Chapter 251: The Maldives
With Giselle beside him, Elias’s color returned surprisingly quickly.
The moment her hand closed around his, his shoulders loosened. He stopped staring at the seat belt as if it had personally betrayed him, and the anxious stiffness in his body faded bit by bit. Soon he was leaning toward the window, eyes bright behind his glasses as he watched the sky stretch around the jet.
Clouds lay beneath them in long, white fields. Above them was a clean, open blue that seemed too large to belong to the same world as city streets and crowded classrooms. There were no buildings, no traffic lights, no eyes following him. Only sunlit air and the distant curve of the horizon.
Elias looked at the clouds.
Giselle looked at him.
Seeing him recover eased something inside her. His fear of flying had seemed so real that she had not questioned it for a second. The way he had clutched her hand, the pale color he had let creep into his face, the quiet way he had waited until she noticed, all of it had made her want to stay nearer.
He was relying on her more.
Giselle should have felt relieved.
Instead, a dangerous thought surfaced.
She wanted him to rely on her even more.
She wanted him to call for her first. To stay within reach. To let her arrange every problem before it could touch him. A sharper, uglier part of her wanted him beside her all the time, where nobody else could take him away, confuse him, exploit him, or make him cry.
The thought startled her.
Giselle crushed it before it could take root.
She knew exactly what that kind of control felt like. Victoria Frost did not always call her commands control. Sometimes they came in the form of advice, protection, family duty, or a carefully chosen future. Yet the result was always the same. Giselle’s life became something other people directed, while she was expected to cooperate and look grateful for it.
She was Victoria’s daughter.
She would not become her.
"Giselle."
Elias said her name twice in quick succession, too excited to wait for an answer.
"Giselle, where are we going? We’re already in the air. You can tell me now."
The bright impatience in his eyes almost made her smile.
Giselle let the heavy thoughts disappear from her expression. "The Maldives."
Elias blinked.
Then his face lit up.
"The Maldives?"
He had told her once that he wanted to see the ocean. He had said it while looking at her eyes, because their blue reminded him of the sea. Giselle had carried the comment with her since then, keeping it filed away among the things he said when he did not realize anyone would remember.
Now she was giving him the ocean itself.
Not a crowded city beach. Not a view from some distant hotel balcony. The real thing. Open water, white sand, sun, and a horizon with nothing standing in front of it.
It was the first wish of his she had consciously decided to fulfill.
It would not be the last.
Elias looked so delighted that he almost seemed to vibrate in his seat.
"Are there going to be a lot of people?" he asked. "What if it’s crowded? We can go out late, maybe. No, that might be worse. Everyone probably goes out at night too."
Giselle squeezed their joined hands.
"Stop worrying. I arranged everything."
Elias went quiet at once.
He nodded, full trust in the simple motion. As if nothing could go wrong once Giselle said she had taken care of it.
The feeling it gave her was warm and dangerous.
She looked away before she could think about it too closely.
After a few minutes, she asked, "Are you hungry?"
Before boarding, she had kept his food light. If he became motion sick, she did not want him feeling worse. Now he looked entirely comfortable. The fear had apparently passed, and he had spent the last stretch of the flight staring at clouds with enough enthusiasm to make her think he might be hungry again.
Elias nodded.
Giselle signaled to the flight attendant.
A small cart was rolled over a few minutes later. The plates held exactly the food Elias liked: lightly seasoned grilled chicken, warm rice, roasted vegetables, fruit, and the little pastries he always reached for first when he had the choice.
Elias noticed.
He looked from the food to Giselle.
She did not make a point of it. She only gave him a small smile.
His eyes reddened so suddenly that Giselle’s heart tightened.
Elias leaned over and kissed her cheek.
It was brief. Light. Barely there.
"Giselle," he said, "you’re so good to me."
Giselle went still.
The warmth of his mouth had already vanished from her skin, but it stayed with her anyway.
"Eat," she said after a beat. "Before it gets cold."
"Okay."
He began immediately.
Giselle watched him pick through the plates, pleased by every small thing she had remembered. It had only taken a note to the staff and a few questions to make sure the kitchen prepared the right food. In her mind, it was nothing.
For Elias, it seemed to matter.
That was not proof that she had done something extraordinary. It was proof that no one had done enough for him before.
The thought settled heavily in her chest.
He had been so easily moved by a meal that she had to wonder how often he had been expected to make do with whatever was left over, whatever was convenient, whatever someone else had decided was sufficient. His gratitude made something protective sharpen in her.
