Chapter 40
The fucking meeting went on too long. Those fucking fuckers wouldn’t shut the fuck up about their fucking projections that were so fucking far off it’s laughable.
Which I explained to them—possibly not as patiently as I could have.
It’s a miracle I didn’t throttle someone.
In the end, I was very close to ripping up their fucking proposal and telling them I didn’t give a flying fuck about their moronic concerns.
I’m right, they’re fucking wrong, and that’s all there is to it.
In the end they might have realized how much money they were about to lose if they pushed me too far.
They were beginning to detect my quickly-shortening fuse.
They finally accepted my terms and we wrapped things up.
As soon as I get back to the apartment, I can sense immediately that something is wrong. Her presence is so shimmery and wide-open, pouring its light into every dark corner, I can tell instantly she’s not here.
I search for her anyway, barreling into the bedroom like a rampaging bull. “Amelie?”
Her phone is on the bedside table.
She must be here.
I check the bathroom. The walk-in closet. The balcony. The kitchen.
Nothing.
“Amelie?”
Maybe she’s exploring. I check the theater room. The bar. The second lounge. The guest bedroom. Another guest bedroom. I check my office. She’s not here but something else catches my eye. One of my briefcases is lying on its side, papers spilling onto the floor.
It’s the paperwork for the purchase of her hotel.
Fuck.
Another surprise I had for her. She said she hates surprises, but I was absolutely sure she’d love this one. I’ve spent weeks sneaking around fielding phone calls to push the multiple deals through. I was going to tell her about it tonight.
Surely she’d be happy with this discovery. Over the moon.
Why isn’t she waiting here for me with a huge smile on her exquisite face, beaming at me with unfiltered joy?
It doesn’t look like the booklet of papers has even been opened. There are no hints of a fold around the staples.
She only saw the first page.
Name of Purchaser: Dallas J. Wilder
Name of Establishment: The Hotel Thibodeaux
Bourbon Street
The French Quarter
New Orleans
If she’d flipped to the second page, she would have seen more. Dated earlier this week.
Name of Owner(s): Amelie S. Thibodeaux (99%); Dallas J. Wilder (1%)
Cash payment in full
And if she’d flipped further, she would have seen even more. All of it for her.
My brain scrambles to decode what she might have assumed here. Did she think I bought the hotel … for myself? I realize she has some serious trust issues and for good reason but … didn’t she believe anything I told her? At all?
Fuck!
She’s mad at me?
She must be more than mad.
If she’s gone and her phone is still here … it’s because she knows I would have tracked her.
She left me? She fucking left me?
No no no no no no no no no no no no no NO.
I grab the stack of papers and fold them as I run, shoving them into the jacket of my pocket.
I find her phone and try to unlock it. Maybe her messages will give me some kind of clue as to where she might have gone, if I can only access them.
But it’s locked. I don’t even know her birthday, if she might have used the date.
How could I not fucking know that? Why didn’t I fucking ask her?
I remember her mentioning at one point that she’s an Aries, like I am, but that doesn’t help me.
There’s so much left for us to learn about each other, and to get to know. And I want to learn all of it. I want to spend the rest of my life learning everything there is to discover about my perfect, beautiful girl.
But she’s gone.
I jam her phone in my other pocket and I head for the elevator.
I consider taking the stairs but we’re on the fucking 44th floor.
The elevator is faster, even though it feels like it’s suddenly moving at an ancient glacial snail’s pace.
When it finally arrives at the lobby I squeeze through the doors as they’re opening and run toward the front entrance of my building.
Two people are coming in.
I don’t even recognize them at first. My doormen? I should fucking fire them! Why didn’t they stop her? But they’re not even working at this time of night. I didn’t think she’d leave me. I never imagined in a million years she’d walk out on me. Because we’re meant for each other. She’s mine.
But I’ve failed. I couldn’t keep her here.
It’s a mistake I will never, ever make again.
“Dally?”
The nickname jars me out of my white-hot desperation for a split second.
My brothers. They have the door code.
In my enraged, heart-broken mania, instead of hugging them, I grab the fronts of their shirts in both my fists. “She fucking left me. I have to find her.”
They’re both wide-eyed, any amusement overridden by alarm at the state of me.
“The girl you disappeared with for a month?” Apollo’s blue eyes are round with concern, at my crazy behavior.
Eyes that look almost shockingly, in the moment, like our mother’s.
Because of her, we know all too well about crazy behavior, so I guess it makes sense for them to be concerned.
“Duh,” Boone replies to Apollo’s question. “We’re here for you, bro. We’re going to help you find her.”
I stare at him blindly and barely nod. Some deep corner of my soul is overjoyed to see them—they’re my brothers and I don’t get to see them enough—but all I can register right now is that “I have to find her.” I run out the door with Apollo and Boone following close behind me.
There’s no car waiting.
Where the fuck is my fucking driver? I remember I told him I’d let him know when we were ready to go out tonight.
Which I assumed would be an hour from now, at least. I was planning on taking some time before we went out to …
kiss her. Get my fix. Until she was coming around me and I was spilling myself inside her again, doing everything in my power to fucking breed her.
Because I love her so much and all I want to do is keep her.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK.
Please don’t be hurt. Please don’t be scared.
Where the fuck are you, Boo?
I run out into the street to hail a cab, which honks at me, swerving around me before another one pulls up to the curb. I get in and my brothers scramble in next to me.
