Page 10 of The Best Wild Idea (Off-Limits #3)

Silas

I laid in bed all morning, staring up at the ceiling, recovering from yet another dream where Jules was pushing me out the open door of my own plane.

I’ve been having the same reoccurring nightmare nearly every night leading up to today.

Each time I wake up unable to shake the sound of her screaming my name as I fall, before jolting awake from my own voice.

It’s fucking awful.

And I hope it’s not a sign of the way this trip is going to go.

Or not go, depending on whether she agrees to board my plane with me tomorrow.

Exhausted by the wait, I twist the cap off a fresh bottle.

I had this one shipped in for Dax’s visit from LA.

It’s a little game we like to play where I attempt to woo him with the best bottles money can buy.

Not because Dax gives a shit about the price tag, but because I know the man enjoys a memorable scotch or bourbon.

I drag a couple of glasses across the bar before splashing a bit into each, then give the bourbon time to breathe.

My mother had this custom lounge area added to my father’s office as an anniversary gift to him over twenty-five years ago.

It’s been my office now for over three years, but it’s still hard to think of it as my own.

Some days I can practically feel the ghost of my father breathing down my neck when I start to slack off. Which rarely happens now.

I glance at my watch. It’s half past five. I should have heard from her by now.

My anxiety is interrupted by a twanging metal sound. The dart Dax just threw has bounced off the target and slid to a stop near my shoe.

I eye the dart then him.

He smirks, his hand frozen above his shoulder from taking poor aim, and I half wonder if he did that on purpose just to pull me out of my head.

We’re playing another little game we like to play called Dax Pretends He Can Beat Me at Darts .

“What do you mean Raven broke things off with you because of a dream?” he asks, like he can’t believe that would actually happen.

I ignore the question and hand him one of the glasses I’ve just poured, waiting for him to take a sip so I can see if he likes it.

“1982 Buffalo Trace,” I tell him. “I may have found the Holy Grail with this one.”

Dax takes a sip then whistles like he’s just had a little taste of heaven, and I make a mental note to send the bottle back home to LA with him tomorrow, then ship the only case left in existence to his house after he gets there.

“That’s amazing,” he says, picking up the bottle to inspect it. “There’s no bite.”

“It’s yours,” I tell him. “Abby will love it.” I add that last part just to see him smile the way he does whenever Abby’s name comes up in conversation. It doesn’t disappoint. Dax’s whole face softens at the mere mention of her.

“I can’t take that home with me.” He shakes his head. “I’m guessing it cost more than I make in a year?”

I scoff. “Hardly. I’d never let you make so little.”

He chuckles and sets the bottle down. He’s not only the managing partner who handles all my mergers and acquisitions, he’s been one of my best friends since Grant and I met him back at Fox Glenn.

Dax and Ryeson were roommates across the hall from us that very first year of boarding school but the four of us were inseparable every year after.

“So, what’s this dream that Raven was suspicious of?” he asks. “I find it hard to believe that anyone would break up with the infamous Silas Davenport over a stupid dream.” He eyeballs me like there’s more to the story than I’m telling him. “Unless there was a deeper meaning behind it.”

“Wrong again. No deep meaning behind it, and Raven was not your typical girl. Although, I suppose it might shake any woman’s confidence to have your boyfriend waking up almost every morning in a cold sweat while babbling on about the girl he’s going to travel with, right?”

Dax lets another dart fly. It’s a near bullseye. “That still doesn’t seem like a good reason to break up with you.”

I smile, happy to be distracted from the fact that my phone still isn’t fucking ringing.

“You didn’t know Raven very well,” I tell him. “The idea of any woman’s name but hers coming out of my mouth was reason enough to break up with me.”

“Was she aware of how estranged you and Jules have become?” he asks, and I nod. “I still can’t figure out why Grant was hell-bent on putting the two of you in a plane together. Seems like a recipe for disaster.” He grimaces. “No offense.”

I can’t bring myself to tell him why Grant insisted on sending Jules and I on this trip together.

The first time I had the dream was the night I held Jules following Grant’s funeral. Since then, I’ve had variations of the same dream dozens and dozens of times, each one ending with her shoving me out the plane door while I call her name to stop.

But, Raven was right.

