Read Online Love at First Flight by Marie Force - Free Book Online Page A

on the
way to the gate where the plane was boarding.
    He smiled. “Total disaster, but you
first. What happened?”
    While they stood in line to board the
plane, she told him the whole story.
    “Hmm.” He scratched at the stubble on
his chin. “So what happens at the end of the three months?” Michael took her
boarding pass and handed both of them to the gate agent.
    “I told him we'll either break up for
good or get married.”
    “What if he meets someone else?”
    Juliana winced.
    “Sorry.”
    “I know it's a big gamble, but how could
I marry him knowing he has all this curiosity about other women?”
    “How will you marry him without knowing
if he acted on it?”
    They found seats together on the plane. “Why
couldn't I have just let it go? Why did I have to make such a big deal out of
it? He said if it was a choice between me and sowing his wild oats, he'd choose
me.”
    “So then why'd you insist on the
separation?”
    Juliana looked out the window for a
moment before she answered him. “My father cheated on my mother for years. Everyone
knew it. Even she knew, but she ignored it because he always came back. Then I
guess he fell for one of them because we haven't seen him in five years.”
    “I'm sorry.”
    She shrugged. “It's old news now, but
that's not how I want to live. Just the idea of it...”
    “Then you did the right thing. At the
end of the three months you'll know where you stand with each other, and you
can figure out where to go from there.”
    Her eyes sparkled with tears. “There
hasn't been a day in the last ten years that I haven't talked to him. Not one
day.”
    Michael reached for her hand. “You'll be
okay. I'll bet you're tougher than you think. The time will just fly by.”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    Michael kept her hand between both of
his as the plane raced down the runway and took off into a sky streaked by the
setting sun.
    “Thank you,” she said when they were
airborne.
    “For what?”
    “Listening and offering comfort. I'll
bet you'd make a good friend.”
    “I wish there was something I could say
to make you feel better.”
    “You're helping. You got me on the
plane, right?” He laughed. “Yes, I guess I did.”
    “Tell me about your disaster. Give me
something else to think about.”
    He sighed and released her hand. “That
bad?”
    “Thermonuclear meltdown.”
    She turned to him. “What happened?”
    “I broke off the engagement.”
    She gasped. “Oh my God! Before or after
the party?”
    “During,” he said with a sheepish grin.
    “No way. You did not !”
    “I did,” he said, relaying the story of
the weekend from hell.
    “Jeez,” she said when he was done. “We
should've started with you. I don't know what to say. Are you okay?”
    “I think I am. Maybe in a day or two
when it has time to register I won't be, but I know I did the right thing. I
can't be marching to her father's drum my whole life. It wouldn't have bothered
me half as much if she'd tried to stop it, but she was only thinking of
herself. Nothing new there.”
    “It's always disappointing when someone
turns out to be less than you thought they were.”
    He appreciated that she understood
completely. “Yes, it is. But it's my own fault. I've pushed aside doubts for a
long time because underneath it all, I was crazy about her. I proposed to her
when her parents were moving, hoping she'd stay in Maryland with me. She
accepted the proposal and moved anyway. That should've been a sign of where her
priorities were—or where they weren't .”
    Juliana rested a comforting hand on his
arm.
    The stewardess came by to offer drinks.
    “This time it's on me,” Juliana
insisted, ordering him the same kind of beer he had gotten on the first flight
and a gin and tonic for herself. “Make it a double,” she added.
    He laughed. “When in pain, drink.”
    “That's my mother's philosophy of life.
Unfortunately for us, she's in constant pain.”
    “Ouch,” he winced. “Sorry.”
    She shrugged.