“But work here,” he supplies, his intelligent eyes calculating in a way I can’t quite size up. “I believe having Riptide on-site drives up our stock. They all knew you were a Riptide representative. You just helped me get the word out about our new partnership. How about I buy you a drink to celebrate?”
I’m sure this is just how Jack operates, but I have a funny feeling in my belly, and not funny in a good way.
“I actually have to be somewhere tonight.” I glance at my watch and find it’s almost eight. “I really need to head home. Thank you for the opportunity, Jack.”
“My absolute pleasure, Allie.” His cellphone rings and he snags it from his pocket, glances at the number, and then at me. “I’ll stay up here and take this. Be careful going home.”
“Thank you again.” I hurry out of the room and to the elevators and I don’t know why, but I feel uncomfortable when there is not one single reason I can find to feel anything but happy.
***
I arrive home to find Bella drinking wine and watching her father’s race on the television. She has a glass waiting on me and fills it. It’s not long until Dash is home and joining us. “They want Ryan Gosling to play Ghost,” he says. “This isn’t The fucking Notebook.”
Bella and I laugh, and then I ask, “Who do you want to play Ghost?”
“An unknown,” he says. “People need that person to be Ghost, not Ryan-fucking-Gosling. They need to be surprised by how much they love the guy.” He leans in and whispers, “Like me with you.” He kisses my neck.
Bella starts screaming as her dad crosses the finish line and I hop up to shout with her. Dash is laughing as she and I hug. Happy is the word of the night. I’m happy. I have no idea why I was feeling weird earlier, but it’s most certainly past now.
After the race has ended, Bella, Dash, and I debate Dash’s Hollywood options and Bella writes down points of negotiation. It’s then that Dash receives a call, listens, and says little, as whoever it is talks to him. When he disconnects, Dash says, “Brandon just got on a plane. He’s leaving. It’s done.” His hand is on my leg and he squeezes gently.
Bella beats me to the punch and asks what I would. “Are you sure?”
“One hundred percent sure,” Dash confirms. “He was pushed out of the country and I promise you, he will not risk coming back.”
“What did he do, Dash?” I press yet again when he’s previously denied me that information. “I really need to know. Protecting me is great, the less I know, the less to incriminate myself—I get that. But I also need closure.”
“Aside from stealing from his employer? Insider trading and not in a little way.”
I don’t ask more. On some level, I guess I knew he was a bad person and bad people do bad things.
Not long after that, Bella heads home and instead of Dash and I talking about Brandon, we talk through a bit of a plot issue he wrote himself into today. We got to bed in each other’s arms, and in the middle of the darkness, he says. “I’ve never had anyone I’d plot with, Allie. No one.”
But he does with me.
“I like it,” he adds.
“I like it, too,” I murmur, and I slowly slide into sleep, feeling safe—and yes, happy—in his arms.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
For the next two days, Dash is holed up at home working, still crunching the backend of his book. His goal is to be nearly done with the book by Thanksgiving and it appears he might just do it.
For me, those same next few days have me arriving to work feeling festive and excited. The auction is coming together. My life has come together. And my mother is so excited about seeing Keith Urban that it’s fun just thinking about us all going together. For the most part, Tyler and I avoid each other, but with plans to leave early Friday for the concert, I decide I need to let him know.
With a peace offering, a vanilla cupcake in hand, I luck out to find his secretary gone to lunch—not that I planned it that way or anything like that. Trying to be respectful, I peek my head in and suck in a breath to find him and his father at his window again. Damn it, no. I try to back away and escape but I hear Tyler say, “Ms. Wright. Why are you scurrying about like a mouse?”
How did he know I was here?
He turns and so does his father, the two powerful, well-dressed, good-looking men filling the room up with enough testosterone to suffocate a poor little ol’ girl like me. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”