Page 105 of Fly Boy
“Wyatt, could you come to my office, please?” His voice makes my blood turn cold. While he might be the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company, Charles Cartwright doesn’t usually sound so formal on the phone.
“Sure, is everything alright?”
“We’ll discuss it in my office.” The line goes dead, and I can honestly say, for the first time in my life, I am shitting myself.
I make the next exit, detouring to New York to meet my boss, where I’m pretty sure he’s going to tell me he knows I’ve been fucking his daughter.
“Mr. Cartwright’s in his office,” his personal assistant says as soon as I walk out of the elevators and onto the top floor of his office building. “He’s expecting you.”
“Thank you,” I say, heading to the door, and lightly knock before stepping inside. I’ve only been in this office a handful of times, mainly when I first took the position as his pilot and then again when he’d told me I would be assigned to Pippa. Even then, I’d never felt the wash of unease inside my stomach.
That’s because, back then, you didn’t know what his daughter looked like naked.
He’s sitting behind his desk, his hands linked together, watching as I walk farther into the room. My nerves are raw as paranoia sets in, and I try to find the hidden signs that he knows. The tight jaw. The pulsing veins. The heavy but calm breathing as he internalizes just how livid he is.
But I don’t find any of that. Instead, he almost looks disappointed…hurt.
“Take a seat, Wyatt,” he says, gesturing to the chair in front of him. I scan the top of the large oak desk as I approach, finding neat stacks of paperwork—mypaperwork from my flights—across it. He pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing like he’s in physical pain. “I’ll only ask this once, and I would appreciate an honest answer.”
My heart pounds harder, my hands are sweating, yet I don’t let him see. Composed, my lips pull into a tight line, unwilling to admit guilt until I know what crime I’m guilty of committing.
“Have you been using my planes for your personal leisure?”
I’m about to tell him the truth, admit to seeing his daughter for the last few months, admit to my weakness and inability to stay away from her, even when I knew it was wrong. Admit to falling in love with her, but his question finally registers.
His plane for what?
“Sir?” I ask, my face twisting in confusion.
He sighs again, shuffling his chair forward, picking up several documents, and turning them around to face me. Pink highlighter is splashed across flight paths, fuel receipts, and something that looks like the maintenance logbook. Each date and time stamp is like a beacon, even without being highlighted. Each one an additional flight I made to be with Pippa.
California for the U.S. Championships.
Colorado for the night.
Martha’s Vineyard, along with several others not as expensive as the other two, but still incriminating and unethical.
I swallow, clasping my hands together, looking straight into my boss's eyes, and uttering the words that will only seal my fate. “I have.”
His expel of air is weighted as he leans back in his chair, closing his eyes. There’s a pregnant pause, the tension building with each second. He doesn’t say a word until what feels like hours have passed, and he mutters, “I wish you’d have just come to me.”
“I know, sir, and I’m sorry. It was a lack of judgment.”
“The thing is, the trip to Martha’s Vineyard, I could eat up those costs,” he says with a sternness that could rival my father. “I’d like to think I’m an amenable man, a reasonable man. Twelve hundred dollars is a drop in the ocean for me. But charging over ten thousand on an unsanctioned trip to Colorado or fifteen grand to LAX…” He shakes his head, his eyebrows pinched in the middle. “I can’t allow that. It is unacceptable.”
“I know.”
Even though I’m comfortable in my decision, choosing Pippa over maintaining my clean record, I still pride myself in my professionalism. I never wanted it to come tothis. I wanted to leave with integrity and bridges still intact by handing in my resignation after speaking to Pippa, after Worlds, after Québec, after all my ducks are neatly in a row.
“You came with such glowing references, Wyatt. What makes this even more confusing is that your previous employer had no idea you were capable of doing something like this. You never once stepped out of line with him.” He sags back in his chair. “I just don’t understand this. I’ve never given you any reason to think that you couldn’t come to me. You want to use your time off to visit different states? That’s fine. Out of any company, I’d like to think that mine offers job perks much greater than anyone else does. You should have come to me, Wyatt,” he stresses. “Askedif there was any way you could charter a flight using my jet.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
The way he looks at me sets me on edge. Like he’s fishing for something but doesn’t have the right bait at the end of his line.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything else you’d like to tell me? Anything that would help me understand why you thought this was okay?”
I shake my head. There is no way I’m going to throw Pippa under the bus and let her take the blame for my actions. Sure,shewas the one who had suggested it, but I’m a grown man who can make up his own mind.
