The Girlfriend (The Boss) by Abigail Barnette Page A

ungrateful. “I’ve never been on a private jet before.”
    “You’ll never want to fly commercial again, I can tell you that for nothing. Every time I’ve had to has been a bloody nightmare.” He paused, a slight smile tilting his mouth. “Well, almost every time.”
    Tony opened my door, and I slid out, clutching my carry-on bag. “Do we get our luggage, or—”  
    “No, they’ll stow that for us.” The corner of Neil’s mouth twitched, and I knew he thought it was adorable that I’d offered to carry my own stuff. I stuck my tongue out at him as we walked to the plane.
    I was glad I’d worn ballet flats and not heels as I took the steep stairs up. Flats or no, I’d still dressed for a private jet, in a white t-shirt with opaque white sequin detail across the chest, and a short-waisted creme tweed jacket over dark blue jeans. The misty drizzle in the unseasonably warm December air was sure to frizz my carefully straightened hair, so I got up the steps and into the plane as quickly as I could.
    Once inside, I was absolutely staggered. The immediate claustrophobia generally wrought by too many seats in such a small space never arrived. There were only twelve seats, three rows of two on each side of a center aisle, and the seats themselves were far larger and more comfy looking than anything I’d ever seen on an airplane. Beyond that was a partition, beside which was a small area with a microwave and complicated-looking coffee pot. There were two flat screen monitors on the walls, one of which was powered on and displaying projected weather conditions for our flight.
    “Oh, wow.” I dropped my bag and turned to face Neil as he came through the door behind me. “This is...”
    “Impressive enough for a blow job?” he asked, raising his eyebrows hopefully.
    I gave him a little push, only partially feigning my outrage. “Shut up. This is amazing, though. Can I have one?”
    That made him laugh, and he put his arms around me. “You just argued with me about paying for dinner, but you’re asking me for a plane?”
    “Not seriously.” I leaned up for a kiss, and when he lifted his mouth from mine I asked, “Can I drive it?”
    “No!” He was still laughing when a crewmember stepped into the cabin. She was a young woman with dark hair pulled into a neat bun, and she wore a black pantsuit.
    She smiled brightly at us. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Elwood, Ms. Scaife. I’m Jackie, I’ll be servicing the cabin tonight.”
    “I’d like the berth set up as soon as we’re in the air. We’re planning to sleep through most of this flight.” Neil told her, handing off his coat. She waited for mine, as well, and took them to stow somewhere. She also took our luggage to the next part of the cabin.
    Neil looked so good tonight, it was impossible to believe he was sick. Dressed in jeans and an untucked white button-down over a black t-shirt, he should have been going to a rock concert, not flying somewhere on his private plane. He kicked off his square-toed Italian loafers and wiggled his bare toes on the carpet. “Make yourself at home, Sophie. No reason to be uncomfortable for the next eight hours.”
    Eight hours. Yeesh. I knew the flight was going to be a long one— we’d be leaving at nine pm and arriving at around nine thirty am in England— but that was why we’d planned to sleep the entire flight, anyway. Now that I was here, though, I knew I was going to be too excited to close my eyes.
    “The bathroom is back there, and the bed, but we’ll need to sit in here during take-off,” Neil told me, moving toward the front of the cabin. “I’m going to go meet the flight crew.”
    “I’m going to go snooping,” I said, and, still awe-struck, set off to poke around.
    It’s a weird feeling to be walking around a private plane. Years of flying commercial had made me paranoid enough that I was pretty sure I’d get kicked off Neil’s jet for being a terrorist if I touched the wrong switch or sat in the