Page 30 of Dangers of Love

“Aline’s not here?”

Martina frowned. “No. I thought she was with you.”

I shook my head. “We spent the night together, but she left this morning, and now I can’t get ahold of her.”

“Wait a minute.” Martina held up a finger as something apparently occurred to her. “She had lunch plans with her parents. She’s probably still with them.”

“At four o’clock?”

The little relief I’d seen disappeared, and the frown came back. “Let me try her.”

“Be my guest.” My words were a little sharp, but it made sense that she should try first. Maybe I’d been wrong, and Aline didn’t want to talk to me after all.

Martina pulled out her phone and made the call. At each unanswered ring, the worry on her face grew. When she shoved the phone into her pocket, her expression was serious. She looked around the store and then called out, “Beckie! I need to run home. You got this covered?”

A tall woman behind a rack of skimpy underwear gave a distracted wave without pausing in her conversation with a middle-aged woman holding a leather corset that was definitelynother size.

Martina’s voice echoed in my head. “I need to get my keys. I’ll be right back.”

Dark shadows edged my vision.

Shit.

While Martina hurried away, I began counting in my head, trying to drive back what was coming. I couldn’t help Aline if I was lost inside the past, and I couldn’t let another person down.

Aline.

She’d been the one thing that had been able to keep me grounded before.

I built a picture of her in my mind, not just a physical one, but one that had her heart and her strength. Her stubbornness and fire. So many parts of her that annoyed me and turned me on at the same time.

By the time Martina came back, I wasn’t great, but I was in control enough to drive us both to the apartment. Neither of us said anything, but I had no doubt that she was just as worried as I was, which actually made me more anxious. If someone who’d known Aline as long as Martina had thought my reasons for being concerned were valid, that meant I wasn’t just overreacting because of what’d happened to me this year.

I barely held myself back when we reached her door, reminding myself that she had the key and that would get me to Aline faster…and not breaking the door would make it more likely that Martina would let me in her apartment again.

She must have sensed my impatience because, as soon as she opened the door, she stepped out of the way and let me go in first. I heard her behind me as I quickly scanned the main room on my way to the guest room where Aline was staying. The curtains let in a crack of light that was enough for me to see Aline lying on the bed.

Ice-cold fear cut through me, and I crossed the distance in just two long strides, reaching for her. The moment my hand touched her shoulder, she made a soft, sleepy sound, and I sank to the edge of the bed, my knees going weak with relief.

“Eoin?”

“Hey.” Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Martina’s shadow in the doorway, and then it disappeared. I didn’t hear the front door close, but I assumed she was giving us some privacy, which I appreciated.

“What’s going on?” Aline pushed herself up into a sitting position. “How did you get in here?”

“Martina.” I gestured behind me. “I kept trying to get ahold of you and couldn’t. I got worried and went to the boutique to see if you were there or if Martina knew where you were. When you didn’t answer her call either, we got worried.”

Aline frowned, looking confused for a moment before she closed her eyes and sighed. “I put my phone on silent when I was at lunch with my parents and never turned it back on. All I could think of was getting back here and taking a nap. I was just so tired.”

Guilt flooded me. Of course she was tired. She’d had almost as bad a day as I had yesterday, and she could be pregnant. And it wasn’t like either of us had rested much after we’d gotten back to my hotel room either.

“You said you called me?”

Her voice drew me back to the present.

“I did.” I reached for her hand, threading my fingers between hers. “I needed to apologize for how I reacted when you told me that you might be pregnant.”

She shook her head and squeezed my hand. “No, you don’t. It was a shock, and you’d already had a few of those in the last twenty-four hours.”

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