Right at the top of Hannah’s screen, a green boarding scan notification had just flashed from Gate 14’s jet bridge reader.
Passenger confirmed at door closure: GRANT, RICHARD — SEAT 2B.
Hannah looked up from the tablet at Arthur Vance, who was still sitting arrogantly in 2A with his hand resting over the breast pocket full of hundred-dollar bills.
“Mr. Vance,” Hannah said quietly, “did you just say your meeting in London is with Richard Grant?”
“That’s right,” Arthur said smugly, mistaking her quiet tone for sudden fear as he smoothed the lapel of his emerald suit. “Richard Grant himself. We’ve been negotiating through his London office for four months. So unless you want to explain to the Senior VP of Global Operations why his forty-million-dollar partner was harassed by a flight attendant over a ten-year-old’s seat—”
A calm, measured male voice spoke from five feet behind him at the forward cabin entrance.
“Then you must be Mr. Vance.”
Every head in the first-class cabin turned toward the forward entryway.
Stepping past the heavy blue galley curtain was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a tailored charcoal blazer. He had silver at his temples, calm but piercing gray eyes, and an overnight leather briefcase gripped loosely in one hand. He did not look like a man who needed to raise his voice to command a room. He looked like a man who owned the building the room was in.
Clara gasped. Her small hands flew to her mouth, letting the sky-blue purse drop back against her hip.
“Dad?” she whispered.
Before anyone else could move, the ten-year-old girl darted one step forward and threw her arms around the man’s waist, burying her face in his charcoal blazer.
Richard Grant dropped his briefcase instantly. He wrapped both arms tightly around his daughter, closing his eyes as he rested his chin against the top of her braided blonde hair.
“I’m here, sweetie,” Richard murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m right here. I finished the board meetings in New York twelve hours early. Did you really think I was going to let you take your mom’s birthday flight all by yourself?”
In seat 2A, Arthur Vance stopped breathing.
His hand, which had been resting over the breast pocket holding the thick wad of hundred-dollar bills, suddenly went numb.
Arthur’s mind raced frantically, trying to process the collision of facts crashing down on him. Dad. The gate supervisor had just read the name off the passenger manifest. Grant, Richard. The little girl had handed the flight attendant a boarding pass with the last name Grant. The memorial card in the velvet box was for a Captain Evelyn Grant.
And Arthur Vance was flying to London to sign a forty-million-dollar real estate lease with the Senior Vice President of Global Operations for Crestline Aviation Group.
A man named Richard Grant.
The blood completely drained from Arthur’s square face. The rich, condescending color in his cheeks vanished, leaving behind a pale, sickly gray.
Richard slowly pulled back from Clara, keeping one protective hand on her shoulder. He looked at Lead Purser David Ross and Supervisor Hannah Brooks, giving them both a curt, respectful nod. Then, his gray eyes shifted to the wide cream-leather seat of 2A.
He took in the sight of Arthur Vance lounging in the window suite. He saw the emerald-green suit. He saw the sheer panic now radiating from the older man’s widened eyes.
“David. Lauren,” Richard said, his voice perfectly level, carrying an icy authority that made the cabin temperature seem to drop ten degrees. “Can someone please explain to me why my daughter is standing in the aisle clutching her mother’s memorial wings, and why this man is sitting in her seat?”
Arthur scrambled.
He moved so fast he nearly tripped over his own polished brown shoes. He shoved the stack of bills deep into his jacket pocket, completely abandoning his arrogant posture, and practically leaped out of seat 2A into the narrow aisle.