Feel (Sovereign Book 3) (4 page)

“Thank you so much,” I said, walking backwards in the direction of the neighbor’s house. “And please, call if you hear anything. Even if Mr. Barnes comes home,” I added.

“I will,” he replied in earnest, giving a small wave before disappearing around the side of the house.

A few moments later, I knocked on the door of the neighbor’s house. A gorgeous woman answered the door, her blond cropped hair perfectly set in loose curls. “Oh my, you look exactly like Rosalie!” she exclaimed.

“Um, Mrs. King?”

“Oh darling, please call me Bridget. Come in,” she offered, stepping aside and sweeping her arm out.

“I was hoping you might know where my mother is?”

“I’m sorry, dear, I haven’t seen Rosalie since she left for her honeymoon. She came over the morning after the wedding, and I haven’t heard from her since. Is something wrong?”

Tears prickled my eyes, and I had to swallow hard to keep my voice steady, which I failed spectacularly at. “I . . . I think something might have . . . have happened to her. She . . . She isn’t answering her phone, she isn’t home, and she hasn’t returned any of my calls in two days.”

Bridget wrapped her arms around me and held me tight as I lost the fight and started sobbing. “I know your mother, and I know that she would never not contact you, Alyssa. I think we need to call Gavin; he might—”

“No!” I cried, wrenching myself free and stepping back. “If anything has happened to her, Gavin is the cause. Please, whatever you do, you
can’t
call him. Promise me.”

She reached out and put her hand on my forearm, “Okay, Alyssa. We won’t call Gavin. But if you’re that worried, I think we should call the police.”

My head snapped up. “You don’t think I’m being crazy?”

“Not at all, dear. This is probably just a big misunderstanding. Maybe she has a new phone number or she’s gone to a spa retreat and forgot to tell us. But for peace of mind, mine and yours, I think we should get the police to investigate.”

“I think you’re right,” I replied.

“Do you have a car here?” Bridget asked me, walking over to a side table which held an oversized designer purse.

“No, I caught a cab. I arrived late last night; I haven’t hired a car yet.”

“I’ll take you, then.”

“Thank you, Bridget. I’m sorry to land this on you.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m worried now too. We need to get to the bottom of this, and the police are the best bet.”

She shut the front door and I followed her down a small hallway into a large three-car garage. Moments later, we pulled out of her driveway on the way to the police precinct.

I spent most of the afternoon with police. Early inquiries had shown that my mother had returned from her honeymoon four days earlier, on Sunday, but none of her credit cards or bank accounts had been touched, and her phone had not been turned back on.

Thankfully, Bridget stayed with me while I filled out paperwork and stuck around while a nice detective by the name of Marlee Manning did the preliminary checks. Then I was led into an office and gave a formal statement detailing when I last saw and spoke to my mother, explaining what I knew of her movements since then and finally, if I had any idea where she might be. I did explain my concerns about Gavin and told her everything I knew about the FBI investigation, what Gavin had done the morning before when he’d kicked me out of my office and lastly, I put Marlee in touch with Barrett in case she needed more information.

That evening, I sat in my hotel room, staring at my cell phone in my hand. My finger hovered over Aiden’s name in my address book. I wanted to call him; I wanted him to reassure me that everything would be fine. He had always been able to make me see reason. I knew he would be able to help me. I wanted to feel his arms around me as he drew me in close and kissed the top of my head and told me it would be okay.

Then I thought of Barrett. I hadn’t returned his calls or text messages since leaving Seattle. I owed him an explanation—for a lot of things—and yet again, I now had a lot more questions to ask him.

Part of me wished I hadn’t gotten on that plane to Vegas five weeks ago. I might still have my father’s company under my control and know where my mother was, and I would never have met Mark “Barrett” Lucas.

For some reason I refused to either acknowledge or admit to, the thought saddened me. For all his faults—and lying was high up on that list—there was no denying the visceral and unmistakable connection I had with the man. The moment I saw him I’d felt the pull between us. At first it was a physical appreciation, which morphed into an intellectual attraction, and the rise of a challenge to go after what I wanted; a game of cat and mouse turned around on me in the most surprising and thrilling way.

I was kidding myself though, because getting on the plane and meeting Barrett was not the catalyst for everything going wrong in my life right now—Gavin Barnes was. He may have orchestrated the meeting, but he didn’t magically conjure up the chemistry I felt with Barrett. He couldn’t be blamed for my heart being torn in half, each part owned by two different yet fatefully connected men.

Needing to do something to stop myself from reaching out to either man, I called Carrie, something I should’ve done the night before but got waylaid.

“Ms. Jacobs?” she said, answering the call.

“Carrie, hi. How are you?”

“I’m . . . I’m still in shock. I wanted to contact you, but I wasn’t allowed to bring anything from my desk—my company phone included.”

“I’m really sorry about that.”

“It’s not your fault, Ms. Jacobs.”

“Call me Alyssa, Carrie. I just needed to make sure you were okay and to assure you that I will be reinstating you as soon as I get to the bottom of all of this.”

“Thank you. I loved my job and working for you. I’ve been so distraught thinking about what that man did to you.”

“It was done to you too.”

“It’s not my company. I know what it means to you.” Her words hit me hard and tears gathered in my eyes.

