Chapter 51
NO SERVICE
AURORA
There was definitely no relaxation happening in the oversized penthouse suite of the luxury hotel in downtown Charlotte.
Linette had a key to my suite and used it to bring me things at random intervals.
My boots from the dressing room, because hello, you idiot, that’s where one of the tracking devices is.
And everything from having room service delivered to coming in with shopping bags and boxes emblazoned with the unfamiliar logos of Loro Piana, Brioni, Theory, and Everlane.
I hated every scrap of clothing she picked and may have gotten a little snippy about being dressed up like a doll. There's only so much chiffon and turtlenecks a girl can take.
I slept in pure silk—or at least pretended to—and woke to an outfit already set out for me in the dressing room, all my complaints the previous day ignored.
But at least the simple black dress made of soft linen fabric with a skinny brown belt and sandals to match isn't as heinous as the pencil skirt and turtleneck combo she tried to foist on me yesterday.
I'll have to be more firm in explaining to Ambrose's staff that I'm perfectly fucking capable of selecting my own outfits.
At least I had Maisie to keep me company.
Her texts came with a velocity that can only be accomplished with Olympian-level typing speeds.
She saw the announcements and demanded an explanation.
Between texting and the thirty-minute-long phone call, we were up until almost one in the morning talking.
I figured it would help my cover if Ambrose was listening.
But learning that Professor Ryan got jumped was wholly unexpected. It was hard not to let my spiteful glee come through in my reply to that one.
Maisie said it was karma for being a total dick about my paper, but I think it might've been something—or someone—a little more real. I'll have to ask him about it when it's safe to, though I can already picture Daddicus denying any and all allegations. He did say he works better from the shadows…
The mad rush started at 5:30 in the morning, and by 7:10, I was buckled into a seat on Ambrose De La Rosa's private jet. Six and a half hours and one accidental nap later, and here we are. Spain.
Costa Brava.
With the time difference, the sun has all but set as Ambrose's driver chauffeurs us from the airport. He answers emails on his phone, pausing every so often to point out landmarks and offer me empty reassurances that he's 'managing things'.
I barely have the energy to nod, much less reply, still so groggy from passing out on his jet that my eyes fight to stay open.
I don't start to worry too much until the city's lights have long faded behind us and the road becomes narrower and less populated. Then each mile starts to feel like another emergency exit door closing behind me.
Thinking that the guys should already be here, somewhere along this coast, maybe even a short distance from where I am right now, brings me some calm.
It takes a solid fifteen minutes for me to work up the resolve to ask, "Is your place very far from the city?"
"Hm?"
Illuminated by his phone screen on the other side of the long leather bench seat, I watch him carefully as he pulls his attention from whatever he'd been reading and his expression morphs. "It's another hour or so down the coast."
"So remote," I comment, trying not to let my discomfort show even though I think that would be at least somewhat reasonable given the nature of the situation.
"Hm, yes." He's back to his screen. "I like my privacy."
Privacy.
The word settles in my gut like a swallowed stone.
Out here, there would be no one but his driver to hear me scream.
I shiver and draw the jacket from the seat next to me, laying it over my lap like a blanket.
I understand why Linette sent me off with it, now. I wrongly assumed Spain would be hot all the time. But no. Apparently, at night it gets fucking cold. And the later it gets and the farther north we go, the colder it seems to get.
Ambrose's brow wrinkles as he watches me pull it up to cover my arms.
"Are you cold?"
He doesn't wait for me to reply before uncovering a panel containing several buttons and dials.
"Only a little."
Heat gushes from a vent in the ceiling and one somewhere by my feet, pumping warm air into the cabin of the luxury car.
"Better?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
"Why don't you rest a little more? I can wake you when we arrive. You look tired."
I give him a grateful smile and lie back heavily in the seat. I have no intention of sleeping with him two feet away from me, but I can at least get comfortable if I'm going to be stuck in this car another hour.
I pull the jacket up higher, using it as a makeshift blanket as I settle in.
We pass a sign with the names of cities and towns with too many syllables for me to even attempt to pronounce, and I'm grateful that the tracker in my bra will provide all the coordinates the guys need to find out exactly where Ambrose's private villa is located.
But…wait. I don't feel it.
