PART 2: A Stranger Let Me Sleep on His Shoulder—Then My Ex-Husband Found Me Before the Plane Even Landed -035

“How?” I whispered.

Adrian lowered his phone.

“I don’t know yet.”

“You said your security team found out?”

He nodded.

“One of my people was coordinating with airport operations because we’re being taken out through a private exit. Someone contacted an employee asking whether a woman named Elena Walker was traveling with a little girl.”

My arms tightened instinctively around Lily.

She was still half asleep against me, warm and impossibly peaceful, one small hand tangled in the fabric of my sweater.

“Did they say who?”

“Not at first. The person claimed it was a family emergency. When airport staff refused to give information, he left a callback number.”

“And it belongs to Ethan.”

“Yes.”

I looked toward the windows.

Houston stretched beyond the glass in a patchwork of highways, warehouses, neighborhoods, and late-afternoon haze.

I had imagined landing here would feel like escape.

Instead, I suddenly felt as though the life I had fled had followed me through the clouds.

“I didn’t tell him,” I said.

Adrian studied me.

“Tell him what?”

“That I was coming here.”

“Who knew?”

“My cousin Marisol. My attorney. My mother, although she’s in Arizona.” I swallowed. “And the airline, obviously.”

“Anyone else?”

“No.”

The landing gear struck the runway.

Lily stirred.

I held her closer.

Adrian said nothing for several moments.

I appreciated that.

He didn’t tell me not to worry.

He didn’t promise that everything would be fine.

People said those things when they wanted to make themselves feel useful.

Finally he asked, “Do you feel unsafe around Ethan?”

The question was simple.

The answer wasn’t.

I looked down at Lily.

“Not exactly.”

Adrian waited.

“He’s never hit me,” I said quietly. “He’s never threatened me. He doesn’t shout much. Ethan doesn’t need to shout.”

Something changed in Adrian’s expression.

Not alarm.

Understanding, perhaps.

“He makes you question yourself?”

I gave him a small, humorless smile.

“He makes you question things that happened while you were standing there watching them happen.”

The plane began taxiing toward the terminal.

“He told me the locks had been changed because there had been burglaries in the neighborhood,” I continued. “Then he said he forgot to give me the new key. Later, he said he thought he had given it to me and I must have lost it.”

Adrian’s mouth tightened.

“The bank account?”

“He said there had been suspicious activity, so he moved the money temporarily.”

“Where?”

“I still don’t know.”

That seemed to bother him more than the locks.

I noticed because his eyes sharpened.

“You have an attorney?”

“Yes. A family lawyer in Dallas. Celeste Moran.”

“Good.”

“I can’t afford her for long.”

“Still. Don’t make any legal decisions without talking to her.”

I looked at him.

For a billionaire, it was an unexpectedly ordinary piece of advice.

He seemed to read that thought.

“I’m not offering to solve your divorce, Elena.”

Heat rose in my cheeks.

“I didn’t think you were.”

“I know.” His voice softened. “But given who I am, people sometimes assume help comes with control attached. I don’t want you wondering.”

Before I could answer, the plane stopped.

Everyone stood immediately, because apparently humanity had agreed that remaining seated for an additional ninety seconds was unbearable.

Adrian stayed where he was.

So did I.

A flight attendant approached.

“Mr. Prescott?”

Adrian nodded.

“We’re ready for you.”

He turned to me.

“My car can take you wherever you’re going.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It’s also not a favor you’ll owe me for.”

“I barely know you.”

“True.”

“And you’re apparently being followed by people with camera phones.”

“Also true.”

Despite everything, I almost smiled.

He leaned slightly closer.

“But someone is trying to locate you, and you’re carrying a sleeping child, two bags, and a stroller. At minimum, let me get you safely out of the airport.”

I hesitated.

My old instincts told me to decline.

For years, I had become very good at declining things.

Help.

Concern.

Questions.

Invitations.

Anything that might eventually require an explanation of my marriage.

But there was a difference between independence and isolation.

I was beginning to understand that.

“All right,” I said. “Just out of the airport.”

“Just out of the airport.”