Page 5 of The Billionaire's Lost Family

This was the only hotel in the small town. Several of the resorts that had popped up during her short search were much more enticing than this simple room with its bare, white walls, and gray carpet, with the faded curtains covering the window, but she wasn’t about to complain. This trip wasn’t about luxury.

Determined to find her purse, Hazel decided the best thing to do would be to find her phone and figure out what their first step of the day would be. Franco said he knew a few people they could talk to who had also worked in the warehouse the receipt hosting her mother and father’s names was. Other than that, maybe there was a central location where records were kept.

She lowered her cow-print luggage to the floor and zipped it open, tossing through its contents with a frown. No, her purse wasn’t here. Zipping the suitcase closed, she checked the shelves in the closet, but her familiar bag wasn’t there either. Panic began to hitch in her chest. She scanned the room, and her heart hiccupped at the sight of the little dictionary and piece of paper she’d retrieved from her bag just before they’d landed the night before. Hazel circled in place, searching for a sign of the notorious cow-print leather on the outside of her purse, but it wasn’t there.

Her panic turned to full-fledged anxiety and tugged at her lungs now. Breaths came sharp and short. She ran a hand through her long hair, tucking it away from the sudden perspiration at her forehead. “Oh, no,” she muttered.

Her search went from casual to frantic in an instant. Her noise level increased as she tossed chairs and bags aside, peered behind curtains, unzipped Wesley’s suitcase and accidentally knocked it against the wall without meaning to.

He stirred and pushed up away from the mattress with a well-toned arm. “Hazel?” he said sleepily, blinking dreams from his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find my bag,” she said.

He stretched and moved the blankets aside, letting his long legs stretch from off the side of the bed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, her voice rising in pitch. She attempted to keep it down, not wanting to disturb anyone else who might be near. “I had it when we got off the plane yesterday, and now it’s gone.”

Wesley’s face settled and he slipped from the bed to his hands and knees to peer beneath it. “Not under there,” he said.

“I already checked there!” she shrieked.

He took her by the arms. His cool hands against her skin served to ground her to the spot. “Calm down. Retrace your steps. When was the last place you had it?”

She inhaled and attempted to think back. Her mind diverted to the plane before they’d landed, to seeing her mother’s rumpled hat within, to successfully retrieving the Portuguese dictionary from the purse’s depths.

“I had it on the plane,” she began.

Wesley sank back onto the mattress and guided her to stand before him. He maintained his calm, controlled persona, which she desperately needed right now. “Good. What then?”

“We disembarked,” she said with her eyes closed, trying to remember details. “The pilot handed us our luggage and then I spoke with him.”

“Good. Then?”

“Then—” She squeezed her eyes shut. From within her mind’s eye she remembered Franco’s car, she remembered Wesley speaking with him as they loaded their luggage. She remembered—”

Her eyes shot open. Wesley reacted to whatever expression was currently on her face. “What?”

“Oh no,” she said, her knees buckling.

Wesley caught her quickly enough to guide her to him. He enclosed her in his arms, and she relinquished her desire to stand, opting instead to perch on his knees. He stroked her hair. “What is it? What do you remember?”

“When I got into Franco’s car,” she said. Tears already threatened to leak from the edges of her closed eyelids.

“What happened?”

“I only meant to readjust the things in my hands. I never meant to leave it there. I—oh, no. Wesley.” She buried her face in his smooth chest.

He spoke as if trying to connect what little pieces she’d given him. “Did you leave your bag on top of the car?” His mother had done that once with her soft drink. He’d taken Mama to dinner in Bentonville for her birthday and neither of them realized her drink was still on top of the car until after he’d pulled out onto the road.

By this time, tears streamed down Hazel’s cheeks. Wesley’s heart clenched at the sight. He held her close, allowing her to cry.

“It’ll be okay,” he attempted to soothe, but Hazel bumped the heel of her hand against his bare shoulder.

“It won’t! Everything we needed to find my mother was in that bag. Her hat. The receipt I found in your attic pinpointing the warehouse she worked at. My cell phone was in it, my passport.”

“Shh,” Wesley soothed as if trying to find a solution to this mess when there wasn’t one. “Maybe Franco found it. We’re meeting him this morning, right?”

Hazel sniffled and pulled away just enough. Tears streaked down her cheeks and Wesley wiped them away with gentle fingers. He smiled at her as if this wasn’t the worst thing in the world that could happen. How could it not be the worst thing in the world? What were they going to do now?

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