I shift my arm against the side of my left breast, where I put it after we bypassed security and before we got on the jet.
It was uncomfortable as fuck. Like a hard little rock was stuck there.
I almost went to the bathroom to move it somewhere else, but my options were limited, so I left it.
And then after we had the breakfast service, I passed out and…
My lips part on a shuddering breath as I press harder into my tit with my arm, trying to feel the little pebble-shaped tracking device.
What the fuck?
I shift beneath the jacket, making sure it's covering my chest fully before I go spelunking in my bra for a fucking tracking device.
But there's nothing there.
Did I move it?
No.
No, I didn't. I definitely didn't. I remember how annoying it felt there while I was dozing off after we ate.
Fuck.
It couldn't have fallen out, could it?
My pulse picks up, and I work to control my breathing, but when Ambrose reaches a hand out to clutch my shoulder, I jerk back.
"Is everything all right?"
I snap my mouth closed and force a pleasant smile as Ambrose's gaze narrows on my face.
"Yeah." I lick my dry lips, swallow. "Yeah, fine. Just tired. I'm not great with planes."
"Oh, yes. I remember. You mentioned before." He sets his phone down, and without its light, the back of the car darkens. "My staff should have a meal prepared and your room ready by the time we arrive."
He flips down the middle seat between us, revealing a panel that opens, spilling light into the cabin from a tiny hidden refrigerator. It has several bottles of water and champagne…because rich people.
He hands me a bottle of water. "Flying can be dehydrating, here."
I take the water, but when I go to open it, I note how the seal is already broken, and my blood goes cold.
Why isn't it sealed? My mind races, thinking back to the plane. How I didn't mean to fall asleep, but I did, anyway.
I check in with myself, pulse thrumming in my ears. I've been drugged before. I know the feeling. The hangover-like effects of it, but there are none of those. I've been groggy since I woke up, but not sleeping at all last night could be the reason.
It could've fallen out of my bra. It might be on the seat.
I console myself with the thought that if Ambrose had found it, he wouldn't be making sure I'm warm and hydrated. He'd be asking his armed driver to feed me a bullet.
Ambrose cocks his head at me, but I twist the cap back on the water and set the bottle down on my lap, casting my attention back to the dark Spanish countryside.
When I'm sure he's back to being busy with his phone, I start a slow search of the seat around me, carefully feeling for the tracker, panic rising with every sweep of my fingers over luxury leather.
But it's not here.
It's gone.
As promised, less than an hour later, we arrive.
Without the tracking device, I've been memorizing every road sign. It wasn't hard since there were only two, and in the last thirty minutes, none at all. I know we're at least generally near someplace called Cadaques.
I know that the estate, a gated, sprawling ivory mansion with a brown clay roof and arched terraces, is set on the edge of a jagged cliffside over the sea.
It's too dark to make out more than the small whitecaps in the distance as the moonlight hits them. It smells of salt and earth and the flowers growing on spindly vines up the walls of the villa.
"Welcome home," Ambrose says as I step out of the car in the private motor court and stare up at the nine-foot-tall wooden entry door. It does seem somehow…familiar.
And that smell—the flowers and the sea. I breathe it in again and try to picture a miniature version of myself here. A two-year-old girl running along the white stone pathway, her dark hair blowing in the warm breeze. A woman chasing her. Laughing.
My chest aches.
When the driver shuts my door behind me, I go to retrieve my backpack from the trunk, but Ambrose stops me.
"My staff will bring everything in for you," he says. "Come, I'll show you where you'll be staying. Are you hungry?"
Not even a little bit. "Not really."
"That's all right," he says, but I can sense a note of disappointment in his tone. "I have some appointments in the afternoon tomorrow, but we can do a proper tour in the morning once you're settled."
I nod and smile, glancing back in time to see the driver sling my bag onto his shoulder and lift the obnoxious Louis Vuitton trunk Linette packed for me onto the pathway.
At least I have my phone on me. In a panic, I feel around for the pocket of the jacket slung over my arm, and sag in relief when the hard rectangle of the device residing there kisses my fingers.
Ambrose leads me into the grand entryway. It's warmer inside, and the sound of my heeled sandals echoes into the vaulted ceiling.