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Fear gripped every bone in my body.
Was Rhyland okay? Was he safe? I didn’t even care about the Claire Larsen thing. Even if he screwed her seven ways from Sunday, I still wanted him to be safe. To be happy. Jesus, what was wrong with me? I should be furious, not worried.
“I think he’s the one trashing your boss’s jet,” I heard myself say. “Do you know if it’s out of the danger zone?”
“It is. It should land any minute now. Would you be so kind as to tell your neighbor to stop?” Gia slanted her head, giving me a perplexed look. “He’s acting mental, and Tate’s driving me bonkers.”
“Yes, yes.” I rummaged around in my purse for my phone. I was still upset with Rhyland, but I also recognized he probably was coming back to see me, and he did feel bad about what happened—whether it was standing me up for the babysitting gig, cheating, neither, or both—and that he was now razing someone else’s private property because of those feelings.
When I pulled out my phone, I had fifty unread messages from the number he’d texted me on and about a hundred missed calls. It was too noisy to call him. I clicked on the message block, watching as the text tumbled down when I reached the last message. It was sent twenty minutes ago.
Driving toward the stadium. See you there.
He’d already landed. Safe and sound. Relief washed over me.
I looked up from my phone. “He’s left the airplane.”
“In one piece?” Gia winced.
“That’s to be determined.”
I was about to tuck my phone back into my purse, feeling significantly lighter now that I knew he was alive and well, when a message from Cal popped through.
And that was when I realized it was not her first or even her second text message.
She’d been calling too. It was just lost in the shuffle of Rhyland’s chaotic rumbling.
Cal: He took her.
Cal: I’m so sorry. I am SO SO SORRY.
Cal: I couldn’t stop him. I tried. I called the police.
Cal: I called Row. Your mom. Everyone. I’m so sorry, Dyl.
RHYLAND
Ilanded back on New York soil, with Tate greeting me on the tarmac. He was surrounded by two bodyguards, a standby PA who wasn’t the girl he was obsessed with, and three tan men in sharp Italian suits who reeked of hostility. The general vibe was that someone was going to get murdered. Preferably me.
Tate turned to one of the men, saying something in Latin. The man responded with a brief shake of his head. From the way their heads eyed my movement, I knew they were talking about me.
“I heard you made a scene and confiscated my employee’s phone,” Tate drawled.
I halted a few feet away from him.
“Didn’t peg you for a gossip.” I reached out to smooth the collar of his dress shirt, just to piss him off.
He snapped my hand away, ripping his shades from his face. “Don’t fuck with me, Coltridge.”
“Don’t threaten me, Blackthorn,” I retorted. “I broke my own phone and a goddamn vase—which, by the way, who the hell keeps a vase on a plane?” Every minute I wasn’t in a taxi on my way to Cosmos was a minute wasted. “And yes, I asked your employee for her phone to reach Dylan. Don’t make it what it’s not. Now, tell me why you’re here, because it can’t be because you’ve missed me, and I have a woman to go grovel to.”
Tate snapped his fingers, and his Gia replacement—an unremarkable blond woman who looked like an extra in a porno—unzipped a leather folder bag and retrieved a large stack of papers. She gingerly handed it over to me, along with a pen that probably cost more than her entire goddamn outfit.
The asshole had drafted and printed out an entire contract to reflect the twenty-five percent ownership deal in a couple hours. Who did something like that?
“I’m in a hurry.” I cut my gaze to Tate, ignoring the outstretched contract and pen. I sidestepped him. “Email this to me, and I’ll get my lawyer—”
Tate stepped forward, blocking my path toward the waiting cab. “That makes both of us. I have business to conduct in the Dominican Republic and will be out of the state for the next two weeks. Sign the papers, Coltridge.”