Chapter 1

When a flight made an emergency landing at NorthStar Air's Seattle base, my boyfriend, Captain Ethan Cole, became the hero of the entire company.

Only I knew the truth.

The person who had almost failed that night wasn't Ethan.

It was the plane.

The left hydraulic system had thrown a warning. The landing gear indication was abnormal. Hydraulic fluid was leaking from the belly.

As an aircraft maintenance technician, I stayed on the ramp from one in the morning until sunrise, working the problem with my hands black from grease and hydraulic fluid.

When Ethan finally came down the stairs, he looked at me once.

"Thanks. Go get some sleep."

I thought he was just exhausted.

Then came the company safety awards ceremony.

Ethan stood onstage with a microphone in his hand.

His eyes passed right over me and landed on flight attendant Riley Bennett.

"If Riley hadn't been there that night, I never would've been able to focus on the emergency."

The room erupted in applause.

No one mentioned me.

No one mentioned the hours I had spent under the aircraft with my knuckles split open and my hands soaked in oil.

After the ceremony, Riley walked over and held her phone in front of me.

Two messages from Ethan were still on the screen.

【Thank God you were there.】

【When you're with me, I feel safe.】

The next morning, I submitted an internal transfer request to NorthStar's new maintenance base in Oregon.

Ethan stopped me in the hallway.

"What are you doing?"

I looked at him calmly.

"Captain Cole, from now on, if you need to feel safe, ask Riley."

I walked past him.

From that moment on, I was done being the support he never bothered to see.

...

"Sienna, your transfer request has been put on hold."

My maintenance manager looked uncomfortable.

I stared at him.

"Why?"

Maintenance and Flight Operations were separate departments.

Since when did Flight Ops get to decide where I worked?

He sighed.

"Flight Operations raised a safety concern about your current fitness for the new assignment."

My chest went cold.

He lowered his voice.

"Ethan spoke to management personally. He said you've been emotionally unstable lately and shouldn't be taking on critical maintenance responsibility at a new base."

I almost laughed.

He used to call me the technician he trusted most.

Now, just to keep me here where he could control the situation, he had stamped me with the words emotionally unstable.

One comment from him, and suddenly my professional judgment was a mental-health problem.

I turned around and headed straight for the crew operations room.

The door was cracked open.

Riley's voice floated through the gap.

"Ethan, is Sienna mad at me?"

She sounded concerned.

"Honestly, the award probably should've gone to her. But maintenance people are always behind the scenes. They don't understand the pressure we deal with in front of passengers. Sometimes they get a little rigid."

Ethan answered evenly.

"She usually doesn't make scenes. If she's acting like this, she must really feel hurt."

I shoved the door open.

It slammed into the wall.

Ethan turned toward me, his brows pulling together.

"You don't knock anymore?"

Riley had been sitting beside him.

The second she saw me, she stood and pushed the award toward me.

"Sienna, don't be mad."

"You can have it if you want."

"It's not like I fly for trophies."

I looked down.

RILEY BENNETT was engraved across the base.

It looked less like an award and more like something placed there for me to stare at.

I pushed it back.

"No thanks."

"You risked your life for it. I couldn't possibly take it."

Ethan's face darkened.

"Sienna. We're at work. Don't embarrass yourself."

I lifted my eyes and looked straight at him.

"When that plane landed, who was the first person under the fuselage checking the leak?"

"Who went into the landing gear bay during a thunderstorm to inspect the system?"

He was silent for two seconds.

"I know what you did that night."

Then he added, "But the pressure cabin crew deals with in the air isn't the same as what you do on the ground."

My job meant crawling under a damaged aircraft in a storm.

Apparently, that was simply expected.

Riley doing her job deserved applause from the whole company.

Something heavy lodged in my chest.

To Ethan, my skill and my safety were just part of the job description.

Riley pulled out a wet wipe and held it toward me.

"Sienna, your hands are really dirty."

"Don't touch Ethan's uniform. Hydraulic fluid is hard to get out."

I looked at the dark grease still trapped under my fingernails.

She was clean.

I wasn't.

I turned back to Ethan.

"You think I'm dirty too?"

His eyes flicked toward Riley's hand.

His brow tightened.

"I didn't say that."

Then he looked away.

My throat closed.

I couldn't say another word.

Cold air from the hallway vents blew down the back of my collar.

I returned to my manager's office and pulled out another form.

This one wasn't a transfer request.

It was my resignation.

My manager looked alarmed.

"Sienna, think about this. NorthStar doesn't train many A&P mechanics your age who can independently sign off return-to-service work."

"Don't throw your career away over one bad week."

I signed my name and set down the pen.

Then I looked through the window.

Out on the ramp, Ethan and Riley were walking side by side toward a crew shuttle.

The heroic captain looked perfect in his pressed uniform.

The woman who had spent the night under his aircraft was still covered in grease.

That was where Riley and I stood in this story.

Front stage and backstage.

Applause and oil.

I had worked at this base for five years.

For the first time, it felt more suffocating than a thunderstorm.

Someone passed the open office door and muttered under his breath,

"Sienna took the hit for both of them. They got all the glory."

No one answered.

No one disagreed either.

My phone vibrated.

A message from Ethan.

【Can you come out tonight? I need to talk to you.】

I turned my phone facedown on the desk.

I didn't reply.