Chapter Fifteen
Where are you?
Arden glanced at the text message from her father and sighed. It took a little more effort than normal to type a reply. Being heartbroken and sleep-deprived impacted her text game. She hit send and returned her attention to the wall of high-definition screens displaying different areas of the resort in slightly grainy resolution. Or maybe it was her eyes that were grainy? She rubbed the heels of her hands over them and then blinked back the salty burn that kept threatening whenever she had a moment to herself.
You don’t need this torture. Your bags are packed. Your flight booked. Just go.
She should. She’d already dealt with Sonja’s disappointment over, quote, “being abandoned” in the middle of the spontaneous mother-daughter getaway she’d envisioned. After that scene, Arden figured she should have had her fill of drama. She should have been ready to escape the risk of more. But she couldn’t. She had to know if Nick actually showed tonight. Rightly or wrongly, she was going to take away a measure of hope if he stood up Arden St. Sebastian. Her reckless heart wanted to take it as a sign he really did want to…visit Siberia.
He’s five measly minutes late. You can’t take that as a sign of anything.
A few seconds later Luc let himself into the small security room. “Since when did you relocate the lounge to the security closet? You didn’t clear that design change with me.”
“Ha-ha.” She propped her hip on the bank of cabinets behind her and hooked her hands along either side of her neck. Carefully, she circled her head, working kinks out of the muscles.
“Yes, I am very funny. Also very curious. Why are you hiding in here, instead of waiting at the bar for the perfect match I went to great pains to arrange for you?”
“Dad, can you please just…” An exasperated breath poured out of her, leaving her lungs empty, but when she tried to drag more air in, she burst into tears.
“Mon dieu. Arden.” He was at her side instantly, guiding her into the leather swivel chair in front of the monitors. “Sit. Tell me what’s wrong. You’re overwhelmed. Under too much pressure. Rafe hinted at this. Tell me who to throttle, and I’ll have it taken care of.”
“Dad.” She shook her head and tried again. “Dad, there is someone who needs to back off.”
“Who?” He knelt beside her chair. Eyes nearly identical to her own, but far more worldly, stared back at her with genuine concern and utter cluelessness.
“You.” She said it as gently as possible, then sniffled and waited for his reaction.
“Me? I don’t understand.”
“Ever since you stepped down from the board, you’ve been on me, questioning my decisions—”
“I’m taking an interest in your career,” he defended.
“You’re making me feel like you don’t trust me to do my job. Do you have a problem with my results?”
“Of course not. I enjoy discussing these things with you. I find it fascinating to understand why blue, and not gray. It’s a side of the business I never had the opportunity to give much attention to before, and—”
“You don’t care about gray versus blue, and you’re not just questioning my professional judgment. You’re literally in my face, or calling, or texting. You send me a half dozen ‘Where are you’ texts a day. It’s got to stop. You’re making me crazy.”
“Is it so wrong for a father to want to know his child is well? To feel he must keep vigilant in case some…some”—he muttered a rude word in French—“attempts to harass and blackmail her?”
Shit. This was where losing her temper with her father got her. “I’m fine.” She sniffled again and wiped her eyes.
“Yes. Yes. I can see. Obviously.”
“You have to give me some space, Dad. I know how to take care of myself. I can manage my own life.”
He sat back on his heels and gave a long-suffering sigh. “Fine for you, but then what will I do?”
She laughed. “Run a hotel?”
“Pfft.” His eyes scanned the ceiling. “Where is the fun in that?”
“You could, oh, I don’t know…call Mom and see what she’s up to?”
To her surprise, a hopeful little gleam came into his eyes, but then he schooled his face into a stern expression. “If your mother wishes to speak to me, tell her to—”
“Nope.” She shook her head. This was going to change, starting now. “I’m done mediating your relationship. If you want to say something to Mom, tell her yourself. Same goes for her. I’m not managing that aspect of your personal lives anymore.” She glanced at the monitor showing the lounge—no Nick. Hope swelled in her chest. “And I don’t need you managing any aspect of mine.”
Her father looked at the monitor as well. “You’ll thank me for this one small interference. The Templetons are trustworthy people, as well as excellent judges of character. They don’t merely love their nephew, they think highly of him. We’ve had very candid conversations, and I feel certain he’s an ideal match for you.”
“Yeah, well, I think your ideal match is going to stand me up.”
“He’s a few minutes late. One drawback to doctors…wait. Aha. There he is.”
