8. Scheduled Delusions #2
The handler tucked the tablet under his arm and held out his hand. His hesitation irritated me more than it should have. Buying jewelry was hardly a crisis, yet everyone around me had become so trained to Reid’s priorities that even a personal errand required a negotiation.
“I don’t care about the talking points right now,” I said. “Take my card, buy the bracelet, and bring it directly to my suite before we head back down to the party.”
I slid the card into his hand.
He looked at it, then back at me. “You want the one from the front window specifically?”
“Yes.”
“White gold? Diamond line setting?”
“That’s the one.”
He nodded and tucked the card into the inside pocket of his coat. “Understood, Mr. Callahan. I will handle it personally and meet you upstairs in fifteen minutes.”
“Good.”
Maybe the gift was excessive. Piper had never measured anything between us in dollars, and she had spent years rolling her eyes whenever Reid tried to solve discomfort with luxury.
Still, I needed something that proved I had been thinking about her.
Something that said I understood I had failed her badly enough that a casual apology would not cover it.
I told myself the bracelet would say that.
The lobby doors opened again, and a member of security leaned inside from the back hall.
“Mr. Callahan, your vehicle is staged out front.”
I looked toward the main entrance, where photographers still crowded the sidewalk beyond the glass. The last thing I wanted was another walk through the cameras after the interview I had just given.
“Thank you. Tell the driver to pull the car around to the alley exit.”
The security guard nodded and disappeared down the corridor.
My handler lifted the tablet again. “I’ll go straight to the boutique. If Reid calls—”
“Let him call.”
He gave me one last look, then turned toward the opposite exit.
I headed for the alley exit, certain I had finally started fixing one part of the mess.
The penthouse door shut behind me, and the city disappeared.
No fans. No photographers. No reporters asking whether Sloane and I were sleeping together. The suite swallowed all of it, leaving me with the faint hum of the climate control and the remains of an evening I already wanted finished.
I stripped off my jacket and dropped it across the nearest chair. I yanked my tie halfway down, pulling the collar away from my throat as I crossed toward the bedroom.
“Ten minutes,” I muttered.
That was apparently all the time I needed to become presentable again, return downstairs, smile at another room full of executives, and pretend the night had not already lasted a week.
The charcoal suit had been laid across the bed for me. I had one hand on the first shirt button when a knock sounded from the entry.
I stopped.
Another knock followed.
The handler had made good time.
I crossed back through the suite and opened the door. He stood in the hallway with his tablet tucked beneath one arm and a black velvet box in his other hand.
“You got it?”
“The exact one from the window.”
“And my card?”
He shifted the box, reached into his coat, and held the card out to me.
“The boutique gift-wrapped the box, sir. I also took the liberty of laying out your charcoal suit for the VIP reception.”
“I noticed.”
I slid the card into my pocket before taking the box from him.
For once, the schedule stopped mattering.
The handler started reviewing something on the tablet, but I had already stepped away from the doorway. I opened the box under the chandelier, and a line of diamonds caught the light against the black lining.
It was beautiful.
More importantly, it looked substantial.
Not flashy in the way Reid liked. Not some ridiculous statement piece meant for a photo spread. The bracelet was simple enough that Piper might actually keep it on, even if she complained about what it cost.
That thought almost made me smile.
She had never understood why anyone needed jewelry that expensive. On our first anniversary after the draft, I had offered to take her anywhere in the world, and she had wanted takeout on the couch because I finally had a weekend without mandatory appearances.
I should have remembered that before tonight.
Instead, I stared down at the bracelet and told myself this was different.
This was not about buying forgiveness.
At least, that was what I wanted to believe.
It was proof that I had thought about her while everything else had been pulling at me. Proof that once the playoffs ended, I was going to find her, sit her down, and explain the parts I should have explained four months ago.
I could apologize without Reid in the room.
Without cameras.
Without Sloane.
The bracelet would just be the first thing I gave her before I started saying everything else.
