“Ah, that’s true. My email is on lockdown, otherwise it gets out of hand.” She nodded contritely. “But what about Leo?”
“Leo.” I forced my jaw to relax and I lowered my voice but couldn’t completely disguise the intensity of my wrath. “Leo wouldn’t give me your number.”
Mona’s hand moved to my face, her palm pressed against my cheek, the pads of her fingers softly stroking my beard. “What? Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I ground out. “He said he was doing me a favor. So I flew to LA.”
“You flew to LA?” I felt her body tense, and the moment realization dawned, her beautiful eyes growing impossibly large as they moved over my face. “You must be so tired and—but I wasn’t in LA, I was—”
“Here. Yes. I found that out yesterday when I stopped by your department at Caltech and they told me you weren’t due back until Friday,” I rushed to explain, multitasking, using the time to devour the sight of her, soak and submerge in the reality of being here with her.
Calm down. We. Have. Time.
“They said you’d be leaving for Geneva on Monday,” I continued, willing my heart and speech to slow. “But that you were in Chicago, visiting your sister this week.”
I left out the part about Mona’s department secretary being a huge fan of Redburn, but not enough to give me Mona’s email or phone number.
“What’s he doing here?” Lisa cut in, sounding pissed.
I glanced at Mona’s sister out of the corner of my eye. She didn’t seem to be paying attention to us. Her stare was firmly fixed on some point behind me, I assumed Tyler.
“I also tried calling Gabby for your phone number,” I continued, needing to tell the rest of the story before explaining Tyler’s presence. “But her number had changed.”
That caught Lisa’s attention and her stare shifted to mine, held. “Yeah, well, that’s Tyler’s fault. He wouldn’t stop harassing her last year, asking for my number, so she had to change hers.” And then to him she said coolly, “You can leave now.”
I spared a glance for the rocker, turning over my shoulder. “You should go.”
The blond lifted his chin, his slate blue eyes flickering between me and his ex. “Don’t forget what you promised.”
I sensed Lisa’s stare as it bored into the side of my face.
“I won’t forget.”
With a head nod and one more distracted glance at Lisa, Tyler turned and left.
As soon as the apartment door closed, Lisa spun on me. “What did you promise?”