Page 57 of All Tied Up
“Texting,” I supplied.
“How often?”
“It varied. It could be several times a day or a few times a week. Our lives would get busy. There was no pattern to it.”
“It was you,” he muttered. “Fucker was texting you.”
I looked at the back of his head, waiting for him to say more.
Forge glanced over at him. “The times he was weird with his phone?”
“Yeah.”
Forge’s eyes shot up to the rearview mirror and met mine before dropping back to the road.
“Here,” Branwen instructed, leaning forward. “Madeline said she’d be parked in a pearl-colored G-Wagon around the side of the store.”
Forge frowned. “You’re meeting her at a spa?”
“Yep.”
“Damn, she’s sharp,” Than said.
Forge smirked. “The trackers,” he said, as if understanding. “She told him she was going to the spa.”
“There,” Than said, pointing at the vehicle we were looking for.
Forge pulled up on the other side of it so that we were blocked from the view of the road and rest of the parking lot.
Branwen reached over to cover my clasped hands with one of hers and squeezed reassuringly. “Ready?”
I nodded.
The vehicle came to a stop, and I unbuckled and reached for the door handle.
“I can’t lose him,” Than said thickly.
I turned my gaze toward him. “Me neither,” I replied, then took one more deep breath and stepped out of the SUV into the bright Florida sunshine.
Although I’d replayed what I’d say to Madeline Hughes hundreds of times in my head since we’d left Madison, the pressure that was riding on this conversation made me feel unprepared.
The windows to the Mercedes G-Wagon were so darkly tinted that I couldn’t see who was inside. The driver’s door opened as we approached, and a man stepped out, dressed in jeans, boots, and a fitted black T-shirt. He was tall with dark hair, almost black, and when he reached up and took off his sunglasses, a pair of blue-gray eyes stared back at me. As if sizing me up.
“Hello, Trev,” Branwen said.
He turned his gaze to hers and smiled. “Good to see you, Branwen.”
“Are you the only one with her?”
A smirk touched his lips, and his eyes twinkled with what looked like mischief. “I’m the only one the bastard won’t kill over this.”
Had he just called Blaise Hughes a bastard?
“Noa, this is Trev Hughes,” Branwen told me.
He flashed a smile. “The younger brother.”
Oh. I hadn’t realized there were two sons. Perhaps they had two for backup. A spare. Like royalty.
