He Sent His Helicopter for Her Dog, So I Signed the Papers novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Read at 3:41
Lena's grandmother died in her arms while the Grosvenor helicopter flew away, and eleven days later her husband texts that she is being dramatic. She likes his ex's gala photo, asks three questions in the comments and packs her flight helmet, and headlights sweep the window.
My grandmother died in my arms at 4:17 in the morning, on a fire road with the hills burning around us.
My husband's rescue helicopter was four minutes away.
He had sent it to save his old girlfriend's dog.
That night I called the Grosvenor family ops line thirty-eight times.
Camille Chilton answered once.
"Got it, Lena. Keep the windows shut and wet a towel for your grandmother," she said. "Hayes is on stage at the Sentinel launch, so I'll handle the ranch myself."
After that, my calls rang out.
At 3:41 I sent her a text: my grandmother is choking on the smoke, please send someone.
The app marked it as read.
No reply came.
At 3:55 the power cut out across the whole ranch.
At 4:02 I wrapped her in wet towels and carried her toward the road, because the car had already caught fire.
At 4:09 rotors came over the ridge, and I saw the blue Grosvenor lights.
The helicopter banked away from us and flew toward Malibu.
Her breath stopped against my neck a few minutes later.
The last thing she said to me, in Italian, was that I had always been her good girl.
Eleven days after that, Hayes texted me to say I was being dramatic.
I did not argue with him.
I signed our divorce papers with both hands in gauze.
He had noticed I'd stopped phoning Camille's line, and he took it as proof I had learned some manners.
So he wrote to me the way he signs invoices, without reading anything first.
"Camille says the ops line has been quiet. Good."
"I've booked the jet to Napa for Nonna's birthday on the 30th. She'll finally see the vineyards. You're welcome."
Then he added, because he never could leave it there: "A brush fire isn't a hurricane. The ranch was insured. Quit hiding in a hotel and come home."
There was no hotel.
I had been in a burn unit, and my grandmother had been an urn on a shelf for nine days.
In the Grosvenor house I never had a husband.
I had a switchboard, and her name was Camille.
She and Hayes dated at Stanford.
She lost her own husband at thirty, and Hayes hired her back a year later as his VP of Flight Operations.
She ran his calendar, his aircraft and every call I ever tried to put through to him.
His cell rang through to her after nine every night, and during a launch week it rang through to her all day.
"If it's real," Hayes told me once, "Camille will know."
He said it at a table of sixty guests, turning a glass of red wine in his hand.
"My wife finds an emergency in every cloud. Camille just reads the weather."
The whole table laughed, and so did I.
I'd had plenty of practice.
In the first week of our marriage, Camille was the one person who asked what I did before I met Hayes.
"Nothing much," I said.
She smiled at that and never brought it up again.
Hayes moved Nonna out to our ranch in Topanga Canyon because her dementia unsettled the staff in the city.
I went with her, since somebody had to.
The ranch was covered by Sentinel, his private fire-evacuation service, with a helicopter kept on standby.
He had built Sentinel from nothing and sold it to half of Malibu.
Tonight at 8:30, Camille put a photo online from the launch party.
She stood in emerald silk with a fluffy white Pomeranian in her arms and Hayes's hand at her waist.
Her caption said: "When the fire came, he flew his helicopter in for us. Family is who shows up."
The dog was called Duchess.
Six months ago that picture would have flattened me.
Tonight I took a screenshot and pressed the heart.
Hayes wrote back in under three minutes, which was how fast he always moved for her.
"She held this company together in the worst fire season I've had. Don't be petty."
Then he gave me an order: "You liked it, so leave her a kind comment. Sign it from both of us."
I typed it myself, using two fingers, because the rest were still bandaged.
"Camille Chilton shows up for family. Just not at 3:41 on the morning of the fourteenth."
"Ask her what read means, Hayes."
"Ask her where Guardian One was at 4:09."
I set the phone face down on the marble and started packing.
It took nine minutes, because the go-bag was already by the door.
Nonna's rosary went in first.
My old flight logbook went in next, and so did a dented helmet with one word stenciled across the back.
Nobody in this family had ever asked me about that word.
The signed divorce papers went in last.
Everything else in the penthouse belonged to Grosvenor Aviation, and I did not want it.
So I zipped the bag and stood at the window.
Headlights swept across the glass and stopped at the front of the building.
Hayes had not come to find me in eleven days.
For one comment about Camille, he had walked out of his own gala in eight minutes.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend