One Hot Secret (Love on Fire)

My phone lights up with a call. The number is my parents’ landline.

“Grace, honey, how are you?” my mom’s voice comes through the speakers, laced with worry.

“I’m okay. I’ve seen the stories going around. Don’t worry about it; it’ll soon die down, and they’ll move on to something else. That’s what Kyle says.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” Mom says.

“It’s fine.”

“Your father wants to speak to you,” she says.

That takes me by surprise. My father is one of those old-fashioned men who prefer to have face-to-face conversations and avoid the phone like it has a contagious illness.

He comes on a second later. “Gracie?”

“Hi, Dad,” I say with as much cheer as I can muster.

“I just want to say I’m sorry. If it weren’t for me, this wouldn’t have come up.” He sounds so sad and defeated.

It’s true that he did make a bad investment decision, but at the time, he had been thinking about our family. He had hoped that with the money he would make, he would help me make a down payment on a house and maybe even get a newer car.

“That’s nonsense, Dad, and you know this as well as I do. If not for this, they would have found something else. Besides, it’s a long time ago, and we’ve all put it behind us.”

My mom’s flower garden provides them with a nice income for extras, and they own the house outright.

“What about Kyle? Has he seen it?” my father asks.

“He doesn’t read gossip magazines, and he would not be bothered about it anyway.”

My dad lets out a sigh of relief.

“It doesn’t matter, Dad. Forget about it, okay?”

“If you say so,” he says.

“I do say so.”

When I disconnect the phone, I feel so tired of it. But as long as I’m with Kyle, they’ll always be interested in my business.

Chapter 38

Kyle

Adrian had told me earlier that his ranch is three thousand acres, and now as we ride our horses through rolling hills, I’m in awe. It’s a paradise. Everywhere I look, as far as the eye can see, is part of the ranch. Talk about privacy. I get it now why he rarely leaves. He doesn’t need to. He has everything he needs right here.

The only thing missing for me is Grace. I wish she were here to experience this wonderland with me.

“What the hell is that?” Adrian riding beside me, says.

I slow my horse to a trot, and that’s when I hear the buzz of a helicopter. I stop my horse and use my hand as a shade to look up at the sky. The noise grows deafening as it flies dangerously low. As it gets closer, I see a man hanging out the helicopter door with a camera.

“What the fuck …”

“Let’s go,” Adrian shouts, and we turn our horses around and gallop back toward the ranch house.

The horses are no match for the helicopter, and it easily flies above us. Total madness. How did they know I was here? Or even the relationship between Adrian and me? It takes us ten minutes to reach the ranch house, and when we get to the vicinity, the helicopter turns around and flies off. I guess they have all the pictures they need.

“Unbelievable!” Adrian says when the noise of the helicopter fades away. “Any idea what that was all about?”

“I think they found out about us, but how? The only people who know that I’m here are my mother, girlfriend, and my people who are more secretive than the CIA.”

“Let’s go in. I think I hear another buzz,” Adrian says.

His hearing is superb. I hear nothing until one of his ranch workers comes and takes our horses. There’s definitely another helicopter headed this way. I’m disappointed at the interruption but also glad that we had all of yesterday and half of today to get to know each other.

Inside the sprawling ranch house, I excuse myself to get my phone. I have countless missed calls, most of which are from Sebastian. I call him back.

“They know,” he says grimly. “And before you ask, I have no idea how.”

“They were bound to figure it out anyway,” I tell him. “Have you been to the house? How is Grace holding up?” I’d told her that I wouldn’t pester her with calls. She needed to focus on her work.

“I haven’t been, but Chris has, and she’s okay,” Sebastian says. “About Grace. There have been stories about her in the press as well. They know who her parents were, but that’s not the big story.”

“Fuck.” Why didn’t she call me or even text me? That’s the one thing that has been a nightmare for us. “What do you mean?”

“Apparently, she’s in a lot of debt, and apparently, she’s almost bankrupt,” Sebastian says.

I’m stunned. “She never said anything to me.” My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my ears.