A Love Song for Always - Piper Lawson Page 0,35

see if she can bring it over early.

The silence down the line is horrifying. “I have a note that you were bringing it on the plane with you and would keep it in your villa.”

My chest tightens as I look toward Rae and Pen. “I don’t have it,” I say into the phone. “I thought you were keeping it so Tyler didn’t accidentally see it.”

“Let’s check your villa,” Pen says calmly. “It was in a garment bag, so it must be in a closet somewhere.”

We head over there in a golf cart, my heart hammering the entire time. We check every closet as acid eats my stomach.

Tears threaten my eyes. “It’s not here. It was in a—”

Rae’s gaze meets mine. “Trunk. Where did Tyler send the merch trunks?”

We head over to the storage facility on the edge of the resort in our golf cart, meeting the wedding planner outside.

“How much merch did he have?” Pen comments, opening the first trunk to reveal T-shirts.

I don’t answer, opening another trunk. Lanyards and VIP badges. We go through ten trunks as panic sets in, gnawing at my insides and corroding any semblance of the cool I’ve been trying to maintain this entire week.

I stare at Tyler’s contact on my phone, needing to hear his voice.

I hit it.

It rings once.

Twice.

Goes to voicemail.

I swallow painfully.

“You guys,” Rae calls from under the lid of the final trunk.

We race over to her. Peering over her shoulder, a huge breath whooshes out of me. I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Thank fuck,” Pen says.

I lift the heavy garment bag out of the trunk, unzipping it, unsure whether to trust it’s here until the zipper parts and reveals the purple fabric.

Pen gasps. “Oh my God. Annie, it’s beautiful. Tyler’s going to lose his shit.”

They help me carry the dress outside, where our planner is waiting. She promises to keep the dress safe and have it steamed overnight.

I turn to Rae. “Would you keep it for me after it’s steamed?”

She blinks. “Yeah. Sure.”

When we head back through the main lobby area, I see Hugo in his cage, calling to people who pass through.

“Can he come tonight?” I ask the wedding planner.

If he can’t be with his mate yet, maybe he can witness an act of love.

19

“Tyler. You still with us?”

I snap my attention to the lawyers on the tablet. “What’re we waiting for?”

“They’re reviewing your revised terms for the debt restructuring,” our lead attorney says.

“Terms which are more than fair,” I press. “So, what’s to review?”

There’s no answer.

I tug on my hair and rise from the chair, the four walls starting to feel like a prison after twelve hours.

I went to our villa to rest for a few hours last night, holding my fiancée while she slept. I don’t want to shift the burden of my responsibility onto her, but this situation has tested every ounce of my resolve.

“What if we put this on hold until after the wedding?” I ask. My fiancée is getting ready for the rehearsal dinner, and I’m in here arguing over technicalities.

“Exclusivity lapses tomorrow. Which means everything we’ve all been working on for weeks—months—is gone.”

I’m typically the cool head in any conversation. Now, I’m frustrated enough to put a fist through the wall.

I hope it’s worth it. Annie’s words from yesterday come back.

I stretch out my arm, my hand. The place above my knuckle where the ring will rest tomorrow.

Annie and I picked it out together at a jewelry store in New York. Having it on my finger, the weight of it, felt right.

But more than that, I remember her face when she saw it on me. The look of complete and utter devotion. I want to deserve that look. To be the kind of man who takes care of her, not because she needs it, but because I need to do that. To protect her the way I was never protected.

Before I left the villa this morning, I went looking for it in her jewelry box.

I found more than I bargained for.

The necklace she’s worn for five years was in a pile on the bottom, the promise ring glinting dully.

The clasp was mangled, the pendant with the purple rose cracked.

Did she break it out of anger after our argument?

The possibility has my hands clenching and my breath going shallow. The feeling rising up isn’t disbelief but something like panic.

Annie’s always worn her heart on her sleeve. If she’s doing shit like that where I can’t see it, I’ve hurt her worse than I thought.

I check the