AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Unsteady. She really didn’t like the sound of that. “Thanks, DeVaughn. Guess I’d better go check on him.”
“Don’t worry too much. Jason Mosedale was sitting next to him. If there was anything going on, Jason would have noticed.”
Right. That actually did ease her mind. If anything was wrong, Jason would have handled it.
Dominic crossed to the driver’s side window and said something to Ahmad. He was probably telling him to go back to her house so they could check on her father.
“He said he can break a few speed limits,” Dominic said when he came back to the passenger side. He opened the door and took her arm to tug her toward it. “We can still make it.”
“I can’t. I need to go back. Something’s wrong, I can feel it.”
“You’re being absurd. Call someone. Call that fire chief. That’s what he gets paid for, isn’t it? Say you need a wellness check.”
“Don’t talk about him like he’s a servant,” she snapped. It grated on her nerves, that condescending tone he took.
“I’m just saying—”
She cut him off. “I get it. I’m calling him now. Just…go back over there.” She gestured for him to step away from her.
“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath.
She dialed Jason’s number but got his voice mail. Why was no one answering their phones? Should she call nine-one-one dispatch and ask whoever was on duty to do a wellness check on her father? It seemed excessive, considering that she had no evidence that her father was in any kind of trouble. Most likely things had unfolded exactly as she imagined—he’d driven home and gone straight to bed. His phone was probably plugged in and charging, set to “do not disturb.”
A wellness check might scare him. She’d heard horror stories of wellness checks gone wrong. Luckily, every firefighter in Lake Bittersweet knew her father. That probably wasn’t a huge concern, but there was always a risk.
Do not disturb. There was a way to get past it, she suddenly remembered. You had to call twice in a row. She called Jason again, twice. No answer. Then her father, twice. No answer. Then finally she called the home phone, just in case his cell phone was still dead. No answer.
“We’ve got to go back to my house, Dominic. I can’t get through to Jason and my dad’s not answering any of his phones.”
“Absolutely not,” Dominic said sharply. “Kendra, listen to yourself. You’re being paranoid. We just left Lake Bittersweet an hour ago. What could possibly have happened in that amount of time?”
“I don’t know. Anything. Everything.”
He gazed into her eyes with that familiar intensity that used to absolutely liquefy her. “Where’s my logical queen? Won’t you feel like a fool when you get back and everything’s fine, and we’ve missed our flight and I have to explain to Colin Atwood that my brilliant partner has a paranoid streak and can’t be relied on and they’d better find someone else to head up Explastica?”
“I don’t care about any of that!” she cried.
Their argument had drawn the attention of Ahmad, who popped his head over the top of the Honda. “Is there a problem?”
“Ahmad, I need to go back to where you picked us up. Will you take me?”
“Scratch that,” said Dominic. “We’re not doing that. Get in the fucking car. Ahmad, we’re staying on track.”
“I’m not getting in that car unless you go where I tell you.” Kendra fixed Ahmad with a firm stare.
The poor driver gripped the frame of his Honda in a kind of panic. “I don’t know the rules. Will I get in trouble? I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m the one who booked you, so you answer to me,” said Dominic. “She’ll be fine, she’s just being hysterical.”
“Dominic, I swear to fucking God, if we don’t get to my father’s house in the next five minutes, I will not get on that plane with you. I will never go to London. I will never sell. You can tell Colin Atwood to go fuck himself.”
“We have to sell.”
For a flash, she caught rage and panic on his handsome face. Then it was gone. “This is your chance, too, Kendra. You can start new with a chunk of cash. I know you, you’ll love it in London. It’s fast-paced, high-stress, high-stakes. It’s everything you’ve always wanted.”
The quickly suppressed desperation in his voice told her there was more he wasn’t telling her. But it didn’t matter anymore. Because finally, for good, she was done with Dominic Robb.
“You think you know me so well, but you don’t. Because you never came to meet my father and therefore you have no idea how important he is to me. You only know one thing about me, that I want to succeed. And you use it to manipulate me.”
