of power. If she was headed to a conference, she clearly hoped to blend into the background. Except eyes as remarkable as hers wouldn’t allow her to go unnoticed.
“Then I take it you’ve not yet come to blows over when to add the milk,” Channing said.
“How about I take my cues from you, assuming you’re the expert?” She proffered a friendly smile and held out her hand for a shake. “I’m Lark Latimer, by the way.”
Channing took her hand, remembering its spirited warmth from when she’d briefly held it the night before. By her mental calculation they were almost two hours from landing. A bit long for mindless prattle, but it was too late to retreat from a conversation she’d initiated. “Channing Hughes.”
“You’re heading home?”
Escaping Boston was more like it. “It would seem so, yes. Not exactly the prodigal return I’d planned.” Her dream for this particular trip had been two years in the making, a chance at last to show Payton some of the people and places that meant so much to her. That fantasy was now a steaming pile of—
“That’s the movie for you. It never quite measures up to the book,” Lark said.
“You have no idea.” Deflecting the subject, she nodded toward the small suitcase. “Looks to be a quick trip for you. Conference?”
“Oh, this is just the stuff I needed for the plane. I checked a monster suitcase. No telling where it is now though. I was supposed to be on the earlier flight but I got hung up in security. Logan drives me crazy sometimes.”
“Logan’s a walk in the park compared to Heathrow. Glad I’m not connecting.”
“Ditto.” Lark stowed her suitcase just in time for Muriel to deliver her tea. “All right, I’m ready for my tea lesson. How much milk and when?”
“First, you must allow the tea to steep for four and a half minutes. No more, no less.” She seized Lark’s forearm as she grasped the tag that hung from her ceramic teapot. “Leave it be. It’s not swill.”
“Sorry, my bad.”
“While you wait, you might start with a few drops of milk—a tablespoon should do nicely.” She meticulously prepared her own cup in demonstration and took a sip. “There, perfect. Sugar if you must, though a more sophisticated palate might prefer a biscuit on the side.”
“Really, what kind of savage would add sugar?”
“Certainly not a proper tea snob.” Channing mentally conceded that Lark’s appreciation of her sardonic humor redeemed her overall as an otherwise unwelcome seatmate. “Yours should be ready soon.”
“I have twenty-eight more seconds…twenty-two…sixteen.”
“Oh, go on. Don’t be such a literalist.”
Lark poured haltingly as the jet skipped over a couple of bumps. “I don’t suppose anyone has ever pointed out that you’re kind of intimidating?”
“Yes, that… I truly am sorry for trying to have you evicted from first class. You struck me as a tad over-stimulated. I thought perhaps you should be somewhere more restrained. For your own safety, of course.”
“That’s really quite touching, such concern for someone you’d never even met,” she replied drolly, proving she too could play the sardonic game. “Seriously though, I get why you might have been annoyed. You weren’t expecting company and then I came and crashed your space.”
“Crashed my pity party is more like it.”
“Any chance it gets better now that you’re heading back home?”
“Hard to say, actually. Home isn’t what it used to be.” With her beloved Poppa now gone, she was the last leaf on the Hughes tree. “My grandfather’s not here anymore. He died in early March.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Very kind of you to say.” Though Poppa’s death had little to do with her current mood. “Barely two days after I returned from his funeral, my relationship ended—not my idea—so there’s another loss to process. A rather disastrous office affair…as if there’s any other kind. It makes for a wretched working environment once it’s over. So wretched that yesterday morning I cleaned out my desk and resigned.”
“Wow. And you’re already sitting on a plane to London.”
“Oh, I was going anyway to settle the estate, but I’d hoped Payton was coming too, which is why I’d purchased two tickets.” Such blathering was so very American. Yanks vented their emotions at the slightest provocation, whereas the British were more stoic. Channing was neither and both, having lived half of her life in each place. “And I have literally no idea what I’m going to do next.”
“Look at it this way—you get to start over. The world is your oyster.”
“I suppose if one fancies mollusks… I know, I know. Crack one open and perhaps there’s a pearl inside.”
“Exactly. And there’s only a moderate risk of contracting hepatitis.” A deadpan delivery, very British. “So an office romance, huh? We have a gross saying for that…something about not making a mess where you eat.”
“That would have been helpful advice if I’d thought to heed it. Especially since it was my boss,” she whispered. “My married boss.”
Lark wrinkled her nose ever so slightly.
“Oh, I saw that—bit of a sneer.”
“I didn’t sneer.”
“You most certainly did. But I won’t hold it against you. Everyone judges. It’s precisely why we keep such affairs secret, even after they’ve run their course. There’s no such thing as a sympathetic home wrecker.”
