Page 104 of The Love Dare
“Shit!”
Winnie jumps out of the car. The driver already removed her luggage, so she just grabs it and goes. Tyler will have to wait. Three days isn’t that long. She’ll call. She’ll leave messages. He’ll understand when she explains it’s not her fault—won’t he? The phrasesue you into oblivionkeeps flashing like a neon sign inside her brain. She just quit her job, moved back into her parents’ house, and decided to go full steam ahead with her freelance business. When it comes down to it, she doesn’t have the time or the bandwidth to knock heads with a major entertainment corporation, not even for Tyler. She wants to be done with the show, not tied together even longer through legal drama. She just has to have faith that Ty will get it. He might be pissed, but three days is three days. She waited twelve years for him to finally kiss her. He can wait seventy-two hours to keep her out of litigation hell.
The camera guy is probably having a field day with this, Winnie can’t help but think as she races through the automatic doors, reeking of desperation in her floor-length emerald gown, stiletto heels, and tearstained cheeks. It’s definitely not an everyday occurrence, and the crowd parts as people turn to gape. But it works in her favor. She’s ushered to the front of the check-in line, the sobs in her throat all too real now, as she digs through her bag in search of her wallet while trying to keep the incoming panic attack at bay.
The woman behind the counter is a freaking saint. After she scans Winnie’s suitcase, she calls the flight crew to let them know Winnie is coming and calls someone over to escort her to the front of the security line. Then it’s a mad dash through the terminal to find her gate. The flight is already on final boarding when she skids to a halt in front of the counter, panting and out of breath with aching feet and an even more aching heart. It’s not until she squeezes into her—of course—middle seat that it even dawns on her that she’s about to spend the next six hours braless in a ball gown being held in place with very questionable boob tape.
Fuck my life.
She groans and reaches for the carry-on Rita put together. When she locates her phone, it’s completely dead after six weeks without use. She plugs it into the seat outlet before continuing to rummage.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Yes!
She spots a pair of leggings and her so-well-loved-it’s-practically-threadbare Velaris spirit shirt. Something heavy thunks to the floor as she yanks them out. Curious, Winnie reaches down and her fingers brush against the familiar edge of a book spine. She eagerly retrieves the paperback, pausing when she spots the message taped to the front.
You’re stronger than I gave you credit for—and that’s not a mistake I make very often. Consider this my official IOU for one happily ever after. Don’t worry. I always pay my debts.
There’s no signature, but Winnie knows who it’s from.
Nina.
Happily ever after, my ass.
She rips off the note and takes in the adorable illustration of a hockey player and ice skater on the cover. The book has been at the top of the bestsellers lists for two years, but because of her previously unrequited crush, hockey romances have always been on her don’t-go-there-with-a-ten-foot-pole list—and for a very good reason. Winnie runs her fingers over the drawing, tracing the male character’s strong nose, his wide shoulders. The depiction looks nothing like Tyler, but when she closes her eyes, he’s all she sees.
Tears start to prickle.
Where is he?
What does he think happened?
Does he hate her right now?
Will he ever trust her again?
As soon as the plane reaches cruising altitude, Winnie slips into the bathroom, doing her best to ignore the stares from the other passengers as she slinks down the center aisle in this ridiculous dress. But even comfortable clothes aren’t enough to ease her mind. Aching for a distraction, she watches the first ten minutes of three different movies, turning each one off with a scowl, before she reluctantly goes for the book again.
Nina may be a bitch—but she’s a bitch who knows her audience.
Winnie cracks open the spine, already feeling her heart slow to a more manageable rhythm as her eyes fixate on the opening line. Within a page or two, she’s lost in the words. They carry her across the Pacific, through a five-hour layover, and all the way back home. Aside from a brief pause to desperately send Tyler about five hundred texts to explain what happened when her phone finally turns back on, Winnie welcomes the escape. She’s not ready for the real world. Not ready to face what she knows will be three hellishly long days of waiting, hoping, and worrying. She won’t feel right until she hears his voice, until sheknows they’re okay. So she reads, and keeps reading, perfectly content to delay the inevitable.
But she’ll be honest, there’s a second when her car pulls up outside a building lit by very familiar fluorescent lights that she thinks maybe,just maybe, she should have actually looked up at least once to double-check where they were going.
“Oh, sorry, I think you went to the wrong spot,” she tells the driver. Honestly, she was sort of surprised to find him holding her name in the baggage claim area at the airport, but after fourteen hours of travel, she wasn’t about to turn down a free ride when he said the network sent him. “They must have accidentally given you the address of the rink when they booked the service. I think they had both in their files. My parents’ house is actually?—”
“Is this the Rusu Family Iceplex?”
“Yeah, but?—”
“Then it’s not the wrong place.”
“They told you to bring me here?” Winnie frowns. “Why?”
