Page 119 of Last Fall

“Your name does sound familiar.” She squinted as she thought. “Like I just read it somewhere this morning,actually.”

Whoops.Maybe a few people read gossipy news. “Well I write all kinds of different books. It could have been anything,really.”

She patted the seat with a shrug and moved on to thenextrow.

The man across the aisle held up his cocktail and mouthed, “Congrats,” before returning tohisiPad.

I’m abadass.

All this time I’d worked so hard to hold my worlds apart. Writer versus reality. As if my writing life weren’t actually real, always afraid that my success as Zoe Hyde would somehow trigger Tony to re-entermylife.

But I wasn’t afraid of thatanymore.

Ever since I saw my face up on that jumbo screen it had been slowly sinking in that I was no longer living two lives in secret. Just one big life. Like the layers of protection I’d put on over the years were being peeled back one by one. So much weight lifted, so muchburdengone.

It was only fitting the universe would send me a test and make meproveit.

I found the universe was cruellikethat.

I swear some people had all the luck and never seemed to have anything unfortunate happen to them. Maybe they were just really good at hiding the bumps in the road or maybe they really were that blessed with blue skies and calmwinds.

All I knew was that the one and only person I truly never wanted to see again was walking down the aisle and stopping at the empty seatbesideme.

“Well, well, well,” Tony murmured in his trademark smooth as butter voice. “As I live andbreathe.”

The blood in my veins ran cold. So cold I was frozen whereIsat.

Shock. It wasshock.

“What’s it been? Three years without a word and now here you are.” He tucked a small bag under the seat in front of him. “And in first class no less. How’d you managethat,Zoe?”

This had to be a nightmare. Any minute now I’d wake up in a cold sweat, heart racing, and I’d realize this was all a figment of my imagination. A manifestation of my fears now that my dreams werecomingtrue.

Except Tony looked older. His hair wasdifferent.

And I knew full well thiswasreal.

Crap.

“Wh-what are you doing here?” My voice came out barely loud enough to be heard. It was more of a scratchy whisper thananythingelse.

He arched an eyebrow and sat back. “You look good. Whatever you’ve been doing agrees with you.” His eyes raked over me like heownedme.

A wave of nausea hit. My mind raced one minute and then went totally blank the next.What doIdo?

Run? Pretend to be sick? Heck, I wouldn’t have to pretend. I was definitely going to be sick inhaling hiscologne.

Run!My brain knew what to do but my body didn’t.Run, run, run!Still I didn’t move. My hands were locked in a death grip on the armrests, my leg muscles tensed and frozen in position. Even my mouth refusedtowork.

I had to get off that plane and as far away from Tony aspossible.

But then they pulled the doors shut and sealed the plane. The captain came over the intercom and began hisannouncements.

It wastoolate.

“Looks like we have the next eight hours to catch-up,” he murmured just as Mariahhurriedover.

“Can I get you adrink,sir?”

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