Manhattan Merger

“Sounds fun. Be sure and take your cell phone with you so we can keep in touch.”

“I will.” She looked up at him. “Uncle Payne?” By now they’d reached the back lawn.

He sensed her hesitancy. “What is it?”

“When mom and dad get back, I’d like to invite Rainey over for dinner so the whole family can meet her. Would that be okay with you?”

His heart pounded like a sledgehammer. “Of course. Why do you ask?”

“Diane doesn’t like me, and I could tell she really didn’t like Rainey.”

Tell me something I don’t already know.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“After you’re married, I hope you’ll still come over a lot.”

“No one will ever keep me away from you, sweetheart.”

Payne gave his niece a hug before climbing into the limo. Mac followed and shut the door.

“Take us home, Andy.”

On the short drive to Crag’s Head, Payne phoned his pilot and told him to get the chopper ready. He’d be taking off for the city within twenty minutes.

During his talk with Catherine on the way back from the beach, a strange feeling had come over him. Something he couldn’t explain. But it all had to do with Rainey and her precipitous departure from the Sterling compound. Suddenly he felt it imperative to catch up with her.

It was close to noon when he alighted from the limo and entered her apartment building. He pressed the button and waited for a response. If she wasn’t home, he’d wait outside in the limo as long as it took until she showed up.

He was ready to buzz her again when he heard static and then a man’s voice said, “Yes?”

Payne froze in place. “Is this Lorraine’s Bennett’s studio?”

“Yes.”

He struggled to keep from erupting. “May I speak to her?”

“Who is this?”

The urge to knock the man to kingdom come was growing stronger by the second.

“If she doesn’t answer within five seconds, I’m coming up to find out why,” Payne thundered.

“I’m here, Mr. Sterling,” Rainey answered sounding out of breath.

His brows furrowed. What in the hell was she doing with a man in her apartment this early in the day unless… The pictures that ran through his mind filled him with feelings too primitive to describe.

“We have to talk. How soon will you be free?”

“I thought you and your fiancée were—never mind, it doesn’t matter. Just a minute, please.”

Apparently she’d left his sister’s house to rejoin her lover. Out of all the reasons he’d imagined for her disappearance without telling him, Payne would never have thought it was because of a man.

But then he remembered that she’d had other plans the night before and had canceled them in order to accompany Payne. How long had this relationship been going on?

“It’s all right. You can come up now.”

The minute he heard the click of the door, he opened it and took the stairs three at a time to her floor. He found her standing outside her apartment with the door closed trying to appear at ease, and failing.