At night, in the dark, alone in his bed, he felt miserable and empty because he hadn’t heard from Sabine. Even his dick didn’t cooperate and wouldn’t let him masturbate to the fantasy of her being in his bed with him. Some nights he woke up and called her cell phone again. Holding on to that hope. Got himself high, and then fell. Hard, when the calls went nowhere.
He’d fallen in love with her and now a piece of him was missing. He tried not to let worry consume him, figuring she’d done fine by herself for three years in Los Angeles before he met her. He could only assume she cut him off. Didn’t want to talk to him. Maybe it was too painful for her. Him being back in New York, the place she couldn’t return to because it meant the end of her freedom. The place he got a hero’s welcome.
All Sabine would get were a set of handcuffs.
With a bottle of Aqua Panna on the coffee table in front of him, Gray bounced Abbi on his lap. The one source of pure joy for him these past weeks. Her red curls reminding him of Sabine.
When he ran a hand through his hair, Lexi said, “Are you keeping that dark color?”
“I thought I’d try pink next. Like you,” he joked.
“When I first met you, I would have told you to go for it.”
“Not now?”
She studied him. “You’re different now.”
“That experience in L.A. changed me a lot.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Lexi lowered her chin to him. “You always had a smile.”
“I told you, it was rough in L.A. I—”
“Nope.” Lexi shook her head. “It’s something else. Someone else. You can always talk to me, okay?”
“I know. Thanks.”
But he didn’t know what to say. He was in love with a woman who didn’t want him.
“Still no drinking?” Luke said, sitting down in a wing chair opposite him, a tumbler of scotch in his hand, his leg crossed on top of his right knee.
“Just trying to detox for a while. I had a shot of whiskey on the plane two weeks ago. The first in months.” He shrugged, still bouncing Abbi. “I didn’t miss it as much as I thought. Didn’t give me the same thrill.”
“We got to find you a better thrill,” Luke said, winking.
He’d had a better thrill. Sabine.
Gray leaned into Luke. “You wired the money to Sabine, right?” he whispered.
Luke took a moment before answering him. “Yeah. But...”
“But what?” Gray situated Abbi toward Lexi if he had to shoot off his chair and strangle Luke for not keeping his word.
“The money was sent back.”
Gray’s breath hitched, his heart racing. “When?”
Luke stared at him. “A day or two after I sent it. I tried again and again. I’m sorry. It kept coming back.”
“What are you saying?”
“She didn’t take the fee.”
With his head spinning and his stomach lurching, he handed Abbi over to her mother. Gray called Sabine’s cell one more time, hoping for a miracle.
I’m sorry, the number you’ve reached is no longer in service.
“What the fuck?” he cursed at the screen.
“What’s the matter?” Lexi asked, reaching for his arm.
Luke gave her a head shake.
Gray collected his thoughts. Why had Sabine done this? She’d said they could stay in touch, but it felt like once he left her, she turned into a ghost. Maybe he’d meant nothing to her all along. She wouldn’t take his plane, she wouldn’t take Luke’s money.
His money.
He’d been convincing her all along it was his money, too. No wonder she didn’t want it.
Didn’t want him.
He stood. “Screw it. I’m having a drink.”
Turning for the bar, he caught a shock of red hair through the crowd of guests mingling in the lobby. His heart pounded, and his throat went dry.
The crowd parted, pulling a sharp exhale from him. It was a dude in a black leather jacket. Same flaming red as Sabine, though. And he looked familiar.
When the guy glanced behind him, Gray followed to see what he was looking at. The floor beneath him trembled and he gripped a nearby railing.
Sabine.
At The Sterling.
In fucking New York.
Wait, that meant...
Oh, no.
No. No. No.
The cell phone turned off.
The money returned.
And she...left Teterboro Airport.
“Left my ass.” He pushed off the railing and thundered to the stairs in such a flash, Luke shot to his feet.
“Gray, what’s up?”
Tristan got to his feet as well. As the CEO and COO, trouble in the hotel was their responsibility. Plus,