Page 88 of Rebellious Hearts

What if Richard died? That would be disastrous. How would this project move forward without him as an investor? I didn’t know if we would be able to find someone else in his place, and the whole thing was just… fuck.

“He’s not going to make it today,” I said to Sofia.

She looked even paler than before, and I frowned.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said and stood.

“What’s going on?” Why didn’t she want to talk to me? It suddenly felt like fucking everyone was shutting me out.

“I’m going to excuse myself,” she said in a strained voice and all but ran away.

“Sofia?” I called after her, but she was out of the dining room before I could do something.

I got up to go after her when my phone rang again. I reached the door and saw Sofia go into the restroom. Shortly after, Amy followed her.

I didn’t know Amy was here.

My phone kept ringing and I checked the caller ID, hoping to hear from Richard, have some good news,something.

It was Alex.

Damn it.

“Hey, bro,” I said, answering the call. I couldn’t miss the call. Alex was my brother, but right now he was phoning about the project, which meant he was my boss. And I couldn’t ignore a phone call from my boss.

“When is your meeting scheduled for?” Alex asked. “You got the documents?”

“It’s supposed to be now, but Richard had an emergency.” I didn’t mention that our investor might die. Yeah, that wasn’tgoing to go down very well. “I’ll reschedule with him as soon as possible, but it’s in the bag.”

“Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched,” Alex said, and I could imagine his scowl. “It’s not official until we have that signature. How long are you going to have to extend your stay?”

“A day or two at the most,” I said, sounding confident, although the truth was, I had no idea. If it was serious and Richard was in the hospital, it might be longer. But we could go back and then come back to Harborview later.

I could go as far as planning a second business trip like this with Sofia, and the second time around we could really be together… the idea was a good one.

“Okay, good,” Alex said, echoing my thoughts, although the reaction wasn’t to what I’d been thinking. “Let me know what’s happening, but until we have his signature—”

“I know, I know. It’s not official.”

“You know how these things go. Too much can go wrong, and we don’t bank on something that’s not official.”

I sighed. Of course, I knew all of this shit. I was a part of the company, I’d done a hell of a lot of contracts with plane sales… but Alex was just doing his job as the guy overseeing this project, I guess. It was supposed to make the company look good, and Alexwasthe CEO. It was all a part of his environmentally friendly direction, and we’d been working hard to swing things in a different direction.

It irritated me that Alex didn’t think I could do the job the way he would have it done, but he’d sent me, so he would just have to trust that things were going to work out.

Even if I might have made it work in slightlyunconventionalways.

I thought of Sofia.

“I’ll talk to you as soon as I know what’s going on,” I said absently when I saw her and Amy leaving the restroom and walking to the living room.

“You do that,” Alex said. “Keep me updated as we go along. In the meantime, I’ll talk to Marina to take care of your stay for two more days and all that entails.”

“Thanks,” I said, and we ended the call.

I headed toward the living room to find Sofia and find out what was going on with her. Clearly, I was missing something, and I wasn’t going to wait for her to tell Amy to tell me.