Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Harrison
I went home and poured myself a drink. It was after ten p.m., and it surprised me that I didn’t hear from Athena. I went into my study, sat behind my desk, and looked up interior designers. This was getting ridiculous. I was growing tired of dealing with incompetent idiots. I couldn’t stop thinking about Adalyn and wondered how she was doing, so I called my sister.
“Hello, brother.”
“Did you go visit Adalyn?”
“Yes.”
“How is she doing?”
“Why do you care?”
“Athena,” I sighed. “Just answer the damn question.”
“She’s fine, Harrison. She’s leaving New York tomorrow after she gets out of the hospital. I hugged her and told her if she needed anything to call me. Why don't you visit her yourself if you’re so concerned?”
“I don’t have time. I have to go, Athena. I’ll see you tomorrow at the office.”
I grabbed my glass, poured another round of scotch, took it out to the balcony, and stared at the brightly lit city. Something was up with that woman, and I needed to find out what before she left. I saw it when I stared into her eyes and felt it when I carried her to the limo.
I awoke the next morning to the buzzing sound of my alarm. Reaching over, I grabbed my phone and shut it off. Climbing out of bed, I quickly showered, stopped at Starbucks for a coffee, and headed to the hospital. When I arrived, Adalyn sat in bed, looking at her phone.
“Good morning,” I spoke as I walked into the room.
“Hey, Harrison. Good morning.” A small smile crossed her lips. “Is that for me?”
“Umm. No.”
“You stopped at Starbucks, got yourself a coffee, and left me to drink this sludge?”
“I didn’t know you drank coffee. Sorry.”
She rolled her eyes, and I questioned why I even bothered stopping by.
“What are you doing here?”
“Athena told me you’re leaving today. I just wanted to drop by and see how you were feeling before I headed to the office.”
“I woke up. That’s a good sign.” She grinned.
“Very funny. Didn’t you say you had one last thing to do before you left?”
“Yes. Why?”
“What exactly do you have to do?”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business, Harrison.”
“Actually, Miss Banks, it is. I saved your life yesterday. I offered you a ride back to your hotel after that incident in the restaurant, and you told me I would be wise to stay away from you. You said you were cursed with bad luck, and I want to know what you mean by that.”
“Like I told you yesterday, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me. Let me make that decision.”
“You’ll think I’m certifiably crazy.”
“Again, let me make that decision for myself.”
“Then, by all means, have a seat.”
I walked over to the chair next to the bed and took a seat.
“Coffee, please.” She held out her hand.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. I need to be fully fueled to tell this story.”
I sighed as I handed her my coffee cup.
“It all started when I went to Antigua with my boyfriend and found a beautiful diamond ring nestled between two pieces of coral while scuba diving.”
“You have a boyfriend?” I asked.
“Not anymore. Let me finish. I put the ring on, and it was a perfect fit. I couldn’t believe I had found such a treasure. It was my thirtieth birthday, and we’d been home for two weeks. I went to work that morning, and my boss fired me. When I got home, I found my boyfriend packing his bags to leave me. He met a woman when we returned from Antigua; apparently, it was his soulmate. I bet you don’t think my life could get any worse, right? Wrong. A week later, a fire broke out in my apartment building and burned to the ground along with all my belongings. Then my credit card information was stolen, and I dropped my phone, and someone on a bike ran over it before I could pick it up. I also came down with a sinus infection, and the pharmacy gave me the wrong medication, and I had an allergic reaction and ended up in the ER. Then I got stuck next to a smelly pompous ass on the flight here who tried to impose his rules on me. My luggage, the only luggage from my flight, was on a plane to Texas. I came here only to find out that the hotel I booked at a special rate was not approved by the hotel, and they ended up charging me fifty dollars more a night. Then the waiter spilled all his drinks on me, and I was almost roadkill, injuring my ankle and my head and ending up in the hospital for an overnight stay with no insurance.”
I sat there and took in every word she said, finding it hard to believe any of it.
“So, you’re saying that bad stuff happened to you because of a ring?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying because my life was easy peasy, and all was right in the world until I found that damn thing.”
“Do you have any idea how that sounds?”
“Yeah, I do. Crazy!”
“Why did you come to New York?”
“Because I was trying to find the owner of the ring. There’s an inscription on the inside along with the name of the designer who designed the ring. I tracked him here to a custom jewelry shop. When I went there yesterday, I discovered he had passed away ten years ago, and it was a dead end.
“Wait a minute.” I shook my head. “You were seriously trying to find the owner of that ring?”
“Yes. I either had to get rid of the ring or return it to its owner. That ring had to have meant something to her, and if I could give it back, all the bad luck I had would have been worth it. But since I’ll never find her, I need to get rid of the ring before I leave New York, and that’s what I intend to do when I get out of here. If I get rid of the ring, the bad luck goes away with it.”
“Again, do you know how crazy all this sounds? There is no way in hell a piece of jewelry is responsible for all of your bad luck.”
“I know it’s hard to believe. But you would believe it if you were in my shoes.”