Page 89 of The Heiress

And there it was. The last tie to my old life frayed and snapped. I was a boat without a rudder, left out at sea to find my future. “You shouldn’t stay if you don’t want to. I can either get you a room somewhere else or I can have the jet take you straight home to Yara.”

For some reason I couldn’t look at her anymore, so I was surprised when she hugged me. “This isn’t goodbye. I’m just...I’m just in shock. I want to be with Yara right now. I’m still here for you.”

I called for the jet. Teddy drove her back to the airfield.

While I sat in the dark with a glass of wine and a lot of questions.

* * *

I dugout a new prepaid cell phone and dialed David’s number from memory.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Sam.”

He let out a breath. “Are you and Hazel having fun?”

Yeah, about that…“It’s complicated. She’s not my biggest fan right now.”

“Uh oh.”

“I think we’ll be fine. She just expected being best friends with a rich heiress would be all champagne and caviar.”

“And instead it’s pretty complicated?”

“Yep.”

“Well you aren’t calling to commiserate, so what do you need?”

He knew me so well and I appreciated that he was still all business. “I have a question. Why would a police report we obtained through our usual channels be heavily redacted?”

There was a long pause. Likelong.“Well, if someone mentioned in the report was undercover or a confidential informant, they’d want to protect that person’s identity and any details that might indicate who they are.”

Shit.I hated when I was right.

“Thanks David. For everything.”

“That sounds an awful lot like goodbye.”

My chest ached because it was. I didn’t want anyone I cared about to be in the line of fire. It was my choice to go forward. “How about, so long for now?”

He chuckled. “Good luck, Sam. We’ll always be here.”

“I have your number memorized.” I didn’t want to hang up.

But David did.

* * *

My penthouse dooropened and Jace stepped inside. He looked like crap. “Hey. Home Run just told me he took Hazel back to the airport. What happened?”

I’d had two glasses of wine and was sitting in the moonlight by the giant assed hotel windows. “We had a fight.”

He closed the door and hurried over. “What about?”

I liked that everything was a little fuzzy when I drank. It took the sting of reality away. At least a little. “She wanted me to go back with her. She thinks I’m being brainwashed.”

He sat beside me. “And why would she think that?”

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