Chapter 17 #2
He huffed a dry laugh. “Yeah, right. What’s her flight info?” he asked, moving to his desk.
“Don’t know, why?”
“Guess we’ll just have to ask her.” He changed course and headed into his room.
“What are you doing?” Nadia asked, following him.
He threw a duffel bag onto the bed and scooped clothes from his dresser.
“What are you doing?” she asked again with a sharp edge of panic.
“Packing.”
“Packing?” she shrieked. “You’re supposed to talk her out of going, not GO WITH!” Alarmed, she tailed him into the minuscule bathroom. Good grief, the space was the width of her elbows. He packed up his toiletries and abruptly turned into her.
“Whoa. Personal space.”
Nadia backed up out of his way. He dropped the toiletries bag into his duffel and started sorting through his camera bag, inspecting his equipment. “Be real, Nadia. We both know she won’t listen to me either, not if her mind’s set.”
“Would you at least try?”
He zipped his bags and grabbed the handles. “Waste of time.” He flicked off the light and left the room.
“What’s wrong with you? We can’t just let her go!” She rarely wigged out, but she was almost in full panic mode. Aimee could not find James. It would be bad for all of them. James especially.
“We can.” Ian pocketed his wallet and keys.
“She’ll never get over him if she doesn’t go and see for herself.
” He opened a lock box and pocketed his passport too.
Then he turned to her, his face going deadly serious.
A shadow darkened his amber eyes. “Here’s the thing I don’t think you understand, Nadia, and this is where Aimee and I are on the same page.
If there was the remote possibility someone I loved didn’t die, but is very much alive, I’d search the ends of the earth for her.
And there is nothing you could do to stop me.
So, no. I’m not going to convince her otherwise. She’s going, and I’m going with her.”
“Ian…” Nadia stared at him, showing no outward reaction at this startling turn of events. But inside? She was flushed, on the brink of burning up. Hot, sick, and at a complete and absolute loss over how she could regain control of this situation.
“Besides,” Ian said, turning to look over his shoulder at her as he headed for the door. “I might have my own reasons for going.”
This time, he let her see exactly what he felt for Aimee. He was in love with her.
And that right there changed Nadia’s mind. She’d let Aimee go. She might actually find James. But with Ian there, she’d remain levelheaded. She hopefully wouldn’t do anything rash to endanger herself.
Ian would fight for her.
And James? He’d remain where he was. Hidden within witness protection. Safe. They’d all be safe.
Ian opened the door. “You driving?”
“Yes, but you’re waiting outside while I talk to Aimee, ease her into the idea of you going with her, or she’ll think we’re ambushing her.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
Nadia grumbled under her breath, moving by him.
She couldn’t believe she was going along with this.
Aimee locating James and returning home with him was only a remote possibility, especially when Thomas got wind of what was happening.
More likely, the trip would be a bust. Aimee would return home, convinced James was dead.
She’d finally move on. And if Ian had his way, she might even notice that someone very special adored her.
Probably more than James ever had or could.
What she’d foolhardily and uncharacteristically dismissed had been Thomas’s assurance James had been well hidden. Because two days later, she was sitting in her office stunned, having just gotten off the phone with Kristen. Aimee had found James.
She’d found him.
Or she believed she had. She’d told Kristen that he looked different, which tracked with what Thomas once told Nadia.
James had had reconstructive facial surgery since he’d been beaten near to death.
He didn’t look like his old self, and that had been intentional.
Thomas had wanted his brother unrecognizable.
But Aimee had found him.
What did this mean for them?
Gawd. Would Nadia be able to look at her again, especially with James at her side, without confessing she’d known about him all along?
The urge to spill her secrets, to grovel on her knees apologizing, begging her forgiveness that she’d let her suffer for months, bubbled up her throat. Thick and viscous.
Her office door opened and closed. She spun her chair away from the window she’d been staring out to face who’d dare enter her personal space without knocking.
Thomas stalked across the tightly woven carpet she’d personally selected for its calming hues. He planted his fists on her desk and leaned in until their noses almost touched. Underneath the notes of whiskey and cigar smoke, the woodsy scent of him enveloped her.
“What the devil is she doing in Mexico?”
Nadia’s spine stiffened upright, putting several inches between them. “Get out of my face.”
“Nadia!” He pounded her desk.
She refused to react. “I assumed your question was rhetorical. We both know why she’s there.”
“Did you know?”
She met his hot, paranoid gaze. “Yes,” she said after a beat. She pushed back her chair and stood to her full height. Thomas sprang upright. She wore four-inch heels which put her at almost eye level with him as he glared daggers at her.
“You should have warned me.”
“I don’t answer to you.”
“In this matter, you do,” he shot back. “This is bigger than us, Nadia.” He ran his hands through his hair which was grayer than the last time she’d seen him.
More months than she cared to count. He’d been contending with the raid at Donato Enterprises, doing what he could to remain one step ahead of the damage, but rapidly falling behind from what she’d read.
The news all but destroyed the company and family’s reputation.
She should have called him, checked in. Let him know she cared. Given what he’d sacrificed for her mom and her, she did owe him, at least that much.
Thomas paced.
“I’m very much aware of that. But Aimee wasn’t moving forward like you and me both tried to coax her to do. She’s apparently been convinced James never died. She never shared that with Kristen and me. In all honesty, I didn’t think she’d find him. You said he was well hidden.”
“Obviously not if Aimee of all people figured it out.” He whipped around and prowled back to her, fuming. “You swear you didn’t tell her?”
Nadia nodded tightly.
“Who did?”
She came around to his side and leaned back against her desk, her hands grasping the edge, legs crossed at the ankle. “She didn’t say.”
“Guess,” he barked.
“Lacy, the woman I told you about who tracked Aimee down at the funeral. Kristen says she’d been harassing Aimee on and off, sending clues.”
“I know who she is.”
“She finally sent Aimee something convincing enough to get her to book a last-minute flight to Puerto Escondido.”
Thomas aggressively rubbed at his face as he restlessly paced.
“Who is Lacy?”
“Imelda’s friend.”
“And Imelda is…?”
“Never mind. Long story.” Thomas sliced a hand through the air and dropped into the chair in front of her.
He was a shadow of his former self. The media had dragged him through the mud along with his company.
James’s discovery always had to have been a worry in the back of his mind.
But with all the recent arrests and the media switching their focus away from the Hidalgos and onto something new and scathing as it always did, shouldn’t it now be safe for James to return home? Shouldn’t they all be safe?
She asked him just that and he shook his head. “Prisons don’t keep people like Ruiz from issuing kill orders. And you forget, James isn’t James anymore.”
Nadia stared. “He never regained his memory?”