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I hadn’t heard from her in over nine hours. She had to be okay, didn’t she?
Sunlight baked the back of my neck, and a bead of sweat trailed down my spine.
Maddox adjusted his sunglasses and gazed in the direction that had stolen my attention. He wore jeans and a Wonderland t-shirt with the silhouettes of a man and woman almost kissing and the words “Talk Wonderland to Me” above their heads.
Probably something that had been drummed up with all this social media attention he and his wife kept getting.
“Dude, are you sure about this?” he asked.
Rather than informing all of the others, I’d let only Maddox know of my idea to whisk her away. Even though I had my jet, I’d taken careful measures to hire a plane I hadn’t used before. New pilot. New everything in order to be less trackable. She just needed toshow up.
The only thing I kept the same was my staff. I’d arranged for their flights yesterday, almost right after I’d purchased the house. They signed their agreement to silence and then after I’d explained my concerns for Rosabel’s safety, they’d readily boarded to get the new lake house ready for our arrival.
“I’m not taking any chances,” I told Maddox. “Another note showed up. She is going to be right by my side as much as I can help it.”
Maddox planted his hands on his hips and though I couldn’t see his eyes through his sunglasses, I knew he stared me down.
“Have you told her that’s why you’re doing this? Or does she still think this is about your grandma?”
I thought of the mysterious notes tucked away in a folder in my bag. “I’m not going to tell her someone is after her because of me.”
“Why not?”
“Because then she’ll ask why.”
Maddox’s expression relaxed. He pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead and squinted at me with concern. “The truth’s got to come out sooner or later. Why not just tell her how you feel about her?”
“She would never talk to me again. I’d rather be with her and have her hating me than have that distance.”
Or, worse, have her be with someone else.
“That’s messed up.”
“What? If Adelie had wanted to be with someone else, you would?—”
“I would have let her,” Maddox said, resting a hand on the top of my car, which he would drive back to my house once we took off. “That’s what love means. You can’t control someone if you love them. Don’t you want her to be with you because she wants to?”
“That’s a stupid question.”
“It’s not.”
“Of course, I want her to want to be with me.”
“Because she wants to,” Maddox said. “Not because you’re offering her anything or holding anything over her.”
For some reason, this got to me. “I don’t do that.”
“We don’t know that Ulrich is behind this. We don’t have any concrete details. The notes could be spoofs. This could be nothing,” Maddox said.
Before he finished, I was already shaking my head. They weren’t spoofs. I refused to take that kind of chance and do nothing about this. If Grey was concerned about his brother’s escape, then I would be, too.
“Or, it could be something,” I said. “I’m not going to take that chance.”
“I still think you need to tell her.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said but didn’t mean it.
I had no intention of telling Rosabel what I was up to. I only cared that she came with me. And that she wasn’t here yet.
