Chapter 50: Progress

ELLIOT POV

Sophie and I landed at 6 a.m. on Wednesday at John F. Kennedy International Airport. We departed from New Zealand at 2 p.m. on Tuesday after resolving the office issue on Monday evening.

The journey had lasted for about 16 hours, but it felt so much shorter than it really was because I had spent all my time watching Sophie and meditating, or should I say we had spent the journey watching each other from the corner of our eyes, our expressions full of so much hidden meaning that words failed to describe. She was sitting at an arm's length from me in the business class section of the plane.

I couldn't help thinking about the Monday evening experience over and over in my mind: how brilliantly she had resolved the case that brought us to New Zealand, and how, at the end of everything, I had finally summoned the courage to tell her how much I truly felt for her.

I thought of how we had shared our first kiss an