“Lin, is that you?”
“Yes. I’m looking for Kam. I need to find him. It’s important.”
“Is everything all right?” Francesca asked worriedly.
“Yes,” Lin said, realizing that she hadn’t hidden her growing franticness. “Well, not really. I need to speak with him. Do you know where he is?”
“He’s at the airport,” Francesca said. “He called the penthouse at around midnight last night and said he’d changed his mind about visiting the Gersbachs in Geneva next week. He decided to go now. He booked a flight for this morning, and was calling to ask if I’d take care of Angus while he was gone. I thought it was strange, but—”
“What time was his flight?” Lin interrupted her.
“It’s at eight o’clock. He left around ten minutes ago I think. You just missed him. Lin, he said something about possibly not returning to Chicago. He said he might arrange for Angus to be returned to Aurore.”
“Airline?” Lin pressed.
“United.”
“Thanks. I have to go,” she said hurriedly, handing the phone back to the doorman.
“Good luck,” she distantly heard Francesca call into the receiver.
“You didn’t see Mr. Reardon leaving a little while ago?” Lin asked the doorman in frustration as she started to back away.
“I took a bathroom break a few minutes ago—”
Lin made a sound of irritation and charged through the revolving doors.
“O’Hare. Fast,” Lin told the cabdriver succinctly as she flew into the backseat and slammed the door.
“Morning traffic. I’ll do the best I can.”
“I’ll pay you ten times the amount of your fare if you do better than that. Significantly better.”
In the rearview mirror, she saw the driver’s eyebrows go up in interest and braced herself against the seat divider when he punched the gas. The alarm amplified to a wailing scream in her head as she hastily dug her cell phone out of her purse. She hit Kam’s number. If she begged him to postpone his flight, would he hear her out?
The cabdriver met her challenge, risking about a dozen different tickets to get her to the airport in record time, given traffic. Her sense of alarm became tinged with dread, however, when Kam didn’t answer his phone after several tries. Why was she growing so panicked? Surely, even if she missed him, she could fly to Geneva or France or wherever he was to seek him out?
Now that I’ve stopped playing it safe, I’m tired of wasting time.
She shoved four one-hundred-dollar bills into the cabdriver’s hand and rushed out of the taxi, slamming the door behind her, her mind focused ahead on the target of Kam.
Suddenly she was falling. She hit the sidewalk with a jarring lurch.
“You all right?” a nearby skycap called out to her.
Lin grimaced. Her hands stung badly from bracing herself from the fall. She’d tripped over a concrete curb in her haste. Cursing under her breath for her idiocy—she couldn’t recall ever taking such a header in her life—she pushed herself up, only to almost fall again when she tried to stand. Her confusion over her sudden unsteady state was replaced by desperate irritation when she saw that the heel of her right boot had broken off.
Kam might be passing through security check any second now, moving out of her reach.
She pushed a mass of wild curls out of her face and limped onto the sidewalk, her gait awkward because of the three-inch disparity of height in her legs due to the missing heel. She staggered through the busy airport, looking for the nearest security check-in.
Security was packed. She searched wildly for Kam’s tall form and signature dark, wavy hair, her helplessness and dread mounting until it felt like it’d choke her throat. Nowhere. Not a sight of him. She moved her position anxiously searching, hoping to catch a glimpse of him at the actual security checkpoint.
She checked her watch, and then closed her burning eyelids. It was seven twenty-two. He’d be boarding soon. Even if she pulled the stunt of buying a ticket to get through security, the lines were too long. She’d never make it.
She’d missed him.
Her limbs suddenly felt very heavy. Her heart did. Pain waited until that moment to rush into her awareness. Her knees and palms throbbed with a stinging pain from her fall.
Gone. He was gone. And she was stuck in the sticky web of her own life.
She’d have to catch a cab back to the city on the departure level, she thought dully. She turned around and walked her graceless, defeated walk to the elevators.
“Lin?”
She paused in her progress down the departure level toward the cabstand, her heart leaping into her throat. She turned slowly, her skin prickling, too afraid to believe, and yet . . .
Kam stood behind her, wearing jeans and a long-sleeved, striped button-down, the handle of a rolling suitcase in his hand. He stared at her incredulously. Suddenly he was rushing her.
“What happened?” he demanded, his eyes a little wild. “Why is there blood on you?” He touched her cheek, his brows slanting ominously as he looked down at her. He lifted her hand. Lin realized dazedly for the first time her palm was bloody. She must have brushed her cheek and smeared blood on her face.
“I fell getting out of the cab. I’m so glad to see you,” she said, her voice shaky with relief.
He looked at her face, amazement dawning on his rugged features. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to ask you not to go. Not now, anyway. I’m sorry I left last night,” she said in a pressured rush. “I was . . . overwhelmed by what you said. By everything . . .” she broke off, realizing how inadequate she sounded. She shook her head in frustration. “I’m not in love with Ian, Kam. I thought I was. Once. It’s recently been brought to my attention by my friend Richard that my feelings for Ian were an excuse to keep me safe . . . to keep me from taking a risk.” She swallowed thickly, the pressure in her chest and throat making speech difficult, even though she’d never wanted to communicate so much in her life. A tear skipped down her face and dampened a tendril of hair that had stuck to her overheated cheeks. She pushed the errant curl out of her face. God, she was a mess. “Even when Richard mentioned that to me recently, though, I was already starting to suspect what he said was true. What I felt for Ian was a girl’s infatuation that would have evaporated a long time ago, if I hadn’t willfully clung onto it.”