I call Reed and explain everything to him. He says he will ask Trip to see if he can locate Bob or Marco. I end the call and lie back on the bed.
“Hey, they have a restaurant here. It looks good,” Savvy says as she’s holding up a menu. “We should go and check it out for dinner.”
“No, we’ll order room service.”
Her hands go to her hips again. Any time she disagrees with me, I swear those hands move to her hips.
“There is no way Bennett will find us here. It’s too random. And besides, I want to enjoy a glass of wine with my dinner,” Savvy says.
Before I think better of it, I laugh.
“Why is that funny?” she asks.
“Because we are hiding out from men who want to kill you, and your concern is having some wine with dinner.”
Her eyes well with tears, which has me sitting up right away.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
She waves her hands in front of her eyes. “You didn’t make me cry. It’s the situation. I do understand the gravity. I wanted to feel normal for a moment.”
I get up and go to her, wrapping my arms around her. “I understand. You’ve had to hide out for a long time. But hopefully, it will be over soon. Then I promise I’ll take you to a nice restaurant, and we will order a bottle of wine.”
She pulls back and wipes under her eyes as more tears fall. “The hardest part of all of this, aside from being hunted, of course, is not knowing my future. My clients have probably left me by now. I no longer have a broker. I need to find another one. But if I can’t even get a letter of recommendation, how do I compete with everyone else out there?”
“Be honest. Most industries are small enough that they hear the rumors. They will probably be aware of Bob and what happened. He made the news,” I say.
She takes another step back. “I hadn’t thought about that. You’re right. They will know. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. That means Maggie is probably struggling, too. I should call her.”
She picks up her phone, and I grab it. “No, not yet. Westill don’t know if Bob is looking for you or who might be working with Bennett.”
“Do you think Maggie knew about Bob’s side business?”
“I don’t.” I set her phone down on the table. “Let’s order some food and watch some sitcom reruns. Then I’ll check in and see if Trip or Reed has learned anything new.”
She nods. “Okay.” She lies on the bed, and all I want to do is lie next to her and hold her.
My pull to be close to her at all times is getting harder to ignore.
CHAPTER 23
Savvy
I should be sleeping, but instead, I’m staring at the curtains, trying to figure out how to respond to my brother, Benjamin. We keep in contact through text, and until about an hour ago, I hadn’t told him what was going on. Since I couldn’t sleep, and he’s a night owl, I decided to fill him in.
Let’s say he’s not happy with my decision to stay anywhere near New York. He’s now insisting I come back to Connecticut and stay with him until all of this blows over.
I tried to explain I have someone protecting me, but when he said it would save money not to pay someone to protect me, I didn’t have an explanation for why I wasn’t being charged. At first, this was related to an assignment Hunter was working on. But now? Is he using all of his vacation time to be with me? And he wouldn’t let me payfor the hotel room, and now, that also includes our dinner. I’ll have to talk to him tomorrow about paying him back.
After texting my brother that I would think it over and get back to him tomorrow, I set my phone down. I need to sleep, but I can’t turn off my racing thoughts.
“What’s wrong?” Hunter asks.
The room is barely lit by a little bit of moonlight coming in from a gap in the curtains.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” I say.
“You didn’t.”