Arden’s breath hitched as the monitor revealed Nick’s tall, unmistakable frame. He crossed the lounge and took a seat at the bar, scanning the room all the while. The flare of hope she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge flickered out, turning the remnants of her heart to ash in the process.
Oblivious to her pain, her father smiled like a horse breeder inspecting a Thoroughbred. “Tall, strong, smart, accomplished. And ready to settle down with the right woman, according to his aunt. What more could we want?” With a modest shrug, he added, “I have a sense of these things.”
Tears stung her eyes again at her father’s words. Nick was all of those, except the last. Or she wasn’t the right woman. It amounted to the same. “I know him,” she whispered. “It’s not going to work out. He’s not interested.”
“What?” Her father turned to her, eyebrows high. “What do you mean, he’s not interested?”
She shook her head and wiped her tears. The instinct to flee rather than confront returned in full force, driving her to her feet. It was time to leave. Past time. Her perfect Maui escape had left her devastated, and there was no way could she explain this to her father. “You’re going to have to take my word. I-I have a flight to catch. I need to go home.”
“You’re leaving? Now? He’s here. At least go say hello.”
Doorknob in hand, she turned and looked back at her father, and beyond him on the small screen, Nick. A cold, hollow ache settled somewhere under her lungs. “Trust me, Dad. I’m the last person he wants to see.”
…
Nick looked at the clock over the bar and tried to keep the fool’s grin off his face. One hour. No messages—he’d checked with the bartender and the front desk. Arden St. Sebastian had officially stood him up. Now it was time to find out why. After settling his tab, he walked to the lobby and helped himself to the stationery and pen available at the concierge desk.
Czarina,
I think it’s time we were properly introduced. I’m in the lobby.
Nick
He folded the note, placed it on top of the small gift-wrapped box he pulled from his pocket, and approached the front desk. The young clerk he’d spoken to earlier aimed a polite smile at him. “How can I help you, sir?”
Behind her, a dark-haired man in a suit stood flipping through correspondence.
He slid the note and box across the counter. “Could I have this delivered to a guest?”
“Certainly, sir.” She tapped a screen. “The guest’s name?”
“Arden St. Sebastian.”
From the corner of his eye he saw the older man’s head come up and swivel his way.
The clerk frowned. “I’m sorry, sir. Ms. St. Sebastian is no longer a guest with the resort.”
The bottom fell out of his stomach. He didn’t have her number, her home address. Nothing. “I—that’s—are you sure? I was supposed to meet her here…”
The clerk tapped the screen again. “She checked out this evening.”
Through a haze of growing panic at what he’d let slip through his fingers, he saw the older man approach. Nick focused on the clerk. “Did she leave any messages for—”
“Dr. Bancroft?”
He turned to the older man, unreasonably impatient with the interruption. “Yes. Sorry,” he said to the clerk, who shook her head to indicate Arden had left no messages. Fuck.
“Dr. Bancroft.” The dark-haired man spoke again.
People flowed in and out of the ER all the time. They tended to remember the doctor who treated them or their loved one, and often expected the same. Normally, he smiled and played along, but right now he had no patience for it. Look, old man, I don’t have time to reminisce about your kidney stones. “Have we met?”
The man extended a hand. “Luc St. Sebastian.”
Shit. He firmed his clasp and shook Arden’s father’s hand. “Good to meet you, sir.”
“Likewise. I understand you know my daughter.”
“I love her.” The words came out in a rush, with absolutely no positioning.
Luc’s smile turned strangely triumphant. “She was wrong. I am right. Children! When will they learn?”
“Excuse me?”
The man waved his hand. “Not important. Arden left for the airport an hour ago to fly home to Montenido. She was under the impression you were not interested in a relationship.”
“She’s wrong. There was a misunderstand—”
Luc closed his eyes and held up his hand, palm out. “I am not the one who requires an explanation. This would be best delivered to her. If you leave right now, you may be able to catch her.”
Nick bolted, then skidded back to the desk to get the box. It took an endless three minutes for the valet to bring his car around, and then a palm-sweating half hour to drive to the airport. He parked the Jeep in the loading zone and ran inside. A scan of the departing flights board narrowed the options to one. Wincing at the time, he jogged to the ticket counter and threw down his credit card, mentally tacking on the cost of getting his car out of impound. “Flight 217 to Los Angeles. No luggage to check.”
The friendly-faced islander gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, sir. That flight is closed.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. He sank his hands into his pockets to keep from pounding the counter, and his fingers encountered the box.
Fuck it.
“Put me on the next flight.”