Jacked Up (Bowen Boys #4)(6)
“Thanks, Elle, you saved my life. Damn Joshua. I don’t know why he wouldn’t let me change shifts with another flight coordinator. What did it matter to him who dispatched flights as long as someone did it?”
Stick-up-his-ass Joshua was a shitty, slimy boss. It didn’t help that he had a crush on Marlene and she hadn’t accepted his advances. Asking him to give her an extra day off for the trip had been a no-go. So was getting him to approve a shift change, even if it was no skin off his nose.
“I just was at the office picking up the documents for the first two flights, and he wasn’t there. Donald was, but he won’t say a word. He’s on vacation after today, so he won’t see Joshua,” Elle explained as she opened the door of the car assigned to her and turned on the engine. “As a matter of fact, he thought I was you at first. Oh, and so you know, my head hurts from these damn braids. Couldn’t you wear something more comfy? I have this unstoppable need to scratch my scalp.”
Marlene was a hairdo junky. She currently braided the left side of her hair tight to her scalp, and so did Elle.
“The itch will go away. Then it will feel weird when you take them out. I’m sorry I’m ruining your break. You came for three days. The last thing I wanted was to make you work while you are down here.”
“No sweat. I love catching up with the guys. Besides, your corporate flights are a walk in the park compared with my two-hundred-passenger tourist ones.” Or maybe it was the Boston weather that made everyone cranky, because in Florida even the regular flights were a piece of cake. “And I’m not on vacation; I’m just arranging some paperwork for my mom while she’s on a cruise with Ron.” If anyone should be grateful, it was Elle. She hated taking time off, and running her mom’s errands hadn’t taken as long as she’d expected. “Are we still on for tonight?”
“You bet,” Marlene answered. “The old gang together. We’ll burn up the streets!”
Elle laughed. Yep, Marlene was a hot package.
“Good. I gotta go,” Elle said. “I’m in the car. Or I’ll be late.”
Elle couldn’t see her friend’s face, but she was sure she was grimacing. “Please don’t wreck the car during my shift.”
“It wasn’t my fault. The driver of the pushback wasn’t watching.”
“Maybe he didn’t see you since you were driving like a maniac?”
Elle chuckled. “Okay, maybe I was a bit over the speed limit. But don’t worry, I’ll stick to the rules now that I’m you.”
After they said good-bye, she drove to the parking spot assigned for her first flight. The plane was already there, and the fuel she’d ordered was being pumped into it.
She walked on the tarmac toward the private jet. It was early in the morning, but the sun was blinding so she put on sunglasses and hurried on. Man, she’d forgotten how hot it was in Florida, even in April.
Her cell beeped. A message.
Girlie, Mr. Asshole will be flying from Logan in two days. You’ll be back in Boston?
Mr. Asshole had gotten a restraining order on her when she’d called him out on his shit, so it was her moral duty to be there every time he planned to fly. To bother him and delay him and generally speaking pester him. The arrogant twit always asked for special treatment, so his name came up on their lists beforehand, allowing Elle to be ready for him.
Sign me in for that shift she texted back.
Whatever shift it was, she would make it work, and she would be there.
He thought the world revolved around him because he was worth more than the Queen of England. Elle didn’t have an issue with rich people, but she despised entitled *s.
As she finished supervising the catering, the passengers arrived. Three men. She quickly glanced at the documentation. Joaquín Maldonado was listed as the owner of the jet and the one who had handled the red tape and scheduled the flight to Cuba. Two of the men looked like security detail, from the way they moved and scanned the surroundings, so the one in the middle had to be Mr. Maldonado.
“Good morning, Mr. Maldonado. Everything is on schedule. We don’t expect any delays today.”
“Good,” he said, and without a second glance, headed for the plane.
The security detail stayed behind, near the stairs.
“Marlene Cabrera,” one of the guys said, looking at her ID. “Bonito nombre para una bonita chica.”
A pretty name for a pretty girl, she thought he said.
She nodded, but remained silent. And that was why studying Spanish would have been a better choice than Italian, especially considering how big the Spanish-speaking community was in Florida. Marlene’s parents were Cuban, and she spoke Spanish fluently. The two girls did look similar, and the hairdo and sunglasses helped, but Elle couldn’t fake the language skill.
Fortunately, he didn’t ask anything more. He turned to the other man and continued their chat in Spanish too fast for her to understand. After the pilot arrived, Elle handed him the preflight briefing documentation. They were all set to go when a big black car stopped near the one from the airline. The driver opened the back door and a man in his late sixties or early seventies, dressed in a suit, stepped out.
“Last-minute passenger,” one of the bodyguards told her while his boss and the newcomer shook hands. “Now we are ready for takeoff.”