“Where to?” asks the driver.
It’s a good question. My brain, which I’ve always considered a reasonably good one, stalls. It reaches for any clue, any morsel of information that might help me. I don’t have Sadie’s number. Did Sadie mention where her sister lives? Queens, she said. But they were going out tonight. To a club.
And there, a glimmer of a memory. I was pissed off. I coerced Amelie into waiting for me. She finally promised me. And she was explaining Sadie’s plan. She texted me about going shopping then out to a club tonight with her sister. Something about the East Village.
“The East Village,” I yell, like I’ve just solved some cryptic puzzle that has the power to save the world. And I have. At least, my world.
“Any particular address?” the taxi driver wisecracks, but we’re pulling away from the curb now. We’re getting closer to her. Fucking fuck. I feel like a fish out of water. Like I’m not getting enough air because Amelie Thibodeaux is out there somewhere and I don’t fucking know where.
“A club.” I glance at Apollo, then Boone, digging deeper for more clues. It’s this club with a Caribbean vibe her sister wants to show her. “What club in the East Village has a Caribbean vibe?” Thank fuck for Sadie and her overzealous descriptions.
Apollo shrugs. “I don’t really go to clubs. I get mobbed.”
“I know the one,” Boone says, and I almost hug him. “There are four good clubs in the East Village and they’re all within a few blocks of each other. Two of them have that tropical theme, but one more than the other.” Boone googles it and gives the driver an address. “We’ll start there.”
Thank you thank you thank you.
Please be there, baby. Please.
This gives me a chance to look at one, then the other, of my two youngest brothers.
They look good. They look filled-out and healthy.
Their eyes aren’t glazed and they don’t have that strung-out exhaustion behind their expression—the measure of someone who’s spiraling, which we all learned to watch out for in our mother. And then our father.
They don’t have that look. Apollo looks like the movie star he is.
He’s sun-tanned and has that L.A. thing going on.
He’s obviously been working out and spending up large on everything he’s wearing.
Boone has the family good looks too, and also his very own brand of charm and charisma that I always thought was the best of us. “It’s good to see you both.”
Apollo pats me on the back. “We came to check up on you. Looks like it’s a good thing we did.” We keep tabs on each other. We notice when something’s not right because of the way we were raised. Things were constantly not right and you learn to try to pre-empt that shit, if it’s possible.
Who knew it would be me who spiraled. Not from drugs or alcohol but from the effects of a sassy little goddess from New Orleans.
One who I absolutely can’t bear to spend a single second of my life without. Where are you, baby girl?????????? I can’t fucking handle this.
“Who are you and what have you done with our work-obsessed, incapable-of-falling-in-love brother?” Boone jokes.
“Do you want a job?” I ask him. Until I get my Amelie Thibodeaux back, any ability I have to summon a sense of humor has apparently left the building.
But my offer is genuine. Boone is smart.
He’ll turn twenty-seven soon and he already has an impressive real estate portfolio.
He’s also acted in a couple of movies. Even though Apollo’s the one who’s made it into a career, all four of us get offered roles on a regular basis.
Boone’s taken a few of those offers and is starting to make his own name for himself.
Boone also knows his way around an investment spreadsheet, partly through osmosis because I handle all of my brothers’ investments and he was always the one most interested in what I was doing.
And I suddenly don’t want to be a workaholic anymore.
I want to spend all my time with Amelie Thibodeaux, basking in her golden glow.
If I can find her.
Fucking PLEASE don’t disappear on me. Whatever I did or didn’t do, I’ll make it up to you. God, universe, please just let me fucking FIND her. “Can you drive any faster?” I ask the driver gruffly, impressed with myself for not swearing, ringing his neck or punching something.
“Not unless you have the power of levitation and can fly us to the East Village, chief,” the driver replies.
The guy’s a regular fucking comedian. But there’s not a damn thing I can do to speed up our pace so I have no choice but to wait.
I mentally weigh up jumping out of the car and sprinting to the East Village but we’re not close enough yet. This will still be faster.
“What, as CEO?” Apollo chuckles at the question I just asked Boone.
“Yes. I’ll act as co-CEO-at-large and advisor. I’ll teach you everything.”
Boone considers this for a second. I happen to know he’s been at a loose end for a while, playing every field, both romantically and professionally.
We had a deep and meaningful talk a while ago about whether he wants to commit to something but he doesn’t feel like he’s found a perfect fit, in either department.
He’d be far better at the dealing-with-people part of the job than I’ve ever been.
He’s got more natural charm than anyone I’ve ever met. “Okay,” he grins at me.
If I wasn’t drowning in withdrawal symptoms and the most cutting kind of worry and panic I’ve ever known, I’d smile. As it is, all I can manage is a brief nod. “Good.”
But then I notice the traffic has come to a standstill. We’re not moving.
And we’re close enough.
“Let’s go,” I tell my brothers, pulling a couple hundred-dollar bills off the roll of them I always carry in my pocket and handing them to the driver.
Then we’re out of the taxi and running through the East Village like a trio of maniacs who just escaped from an insane asylum.
Which is where I’m going to end up if I don’t find her. Some sixth sense tells me something’s wrong. That something’s going to happen. That she needs me.
My perfect little gorgeous love of my life, I’m coming. Just stay safe for me until I get there. Please.