“Holy crap, Melissa! You’re in love with him!”
“No!”
“Don’t give me that BS! You’re in love with the man.”
“Maybe,” Lissa said softly.
“What about him? Is he in love with you?”
“For God’s sakes, James, what is this? An interrogation?”
“Meaning, you don’t know if he loves you or not.”
“Meaning, I don’t want to have this conversation.”
“Dammit, Melissa—”
“What has he told you?” Emily said. “About what’s going on now.”
“I haven’t—I haven’t spoken with him since early this morning.”
“Meaning?” Jaimie demanded.
“Don’t look at me like that. He’s busy. Incredibly busy.”
“So let’s get this straight. He sent you away—”
“He had to deal with the media!”
“And he hasn’t called you.”
“No.”
Jaimie’s eyes narrowed. “How about calling him?”
Lissa stared at her sister. How about that, indeed? Between worrying about Nick and checking for calls from him and then discovering that her name and lies about her were plastered everywhere, she’d missed the obvious.
She didn’t have to wait for Nick’s call. She could call him.
“Lissa? How about calling him?”
Lissa rose to her feet. She looked at her sisters. They looked at each other.
Emily swung away, picked up the TV remote control, turned on the enormous flat-screen set that hung over a long buffet table and turned the volume to low. Jaimie looked at the screen, too, as if she really gave a damn about watching whatever stupid program was on.
Lissa drew a long breath, let it out and walked to the far end of the sitting room, called up her contacts list and hit the icon for Nick’s cell number.
It rang. And rang. And rang again. There was a faint click. OK. Not Nick, but his voice mail…
“Welcome to GlobalPhone. We cannot complete your call at this time. Please check the number and dial again.”
Frowning, she disconnected. Redialed by touching the icon again. Once more, the call went through. The phone rang and rang and then, click…
“Welcome to GlobalPhone. We cannot complete your call at this time. Please check the number and dial again.”
Obviously, there was some kind of glitch.
She placed the call again, this time using the keypad, touching her index finger to one digit at a time.