“I’m sure it’s never as simple as people make it out to be.”
“Simply ruinous if we’re being honest.” The worst of it was the complete surrender of her self-respect. “It never had a chance really. There was always Payton’s loving family, Payton’s important job. An imbecile could have predicted it would end horribly. I blame myself for allowing her to string me along for two bloody years. All the while she got to have her cake and eat it too.”
“It’s not like any of us have control over who we—” Lark’s jaw went suddenly slack, as if frozen before a glib thought could escape her lips. “Her?”
Channing couldn’t help her wry smile. Payton had been right about that—no one would ever suspect an office affair between women, especially if one was married to a man. That presumption had provided them the necessary cover to carry on under everyone’s noses.
Amused by Lark’s flummoxed expression, she stood and stretched. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I should freshen up before all these men realize they smell dreadful and need a shave.”
* * *
In a million years, Lark would never have guessed a woman like Channing Hughes batted for her team. Funny how first impressions took root. The context in which she’d first seen her—with the “three little pigs” harassing her in the lounge—seated her firmly in Lark’s mind as a woman whose style and seductive sway invited the appreciation of men.
“My bad,” she mumbled, chiding herself. “My so bad.”
Channing had gone curiously quiet following her startling admission, busying herself with a magazine after returning from the lavatory. Completely stupefied by the arousing mental image of Channing with another woman, Lark had blown her chance for an appropriate reply. Anything she said now would sound contrived or gratuitous.
As the jet touched down on the runway, she reviewed her landing card and made sure the rest of her documents were easy to access. The worst part of the journey was still to come. First was getting her extended work permit through passport control. Then she had to clear customs with her gigantic suitcase and somehow get all of her luggage from Heathrow to King’s Cross and onto a train. Stairs and ramps and doors and tickets.
Pointing toward the burgundy passport that marked Channing as a citizen of the UK, she casually offered, “Lucky you. You’ll be home having lunch before I’m even out of the airport.”
“Likely not, but I suppose that process is rather a series of hoops, is it not?” Channing nodded to Lark’s lap, where the papers related to her work visa protruded from her US passport. “Looks as if you’re planning to stay a while.”
“Three or four weeks at least, maybe longer. One of the projects I’ve been overseeing went sideways and I need to figure out whether it’s just a run-of-the-mill fiasco or a colossal…”
“Clusterfuck?”
“Good word. Perfect word, in fact.”
“Yes, the etymologists really outdid themselves on that one. I noticed your luggage tag. You’re a medical doctor?”
“I am…sort of. No, I am.” It was nuts that she couldn’t seem to answer such a straightforward question. “I went to medical school but decided not to do a residency. Practically speaking, that means I have four years of medical training that I’m not allowed to use on anyone. So don’t go choking on a grape. I’d have to watch you die.”
“That would be bloody awkward.”
Lark laughed, relieved by Channing’s smile and willingness to chat again.
Muriel announced a welcome to London, where the local time was nine thirty-five a.m. It would take several minutes to taxi to their gate. Meanwhile, chimes erupted all over the first class cabin as phones connected to wireless networks, including Lark’s. She quickly texted confirmation of her arrival to Wendi Doolan, the woman who was to meet her at the train station.
“Oh look, it’s a notification from British Airways that my baggage is now available at Carousel Five—three hours ago. It must have made the flight I missed.”
Absorbed in her own messages, Channing showed no sign of having heard her remark. “I see… Let the games begin.” She jabbed at her phone to delete the offending note.
“Problem?”
“Not for me. Someone has her knickers in a twist because I resigned without explanation. Far more sensible than the actual truth, don’t you agree?”
“I don’t know how you stayed there at all, even just for a couple of months. Working with an ex…” She cringed at the idea of having to face Bess every day at the office, even though their breakup had been mostly civilized.
“It wasn’t pleasant but at least I was professional about it, which is more than I can say for her. We used to travel a lot together—client meetings and the like. Made quite a good team, actually. All of a sudden she can’t do that anymore, because evidently we can’t be alone together, not even in the bloody copy room. So she hired an absolute pillock to our team—Boyd Womack—who must be someone’s nephew. There’s no other explanation for how he made it through the door.”
Lark didn’t dare say it, but she could see why Payton wouldn’t want to travel alone with someone as tempting as Channing. Perhaps she was worried about her resolve.
“But now apparently even that’s too much.” She stowed her phone and began collecting the personal items she’d brought aboard in a Louis Vuitton shoulder bag. “I’d been looking forward to this trip home for months, a break from all the melodrama. Then Payton sends me a bloody email from her office ten feet away to say she’ll not be traveling anymore, that when I return, I’m to take over client meetings and Boyd will accompany me. Her top analyst reduced to being a bloody nanny. So I dumped all of my office knickknacks into a rubbish bin and left my resignation on the desk.”