“I’ll just leave the box on the table,” I said. “This is exactly what I needed to smooth things over with Piper when the playoffs are over.”
The handler paused over the tablet.
“It is a beautiful piece, sir. Shall I head downstairs and tell Reid you will be down in ten minutes?”
I closed the box and set it beside me.
“Tell him I’m changing now.”
“I’ll let him know.”
He lingered near the door as if waiting for another instruction, but I had already opened it again.
The diamonds looked even better the second time.
Finally, I had something in my hands that seemed capable of fixing what I had broken.
The handler had one hand on the door when a man in a plain suit stepped into the hall behind him.
“Sir, give me one second.”
The handler turned sideways and blocked the doorway. The stranger stopped in the hall, one hand holding a cardboard envelope against his side.
“I only need to speak with Mr. Callahan.”
“You need to go back to security.”
I closed the bracelet box and set it on the table beside me. Whatever this was, I wanted it dealt with before Reid found another reason to call upstairs.
The stranger looked past the handler toward me.
“Excuse me. Mr. Nolan Callahan? I need you to confirm your identity.”
“Hey, you can’t be up here,” the handler said. “This floor is completely restricted to private access.”
The man made no move to argue with him. He just kept his attention on me and held the envelope where I could see it.
Another problem. Another person who wanted something.
“It’s fine, relax. I am Nolan Callahan.”
The handler turned toward me. “Sir, security should have cleared him before—”
“What is this?”
The stranger reached past him and extended the envelope.
“Everything you need is inside.”
I took it.
There was no logo I recognized, no sponsor mark, no team letterhead. Just my name on the front and the kind of printed address label that made the whole thing look ordinary.
The handler stared at the envelope as if he could identify it from across the room.
“Do you need Mr. Callahan to sign anything?”
“No signature required, sir. You have officially been served. Have a good evening.”
He turned before either of us could respond and walked back down the hall.
The handler leaned out after him. “Who let you onto this floor?”
The man kept walking.
“Leave it,” I said.
The handler came back inside and pulled the door shut. “I’m calling hotel security.”
“You can call them after I figure out what this is.”
The cardboard resisted along the glued edge when I tried to tear it open. I hooked a thumb beneath the flap and ripped through it instead, leaving a crooked strip hanging from the side.
A stack of papers slid into my hand.
Legal text covered the first page. Case numbers. Court language. Names arranged in blocks that meant nothing at first because I was skimming too fast.
The handler shifted closer.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know yet.”
I looked back to the top.
“Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.”
I stopped reading.
The words didn’t change.
I flattened the first page against the rest of the stack and started again from the top, slower this time.
“Petition for Dissolution of Marriage.”
“No.”
The handler looked up from his tablet. “Sir?”
I read the next section.
Petitioner.
My thumb slipped down the margin, and I lost my place. I found it again and forced myself to keep going.
“Piper Mercer Callahan.”
Her full name looked wrong in that font. Too formal. Too distant. Piper’s name belonged on takeout receipts left beside the sink, birthday cards shoved into kitchen drawers, the return label on the Christmas packages she insisted on mailing herself.
Not this.
The handler lowered his voice.
“Is that from your wife’s attorney?”
I did not answer him.
The next block listed contact information.
An address.
I read it once and understood none of it.
Then again.
“Osprey Bluff Marina, Florida Keys.”
A marina.
I went back to Piper’s name, then down to the address again as if one of them might change if I checked enough times.
It did not.
Four months.
For four months, I had been telling myself she was angry. That she needed space. That eventually she would answer one of my calls, or come home, or at least send somebody a message telling me where the hell she was.
Reid had called it a tantrum.
I had believed him because believing him had made my life easier.
The paper in my hands said otherwise.
She had not been drifting between beach hotels waiting to cool off. She had an address. Somewhere with a name. Somewhere far enough away from me that I had stood on a red carpet that night pretending to flirt with another woman while my wife’s attorney arranged to have me served.
I looked toward the table.