Page 45 of Knot a Tie
We hang up and I sigh. This is going to send James into more of a strop than Spencer telling Rayne about their obsession. This day is going to get worse before it gets better.
I snatch up the KitKats and then fumble around in the junk drawer for some Sellotape. I wrap it around the stems of the flowers, taping them to the chocolate biscuits and then throw the roll back in the drawer.
Making my way to James’s office, assuming that’s where he is, I knock and wait for him to call out.
“Yeah?”
I hesitate.
His tone is pissed off. Why me? Why do I have to be the one to tell him his brother is gone?
With a sigh, I push the door open and see James slumped over his desk, his hand in his hair, a look on his face that is a cross between scared shitless and excited at the same time.
ChapterTwenty-Five
James
“We have a bit of a problem,” I say, glancing up at Cameron, who also appears to have a bit of a problem. “What did you do?” I eye up the KitKats and flowers with a dubious expression.
“Me? Nothing,” he replies, but then glances down at the offerings in his hand. “These aren’t for you. These are for Rayne. Your idiot brother blurted out the truth to her and she’s a bit pissed if the eggs are anything to go by.”
“Huh?” I’m more confused now than ever. “Eggs?”
He waves his hand dismissively. “Truth was told. Rayne is pissed, and on top of that Phil called. Richard is missing.”
“What?” I thunder, taking that last bit in and processing fully. Standing up, my chair rolls back several feet and hits the wall behind me. “Missing? How? When?”
“I’m guessing he walked out the door, and since early this morning.”
“Fuck!” I bunch my fists and shake them at nothing, before I kick out at the same nothing. It’s only then that the rest of what he said crashes down over me. “Spencer told Rayne we were looking for her?”
“Apparently. She’s expecting gifts, apologies, food…”
“Double fuck!” This time I aim for the wastepaper basket and kick it over to the other side of the room.
“What’s got you so wound up?”
“Get the others. We need a pack meeting.”
“Here,” Spencer says, hovering in the doorway behind me with William towering over him. “Guess you know.”
I fix him with a withering glare. “You just told her, with no warning?”
“How was I meant to warn her? Besides, I feel guilty. She’s lovely, and we shouldn’t be leaving this bit of information out no matter how it might hurt us.”
“I know,” I grit out. “But I was hoping I could be there to tell her together. Now she probably thinks you’re the hero, and I’m the wazzock who didn’t come clean.”
“She definitely doesn’t think he’s a hero,” Cam snorts with laughter.
Spencer’s face goes dark, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Anyway,” Cam says in between bouts of laughter. “William has just the thing to appease her anger enough for her to hopefully forgive us for being stalkery dicks. Well, you two mostly.”
“Yeah, I know,” I mutter. William came to me a little while ago after the injections arrived. We are going to owe Willowbig. “Listen up, the Richard thing and the Rayne thing aside, we have a small dilemma.”
“What’s that?” Spencer asks.
“I received an email this morning from Jeremey Halstead. Apparently, his daughter has declared she is actively looking for a pack and he has decided we would be a good match for her.”