“Gutsy.” Her top analyst. Funny how only hours ago Lark had assumed she couldn’t possibly be a businesswoman. “I don’t blame you a bit. I’d have done the same thing.”
“But now Payton is having to field queries about my sudden departure. She’s rather desperate to have me confirm with Human Resources her version of events—that I became homesick for England, what with my grief over Poppa’s unexpected death. Mustn’t have anyone think it had anything to do with sexual harassment, no matter that she deliberately drove me to quit.”
“You don’t have to play her game.” Which sounded ridiculous coming from Lark. Women like Channing already knew that.
“I don’t intend to. I have my own game this time.”
“Does it involve dumping a drink in her lap?”
“You saw that?”
“It was epic.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” Channing pursed her lips in a half smile, but it didn’t last. She was clearly still annoyed by Payton’s message.
Upon arrival at the gate, Muriel directed those in the first class cabin toward the exit. Jeremy, who was holding back business and coach passengers to let them pass, gave her a small wave.
“Thanks again,” Lark told him. “You’re the best.”
In the unending corridors of Heathrow, Lark once again found herself mesmerized by Channing’s sensual gait, now synchronized with the thump of Lark’s rolling suitcase along the seams of the tile floor. It was devastatingly sexy, especially now that Lark knew she was gay.
Furthermore, she’d accidentally confirmed that her lovely breasts were quite real. In the night, she’d lingered on a fleshy mound through the gap in Channing’s jumpsuit while she was dozing upright in her seat. No unnatural curves, no sculpted spacing. Gravity in action.
Channing, the enigma—at times almost friendly, then instantly irascible and aloof. The top analyst who dressed like a model for Elle. Who’d had an adulterous affair with her lady boss. And who now waffled between cynicism and spite, with an occasional hint of hopefulness.
Lark was taken aback by her emotional investment. It was irrational to feel such empathy for someone who’d admittedly earned her misery through her own questionable choices. Yet from the moment Channing had walked through the British Airways lounge, Lark had been captivated. Then Fate had dropped her in the adjacent seat. Now she wanted to trade phone numbers and meet up in the city for—
“God, this walk takes forever,” Channing suddenly groused, her first words since leaving the plane. “Terminal Five might as well be in bloody Wales.”
“And here I was thinking how nice it was they gave us all this time to stretch our legs.”
“Are you always so cheery in the morning? I should think that would be bothersome for the cohabitant.”
The word surprised her, leading her back through their conversations of the last seven hours. Though she’d taken Channing’s hand to dissuade the attentions of Terrence Goff, she hadn’t explicitly revealed herself as gay. Not even when Channing said she was. As squandered opportunities went, that one was mammoth. “My ex-girlfriend found it annoying too.”
Channing cast a sidelong look as they neared a sign directing European Union citizens one way and everyone else the other. “So you’re gay as well?”
“I am.”
“Hmm…odd that I missed that. Though I suppose I should have known when you clutched my hand so aggressively and called me sweetheart.”
“My secret signal. It’s a little too subtle for some people.”
Channing ignored her remark as she came to an abrupt stop. “Looks like my queue is this way, Dr. Lark Latimer. I wish you a pleasant stay in jolly old England, though I can’t promise my fellow countrymen will return your morning cheerfulness. Most are like me, I’m afraid, a bit on the stiff side.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You weren’t a total bitch. There was that one moment when you were asleep…”
Channing rolled her eyes and actually laughed. “Very well, I deserved that.”
“Seriously, I have a feeling this will turn out to be a good move for you. Payton’s loss is some lucky lady’s gain.”
“Thank you.” She walked backward a few steps, giving Lark one last chance to appreciate her gracefulness. “Don’t forget—the milk always comes first.”
“Got it.” Gripped with disappointment at goodbye, Lark blurted, “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d like to…”
Too late. Channing had turned away.
A familiar hollowness enveloped her as she continued alone down the hallway. Some days her life felt like a string of random scenes that never added up to a book. Thwarted plans, fleeting relationships.
Her mood lifted as she turned the corner and instantly noted her favorite perk of flying first class—she was at the front of the line for passport control. The agent scrupulously processed her work permit, but she still made it through in record time and picked up her lonely bag from the deserted Carousel 5. With nothing to declare to customs, she turned in her card and breezed through the arrivals area looking for signage to the Piccadilly Line.
A small crowd waited to greet arriving passengers, a scene she rarely noticed except for today. An elderly gentleman, smartly dressed in a three-piece suit and driving cap, held a hand-printed sign: Lady Channing Hughes.
Lady Channing Hughes.