"I really appreciate you doing this," Danny murmured, breaking a long period of silence that had settled between them. They'd been in the air in a Rand Corp. executive jet for about an hour, and it'd been easy not to talk about anything when the flight attendant was getting them settled and, afterwards, when they'd had plenty of small talk to make about the plane and their destination. Danny figured he was better off addressing the elephant in the room now, before the trip really got under way, so he wouldn't have to worry about it later.
"I know it's- it's awkward. With our past." It had just made the most sense to ask her; there had been tabloid stories about them back in the day, and he thought it was more convincing that he'd have married an old flame than trying to trot out anyone else for this farce. Rand Corp. was trying to acquire a small family run company in a developing city of China. The business had a lot of potential, but the owners were traditionalists and the Board of Executives thought it might help the acquisition for Danny to make a good impression by making a visit there with his "wife." Any wife would do. So Danny went with the closest he'd ever had to one.