It did not matter anymore.
From now on, he would have someone who remembered.
Someone who listened.
Someone who made sure he was cared for before he had to ask.
Elias had no idea what crossed Giselle’s mind every time his expression changed.
If he had known, he would have told her she was not giving herself enough credit. A person who remembered the food someone liked, who noticed whether he was cold, tired, afraid, or hungry, was rare in any world. The gestures Giselle called small were exactly the kind that could hold a person’s heart in place.
Elias ate another bite and spoke privately to System Theta.
"Little Miss Inexperienced is impossible to read. Sometimes her emotional intelligence is unbelievably bad. Other times it’s ridiculous."
[System Theta: Is that a compliment?]
"It is." Elias smiled faintly. "I’m getting more reluctant to let her go."
[System Theta: Is that so...?]
System Theta sounded worried.
Whenever Elias said he was reluctant to let someone go, it usually meant the route had reached the stage where he would stop hesitating and close it out with ruthless efficiency. The system had seen enough missions to recognize that pattern.
Elias finished eating.
A comfortable drowsiness followed quickly. Between the meal, the steady engine noise, and Giselle’s warmth beside him, sleep crept over him before he felt ready for it.
Giselle noticed the way his blinking slowed.
Without making a ceremony of it, she guided his head onto her shoulder.
"Sleep," she said. "I’ll wake you when we arrive."
Her voice made it easy.
Elias’s eyes closed.
He slept.
In the end, Giselle did not wake him.
He surfaced on his own, drawn out of sleep by a wash of light across his face. For a moment he only blinked at the window, dazed and soft with sleep.
Then he saw the water.
Blue filled the world below them.
The ocean stretched farther than he could follow, brilliant under the sun. Tiny islands sat across it like green marks scattered on glass. Pale rings of sand curved around the shallows, and the water changed color in long bands from clear turquoise to deep cobalt.
Every trace of sleep vanished from Elias’s face.
He seized Giselle’s arm and shook it with both hands.
"Giselle, look! The ocean!"
His voice rose with pure amazement. "It’s so pretty."
Giselle let him shake her.
There was no irritation in her face, only a smile. "All right, all right. Stop shaking me. You’ll make me airsick."
Elias jerked his hands back instantly.
His eyes went wide. "Sorry."
Giselle lifted a hand and tapped the tip of his nose with one finger.
"I’m teasing you."
Elias stared at her.
Then he smiled, his small white canine showing.
"You lied."
"I did not."
"You did."
He lunged toward her.
"What are you doing?" Giselle asked, though she was already laughing.
"Payback."
Her first reflex was to shift away. Her second was to catch his wrist. Elias had found the weak spot at her side, and the moment his fingers brushed it, Giselle broke.
"Elias," she said, losing the last of her composure. "Stop."
He did not.
Giselle caught him and returned the attack.
Laughter filled the cabin. Elias tried to twist free, laughing hard enough that tears gathered at the corners of his eyes. Giselle, who so often looked older than everyone around her, became exactly her age for once. Her hair came loose over one shoulder, and her face brightened in a way none of the careful expressions she wore at school ever could.
"Okay," Elias gasped. "I give up. I give up."
"Too late."
He laughed again until he could barely breathe.
By the time the jet touched down, the corners of his eyes were still pink from laughing.
They stepped down from the aircraft hand in hand.
A dark SUV waited nearby, along with several members of Giselle’s private security team. Traveling abroad meant relying on local arrangements, but Giselle had no intention of placing Elias’s safety entirely in strangers’ hands. Her own people had come with them, dressed in dark suits and positioned quietly around the vehicle.
Elias spotted a group across the private arrival area.
His attention lingered.
Giselle followed his gaze. "What is it?"
"Nothing." Elias looked at the group again. "They’re from back home, right?"
Giselle studied their jackets and the professional bags at their feet.
The Longhaven Hospital insignia was visible on both.
"Yes," she said. "They are."
What a coincidence.
They had traveled halfway around the world and still run into people linked to the life they had left behind.
Giselle had no reason to care about a hospital delegation. "Come on."
She guided Elias toward the SUV.
He let his gaze leave the group.
As the car pulled away, something moved at the edge of Giselle’s vision.
She looked back through the window.
A woman had walked up to the Longhaven team.
Giselle recognized her at once.
The doctor who had delivered a lecture at Westbridge University. The internationally celebrated specialist whose name people spoke with careful admiration.
Dr. Yvonne Quinn.