William had recently run out of an important business meeting, where he had spent over an hour listening to a twenty-year-old girl ramble on about her company’s new project, trying to beg for investment. He was no fool, he had seen failures and unexpected ups and downs in his thirty-three years, but he did not want to invest in something he did not understand. He promised to think about it and inform his superiors, and he hurried to the airport, to the plane to Britain, where another meeting awaited him.
He was not the first to get on the plane and was very surprised to find a girl in the seat next to him, whom he had seen only a few hours before in the conference room. She recognized him, of course, which William did not like. He even suspected that her bosses had somehow got information about the flight from his secretary and had deliberately seated her next to him. But the girl didn’t talk about work at all. She was flying somewhere for the first time, and her escort accidentally got poisoned and had to stay home. She was having a bad time on the plane, very nervous about the turbulence and upcoming meetings, so William politely chatted with her about things, inadvertently finding out that they both liked Japanese food and were both avid cat people.
After the flight, they said goodbye at the airport. William was a little disappointed that he hadn’t exchanged numbers with her, but what if she would have thought it was a good sign to invest, when he wasn’t planning on taking on her project anyway?
On the way back to the hotel, he liked to think that the meeting on the plane had been fateful, but he would have been convinced the rest of the way if they had crossed paths again sometime in London. So he hopped into a half-empty elevator to get to the sixth floor of the hotel, where a beautiful stranger was waiting for him. She jokingly asked if he was stalking her, and he asked her the same thing.
Living next door and having no other acquaintances in the hotel contributed to the fact that they went down together for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and William gave the girl a tour of London when they had time.
He still turned her down for an investment, but not for a date. Their romance began in a few days and continued at home, rapidly developing against the background of common interests and a love for restaurants with Japanese cuisine.
