He didn’t disagree with me but buzzed his assistant to let in the next candidate.
Assad was askinny young guy with skin so dark I thought he might blend into the leather seat. The black curls on top of his head led to a perfect drop fade which meant time, money, and care. But it wasn’t his attractive looks that struck me the most. It was his knee bouncing with an energy and nervousness the rest of his persona seemed to hide.
While we repeated the same round of introductions we had with the redhead, his leg never stopped moving—until I dropped the same question to him as I had to her, and his knee crashed to a halt while he thought. Then, it bounced back to life as he talked.
“Look. Your private life?especially your love life?should be your own. But youarea celebrity, and people crave knowledge about you because they see you as a friend—as ridiculous as that sounds. So, instead of asking me what I suggest, I have a question for you. What do you tell your friends? What would you tellmeifIwas your friend?”
I sat there for a moment, assessing him and my thoughts before I responded. “I care about her. It’s new, so we’re keeping it to ourselves while we figure out exactly what it is. Not only for us, but also for her daughter, and I hope everyone will give us the space and privacy to do just that, figure it out.”
He was nodding as I spoke. “Yep. That.”
I smiled. I liked him. Lee knew it, too. Lee’s phone jingled an alert that we both knew by heart by now. He looked down and softly swore.
“What?” I asked, my heart jumping into my throat.
I bent over his shoulder in time to see Cassidy and Tristan on the steps of my parents’ house. Tristan looked pale and shaky like she’d just heard the worst news, and Cass was waving her finger in a scolding fashion right before she went skidding off the step, folding like a chair, and hitting the sidewalk with her face.
My entire being cried out. The only thing that would have been worse was if Chevelle and Hannah had been in the picture, which thankfully, they weren’t.
My phone was already ringing. Mom’s picture. How the hell had she seen it so fast? I sent it to voicemail, failure ringing through me, panic trying to take over.
I hit call on Tristan’s name in my phone.
“Brady?” she asked.
“Cassidy,” I croaked. “What happened?”
“She’s okay. We’re at the hospital. They say she needs a couple of stitches, and she’s going to need some work on a tooth.” Tristan’s voice was shaking even as she spoke.
“I’m on my way,” I choked out, hanging up and turning to Assad. “You want to prove you can do this job?”
He nodded.
“You’re up. You can come with me to Grand Orchard. I’m leaving as soon as Lee can get me on a helicopter.”
“What?” Lee exclaimed.
“I need to be there—now. If we could teleport, I’d be willing to pay to do that. Find me a way there, Lee.”
???
A little over an hour and a half later, Marco, Assad, and I were climbing out of the helicopter Lee had hired to land us on the hospital’s landing pad. We kept low, skirting the blades, and headed for the hospital’s doors.
The press was at the hospital, making my stomach clench even tighter. They must have followed Cass and Tristan, and that made me want to send Nash after a few hundred people. We headed directly to Cass’s room where Trevor was standing guard with a grim look on his face.
I didn’t even acknowledge him as I went inside, but I was pissed at me more than him. It wasn’t his fault the press wouldn’t stay away. Assad waited outside the room with Marco and Trevor to give me privacy, and I appreciated the fact I hadn’t had to tell him I needed it.
Tristan was sitting on the foot of Cassidy’s bed, and when she saw me, her eyes filled with tears she blinked away. I wanted to know what had happened. None of the footage we could find online had any sound. Or at least nothing we could hear.
I turned to Cass and wanted to cry myself. The entire right side of her face was scraped, her lip swollen and busted, and she had a bandage over her eyebrow where I assumed the stitches were that Tristan had mentioned. She looked like she’d been assaulted.
“Shit. Cass,” I said, remorse and sadness in my voice.
“I’m fine. I don’t look fine, but I’m fine. Nothing that will last. Well, maybe a scar,” she said, touching the portion of her eyebrow still showing.
Her tone was light, blowing it off as she’d blown off all her falls over the years. No big deal—except this one was. When she talked, I could see her front tooth was chipped. My beautiful sister marred. Guilt rode over me like water over sand, leaving its mark.
“What do the doctors say? Do you have a concussion?”
