Yours Truly (Billionaires and Brides 2)

He began flipping through his emails absentmindedly, not really reading any of them. He knew the reason had nothing to do with stress or lack of sleep. His mind was on someone.

His mind was on Kat.

AJ leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen, at a long chain of replies about the proposal that he was hearing tomorrow. He had been skimming when his eyes fell on a signature line.

Yours Truly,

E. Ryder

What an odd way to sign off on a business email, he thought. It wasn’t even part of her signature line. She had specifically typed it out. It was so familiar, but then he knew that everything was reminding him of that night two weeks ago.

He closed his eyes and remembered the soft scent of her hair and the way she had smiled at him. One night had been enough to ensnare his heart completely. Unfortunately, the one night was all he had.

George had found the note. The poor man had to dive through two dumpsters to find it, but he did find it. However, by then, water and something that AJ didn’t want to speculate on, had erased half the message. The note was written with a felt-tipped pen, so the liquid he was hoping was water had stripped the note away. Even worse, the next page on the pad showed no indentations. Damn high quality stationary.

He’d even hired a professional to try and salvage the letter. The man had years of experience with police departments around the world and was renowned for being able to make the invisible appear. Unfortunately, due to the quality of the pen and paper, there was no trace of what she had written. The best the professional could do was give him a picture of the unreadable text.

AJ didn’t have to look at the picture on his phone to know what wasn’t readable on there. The professional he had hired to restore the note had done well, but there was nothing that could be done. Only the left side was readable. He had looked at the picture so many times that he could recall it by memory.

Dear AJ,

I had an amazi

I want to see y

I wish I coul

I hope you unde

Please call me. 5

Yours Truly,

Kat

He could figure out what most of the note said, and she had definitely left her phone number. It meant that she wanted him to find her. She had wanted more. The fear that she was married or uninterested evaporated as soon as he saw the note. Unfortunately, he had no way of telling her that since he couldn’t read her phone number.

AJ had asked the bride for a guest list, but that had been a dead end as well. There were three Katys, four Katherines, two Kathys, and two more Katelyns. Given the current media climate, the last thing he wanted to do was contact each of them and find out if they were missing a size 11.5 silver Louboutin heel. It wouldn’t take more than a single speculation as to how he came to acquire the shoe to have the media all over him.

His desire to find her even overrode his ethics. He had taken a peek at the sales of silver Louboutin shoes from his website, but no one in the area had purchased a pair that size. The only pair on record with his company still sat in his warehouse in Atlanta.

He had no way to find her.

12

Kat

The presentation was tomorrow and Kat felt like she needed an IV drip-line of coffee to make it. There was still so much to do, despite having worked her ass off for the last two weeks. Her normal work hours were long over, but she still had to put the final finishing touches on her presentation to the CEO of the company.

If the presentation went as well as she thought it should, she’d be glad she’d done all this work.

“Oh and when you go to Hawaii, you have to try the malasadas,” Renee told her, spinning in her desk chair and oblivious to the concentration Kat was putting in on her computer.

“Mmm hmm...” Kat replied, not really listening. She had started out paying attention, but at the two hour mark of Renee going on about how amazing and expensive her Hawaii vacation was, Kat had zoned out.

“They’re like donuts only better,” Renee said. “I wish we could have stayed longer, but Bob had to get back to work.”

“Is he working right now?” Kat asked, hoping that he wasn’t. Maybe that would mean Renee would go home and leave her alone to finish. Despite being a part of this project, Renee hadn’t been terribly helpful the last few hours.