“When did he say he was coming back?”
“The third of July,” I said.
“The first thing we need to do is call Ramon. We need to tell him what’s going on. If we tell him why you were willing to sell the paintings, he’ll relinquish them. He’s a good man.”
“A good man you were jealous of once,” I said.
“Yeah, well. I had some time to get to know him and his actual intentions with you.”
“He might try to use another art tour as a bargaining chip for giving up the paintings,” I said.
“Then let him. Your European tour was highly successful. Why couldn’t you do another one?” he asked.
“Because I’m about to have a child,” she said.
“Then set the tour for after our child turns one. I’d like to have a cultured child anyway. I’ll be the fun stay-at-the-hotel dad, and you can do your thing. Then, we can come to all of your gallery openings. We could celebrate our child’s first birthday that way.”
“You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?” I asked.
“Nope. I spitballed that. But it’s an option. Just call Ramon. You let me handle the police.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I have one question, though.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Was that burger good? Because that burger looked fantastic.”
I buried my face into the pillow and began to laugh as Bryan’s hands danced along my sides. I giggled as he tickled me, rolling me over onto my back. He straddled me and pinned me down as I squealed and screamed for him to stop. I grabbed his hands and tried to pull them away from my body, causing him to collapse on top of me.
“I love you, Hailey. We’re going to get you out of this,” he said.
“Please forgive me,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Bryan.”
“You’ll always be forgiven with me,” he said.
Chapter 23
Bryan
The more I talked to the police and thought about this Ben situation, the more convinced I was that Laura had nothing to do with it. Once I sat down with the police and figured out how easy it would have been to track Hailey down, I was no longer convinced this Ben character was capable of digging into my past. With the news articles that had run on Hailey alone, anyone would have been able to find her.
Even someone as sleazy as Ben.
So, there was only one other option, the only person who knew of my current life with Hailey and the only person who was still rallying against it, despite everyone asking her to back down. This had my mother written all over it, and I was ready to end this once and for all.
I told Hailey I didn’t want her to be a part of this. I told her exactly what I thought and how it was the only theory that made sense. My mother adored Laura. She was one of our champions in high school. She was ready to announce our engagement at my fucking graduation party. And when Laura broke up with me, she spent months chastising me for it, telling me what I could’ve done better and how I screwed things up with a wonderful girl. She’d even given me advice on how I could get her back and what grand romantic gestures my mother ‘knew she would love.’
My mother had staged this, and she was about to get my wrath.
I pulled up to my parents’ house as I white-knuckled the steering wheel. In order for me to get through to my mother, I had to approach her with a level head. If I erupted in front of her, she could cast this off as no more than an emotional outburst from her stressed son. But if I kept a level head and looked her in the eye, she wouldn’t be able to blame it on emotion.
She would have to face it head-on, and I was determined to make sure she did just that.
I drew in a deep breath before I slid from my truck. I marched up to the door and knocked on it before I opened it myself. I needed to keep a level head, but I wasn’t going to give my mother any semblance of control. From the moment people approached my parents’ house, they were controlled. Someone opened the door for them, someone dictated a dinner time for them, and someone else got them a drink of their own choosing. I needed to set a standard that I was the one in control of this scenario.
So, I opened the door and made my way into the sitting room.