It’s gotten to the point of happening almost nightly. And a few weeks back, she finally had enough.

“I don’t care if she was your best friend’s fiancée and you swear she’s untouchable. You’re now dreaming about her almost every night and I’m not going to stand by while you travel alone with her. It’s either her or me. Stay home or go. I won’t be waiting for you like an idiot if you choose to go.”

I’d promised nothing was going on between us, and reminded her that the trip was my best friend’s final request.

“What am I supposed to do?” I’d asked. “Cancel everything and disappoint Grant over a stupid dream that I have no control over? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You can’t disappoint someone who’s already dead, Si,” she said, her eyes finally filling with defeat. “Only the living can have their heart broken.”

And that was it.

It was over between us.

I drain my glass and set it back down on the bar top.

“Disaster or not,” I remind Dax, “I don’t even know if Jules is planning on showing up tomorrow.”

“She’s been through a lot, Si.” His voice is low. As if I need the reminder.

“I’m well aware.” I’m trying not to lose my cool. I didn’t plan for any of this to happen. I’ve found myself smack dab in the middle of Grant’s plan, just like Jules has by now.

Monica’s courier dropped the letter off to her nearly an hour ago.

What if she thought it was a solicitation and didn’t open it?

Or she did read it and is choosing to ignore what it said?

Maybe she’s still so angry with me that she’d rather lose Grant’s four other letters than get on the same plane?

Every time I think about what she’s going to read in that letter, I get a rancid tightness in my chest. The same one that sneaks up on me every time I’ve thought about her since I showed up at her house that night.

The anger in her eyes is burned into my memory.

We’re supposed to board my jet in the morning and I still don’t have a damn clue whether or not she’s agreed to go. It’s nearly six o’clock. Monica should have called me by now.

Something’s wrong.

I glare at my phone, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall while Dax watches me try not to fume.

I walk to my desk and hit the intercom button. It immediately turns red.

“Ryan!” I bark.

“Sir?” he replies into the speaker, sounding chipper if not a bit hesitant.

“No calls yet?”

“I’ll let you know the moment she calls. If she calls.” His quick correction grows my annoyance. “But Monica’s been instructed to call your phone so I think—”

“I know,” I interrupt, cutting the intercom feed without saying another word.

Ryan’s been with me a long time, and I want to keep it that way, but the anxiety of today has twisted me into a righteous double knot.

Imagining Jules’ reaction to the news that we’re supposed to go on this trip together has haunted me all year.

I’ve run through every conceivable response she could have upon finding out that I’m her travel partner, except for one: her smiling.

Because that’s not actually conceivable.

When Grant called me from the hospital to tell me his plan, that he wanted me to take his fiancée on the kind of trip they’d only dreamed of together, I put up quite the fight.

It wouldn’t be right. Having me, of all people, join her was simply too much to expect of Jules who was already going through hell and back.

“I need it to be you because I can’t trust anyone else with her,” Grant insisted before having a coughing fit that threatened to break me in half, even through the shoddy cell service with me in another country.

“And because I know you’ve always loved her,” he added so quietly that I almost didn’t catch it.

My blood had turned to ice.

I tried to protest, arguing with him that I wasn’t in love with his fiancée, the woman he’d been with for nearly a decade. He’d laughed ironically, the sound of it straddling the line between anger and defeat.

“Anyone who meets her falls in love with her, man,” Grant said above the whirring of machines beeping off and on in the background.

“It’s impossible not to. Listen, I don’t blame you, but I also don’t want to have a big conversation about it.

Just do me a favor and make this simple.

Agree to take care of her. Agree to all of it.

I need to know that she’ll have someone I trust watching out for her.

Doing whatever it takes, even if she has no idea that it’s you behind the curtain. I’d only trust you.”

“She can hardly stand to be in the same city as me, or have you forgotten that?” I reminded him. “Let alone a trip like this.”

“I’m well aware there’s a pile of shit under the bridge between you two.

But I also know that losing your dad turned you into a real dick.

And once you get around to pulling your head out of your ass, I know that it’s still you in there.

” His voice softened. “Just say yes. If you don’t, I’ll haunt the fuck out of you. ”

I managed to laugh at that, but the whole thing was killing me.