I swallowed down the large lump in my throat. “I’ll get it back.”

My stomach growled loudly, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I grabbed my purse and went downstairs to one of the hotel restaurants. A glass of wine and a Caesar salad later, I walked through the lobby when I saw the back of a dark-haired man standing in front of the elevators—wide muscular shoulders covered by a navy cotton tee, and a perfectly sculpted behind wrapped in dark-wash denim that clung to his hips and thighs.

My heart started to beat wildly as I rushed toward him. He turned around and even expecting it—and hoping for it—I still stopped mid-step at the beauty of the man before me.

“Barrett?”

The expression on his face was unreadable as he reached out his hand, grasped onto mine, and pulled my body into him. He wrapped his arms around me, running one hand up my back to rest on my hair as I buried my face into his neck and lost control of my emotions.

He ushered me into the elevator without letting me go, and the floor jolted beneath my feet as we started ascending. “Barrett . . .” I murmured against the skin below his ear.

He gave me a gentle squeeze but didn’t say a word as the doors opened, and I tilted my head to see the dark grey walls of a corridor and a few moments later, the lacquered black hotel door to my room.

“How did you find me.”

“I’ll always find you.”

“But—”

“I have my ways, remember . . .” is all he said.

“I need your room key, Lys?” he murmured as we stopped outside my room. I pulled away and reached into the front pocket of my purse before handing the card over to him.

“I—” A myriad of scenarios played out in my mind while all of the things we needed to talk about crashed around my head.

“Lys, give me a few more minutes then we can talk. I need to make sure you’re in a safe place before we speak about anything.”

If it was possible my heart melted while simultaneously stuttering to a halt in the same beat, but somehow I was able to keep breathing and nod. “Okay,” I replied, letting him lace his fingers with mine and lead me into the room, pushing the door shut behind us.

He turned the lights on but dimmed them down until they were soft and led me over to the bed. I sat down on the edge and watched as he dropped to one knee and carefully unclasped my pumps and pulled them off, one by one. Then, as if I’d dreamed his closeness, he was across the room, perched forward in the one-seater chair with his elbows leaning on his legs and his eyes pinned to me.

I crossed my legs on the mattress and stared at him, then it hit me that his eyes were clear. There was no war, no conflict—just a look of tenderness with an edge that I’d come to realize was all Barrett. His brows were drawn together, and his chest seemed to rise and fall as if he was trying to rein himself in.

“Why are you here?” I asked warily, trying to ignore the thrill I felt knowing he’d come to Vegas
for me
.

It was not the normal jolt of electricity I felt whenever I was near him; it was a shot of warmth coursing through my veins, culminating in the middle of my chest and filling me near full to bursting.

He raked his teeth across his bottom lip, then ran the fingers of one hand through his hair. “Detective Manning called me this afternoon, and I tracked your credit cards. Caught the first flight I could get and came straight here to find you. Any update on your mom?” he asked gently.

I sniffed loudly then swallowed back a sob. “Not yet.” My voice cracked, and I rubbed my face with my hands to distract myself. “I’m sorry, I must look terrible. I’ll just go—”

Then I was flat on my back and he was hovering over me, his fingers tangling in mine and pushing into the mattress above my head. “You’re amazing. You
always
take my breath away, Lys. But seeing you let me in, clinging to me in a way I know you don’t want to let me go—that is more beautiful than you will ever know.” He lowered his head and brushed his lips softly against mine. Then, instead of taking things further and kissing me again, he moved me up the bed and lay down beside me.

“I don’t know what’s happening here,” I blurted out, looking across the pillow into Barrett’s deep blue eyes and feeling them pull me under.

“I’m going to make you trust me, Lys. I know I haven’t given you reason to believe me in the past, but you know everything there is to know about me now. I’m an open book with you. Anything you want, everything I can give you—all of it is yours.” As he spoke the words that shook my entire world on its axis, he stroked my hair, my cheek, my jaw, and then ran his knuckles down the soft skin of my throat and collarbone.

My hands instinctively wrapped around his shoulders, and my body leaned into his like a magnet unable to resist the pull. It was as if the universe knew the power of what I felt for the man beside me, even if I was still unable to verbalize those feelings. “I need to know about Christy,” I whispered, my own hands starting to roam. There was no intent to my exploration; it was merely a need to feel him beneath my touch.

Barrett blinked but didn’t hesitate in answering me nor did his hands stop their slow, tactile assault on my senses. “Christy played me, and she played Lawrence. She told me they’d broken up; I had no fucking idea that she was lying to the two of us. I would
never
—and I mean that, Lys—I’d never do that to a friend, especially not him.”

Tension I didn’t realize I’d been holding leached out of my body. Then I moved forward, leaning my full weight into him and stopping my face just an inch away from his. Our foreheads touched, and I looked straight into his eyes. There was nothing there but intense emotion, all of which he was giving to me. “He doesn’t know that.”

“I don’t suspect he does, but he also never asked.”

“I can’t talk about him with you.”

“I don’t want you to. Especially not when your body is pressed into mine and we’re in your bed. I want to talk about you and me.”

“I don’t want to talk,” I whispered against his lips.

“We need to talk and
only
talk. I know we run hot, Lys; what I need you to know is that I want more than just the physical connection with you. I need you to believe in
me
and
us
as much as I do.”