Page 184 of Boyfriend of the Hour

She set her coffee on a side table and stood, hand placed on her still-narrow hips. His mother had always been petite, to the point where Nathan wondered if she didn’t under-eat.It was common enough in his patients her age. Along with osteoporosis.

“I just arrived,” he said.

There were no kisses.

Nathan looked around. “Where are they?”

Lillian and Radford exchanged looks that Nathan couldn’t quite interpret. Still, they insisted on sharing these wordless moments together, as if they knew he couldn’t participate in them. He never could.

Except with Joni. He knew all of the emotions on her incredibly expressive face and had spent months studying them well before she’d ever visited the clinic. Had a list fifteen pages long in his notebook documenting them. And when, if by some chance, a new expression appeared, she had always told him what it meant. Always.

No one had ever been that transparent. Certainly not these two.

“Nathan, sit down and visit,” his mother called. “Don’t be rude.”

“I didn’t come here to visit.” He glanced between his parents, daring them to argue. “I’ve done everything you asked for. I took a sabbatical from my practice, shadowed the interim CEO for the last two months, and learned the business like you wanted. In return, you said you would make things right. So where are they?”

He wasn’t exaggerating. He wouldn’t have come here at all if it hadn’t been for one thing: Joni Zola was nowhere to be found. Until his parents had called last week and said Carrick’s contact had finally had some success.

It had been two months since he’d walked away from her in the planetarium; the image of her tear-streaked face burned into his brain. Less than twenty minutes later, right after his father had opened his mouth in front of two thousand wealthy donorsto the Mt. Sinai Children’s Hospital and announced that he was nominating Nathan to be the next CEO of Huntwell, Nathan had marched back out of the room to find Joni and take her home, only to discover she was already gone.

And he hadn’t seen her since.

He’d been angry, yes. But it hadn’t taken long before he realized his anger was displaced. It was true that she had withheld damning information and refused to trust him. But obviously, the horrific video that existed of her having sexual relations with another man wasn’t consensual.

No, if anything, he was angry at the people who had forced her into that situation and used it to control her, just the same as his parents used Isla to control him. He was angry at Carrick for sharing it with everyone else. And he was angry with himself for how he’d behaved toward her about it. He was angry that he’d left her alone.

And so, Nathan had forced himself to watch it again, if only to verify that, yes, she was clearly under the influence of some kind of drug. Clearly, very young—she couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Clearly in a state of distress.

He’d destroyed his phone in a fit of rage he hadn’t experienced in well over a decade. Then he had personally gone to every one of his family members to make sure all of them had deleted the incriminating video as well.

It was still floating around out there. But before he could deal with that, he needed to find her first.

The following day, he’d bought a new phone and called her, intending to bring her back from wherever she’d taken shelter for the night.

The call had gone straight to voicemail.

He’d waited another day before calling again. Texting. Another day. Another day.

On the fourth, he’d canceled his surgeries to drive to her sister’s auto shop in Belmont. Had seen first-hand the dingy breakroom where Joni had been sleeping before she’d come to stay with him.

Lea had called him a bum and threatened to sic her husband on him, but not before telling him that Joni had left New York.

Boston. She had a brother in Boston.

Another dead end, and one that came with more threats of violence.

The Zolas clearly knew where their sister was and weren’t worried, and that fact alone gave him some comfort.

So, he continued to leave messages. And waited.

Nothing.

In the end, he’d finally spoken to Carrick again, if only to ask him to get help from his contacts at the FBI and the CIA to find her. Which he would…so long as he made a deal with their parents to get them off Carrick’s back. Sabbatical. Huntwell. The two months passed.

Then two days ago, his parents had said Joni was found. And that they would bring her here, along with Isla, to make things right between them all again, if he would come too.

Now, his parents shared that queer look he didn’t understand.