Chapter 14
Riley checked in to her flight, handing over everything but her purse to be checked in, then walked through the small airport with her head down and her spirits even lower. She was depressed and needed to find a nice, quiet place suitable for a long, heart-rending cry. Not in public. Hell no. That was the very last thing she needed to do. She’d been forbidden from crying in public all her life, even as a child. She could quite clearly recall being handed off to a nanny when she let out the least little whimper, and the nanny was instructed to remove her until she could compose herself and be fit for the rest of the people present. She was barely two years old when that happened, the age when any normal child would cry. She had never forgotten how it felt to be stared at, to be exiled, and to suffer the consequences of parental disapproval. For those reasons, she could not let the tears fall even as her eyes ached with the need to weep. Her eyes burned, itched, and watered, but she held on. She was a Teeter, and Teeters did not break down in public where someone would see and use those tears against them. No Teeter ever showed weakness. How often have I heard those words when I felt hurt, lonely, or sad? Never let it show. Just keep it all inside. We can’t possibly let anyone know what we’re feeling.
Torn and hurt beyond measure, Riley finally made her way to a restroom. She found an empty stall, far at the end, and went inside. She locked the door and plopped down on the seat, not caring at all that her sundress was sitting where other people had once placed their bare asses.
The tears came, and Riley bowed her head and closed her eyes, letting the scalding rivers run down her face unchecked. Her chest heaved, but no sound crossed her lips. She was an expert at weeping silently, with good reason. No Teeter went crazy and cried loud enough for others to hear, if they cried at all. Her nannies used to hush her so often that she had learned to cry without sobbing. Now, as she sat there trying to release some of the pain Gray’s betrayal had wrought, Riley realized just how utterly fucked up her family really was.
They were cold and didn’t care. They didn’t need or want her in their lives for much of anything, and they often wished she was a boy. It was no secret that her mother hated being pregnant, but they did not want to adopt for fear they would end up with a less-than-desirable specimen. For that reason, Riley was an only child. She was often made to feel the weight of her gender and her inability to win their approval for whatever she was trying to succeed in.
Why am I even going back to that? Why am I giving in? the political princess wondered atop that porcelain throne.
Her trust came from her paternal grandfather, who was far richer than even her father. The truth was that she had enough money to live the rest of her life without ever having to worry or work a single minute. It was worth something like a quarter-billion dollars in cash, plus a vast set of holdings that she was about to take a job dealing with, a job her father would oversee because he did not believe she had the ability to even manage her own money.
It was undeniably a lot of money and a lot of responsibility. The companies her trust encompassed employed a lot of people, so many people’s livelihoods were at stake. It seemed like too much for her to bear alone, so she had agreed to her father’s suggestions about her future and the future of her trust, even though they were more orders than suggestions.
She didn’t want to go back to any of that, to that life that was not her own, to that bank account she really didn’t care about, but all things considered she didn’t know where else to go. The one thing she did know was that she couldn’t stay in that tropical paradise with Grayson the liar.
***
Gray cursed and laid on the horn as a slow-moving truck on too-large tires popped out of a side street right in front of him. He swore a few times and darted around the oversized vehicle. His thoughts were chaotic. If Riley already signed in for her flight, how do I get past security? This is insane. She’s probably gone already, if not in person, at least in spirit. How in the hell did I go and blow it so completely? Some private jet had probably already whisked her away.
He stomped on the accelerator and drove faster. The truck ahead of him blew its horn, and a hand came out the window, with one finger extended high into the air. “Same to you, buddy,” Gray muttered. His hands were steady on the wheel, but his heart was anything but.
It was beyond him why and how he cared so much. He’d never felt that way about anyone before, and it scared the utter hell out of him as he flew around a corner and into a hairpin turn that turned into a flat sprint to the front entrance of the airport. He had to get to her. He had to try, no matter what it took.
Of course he was stopped at the security post. He turned around and sprinted back to the counter, trying to piece together where her flight might be headed. New York, dumbass, he told himself, then bought the last ticket out and dashed back to security. The long lines made him more nervous with each passing second. He finally got through the security checkpoint and made a mad dash through the terminal, his heart beating out a hectic rhythm in his ears.
“Damn it!” he sputtered when he scanned the waiting area and saw no sign of her there. He rushed over to the counter when another idea formed in his head. “Excuse me. Where is the first-class lounge?”
The agent gave his disheveled clothes a suspicious look. “Um, it’s down the hall, that door to the left, but you need a key to get in.”
“I know,” he lied, deciding that he would just take up post outside the door and wait there for her to come out.
When the last person filed out, he grabbed the door to keep it from closing. He ducked inside and found it vacant, so he hurried back to the small coach passenger lounge.
There didn’t seem to be a sign of her anywhere. Had he missed her? Did she take another flight, go somewhere else? Damn it! Is she sitting in a different lounge somewhere else in the airport? Tell me she hasn’t already gone, that I’m not too late to make things right between us!
Discouraged but not ready to give up, he set off through the airport, checking each and every lounge, but Riley was nowhere to be seen.
Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. He heard a flight being called and took off at a dead run. She has to be boarding. She just has to be!
Gray stood there until his name was called, and then the doors to the jet-way were closed, the attendants obviously deciding he was a no-show. When he realized they had not called her name over the speakers, his heart sank.
Just like that she was definitely and irrevocably gone, along with his heart and his dignity.