Reports stacked on my desk. The head of PR needed remarks reviewed for a morning show appearance. My inbox screamed for mercy.
I left it all behind anyway.
By noon I’d torn off my tie and folded back my sleeves. By three I’d paced a hole in my office floor. Now, not even six, I itched to get out.
I’d been crankier than usual. Snapping at people. For no good reason except one.
I needed to be home. With the people waiting for me there.
When I arrived, the penthouse seemed deserted.
“Theo?” I called, setting my keys in the tray. “Jessa?”
Nothing.
The place was spotless. Pillows fluffed on the couch. Counters gleaming. A faint citrus scent threading the air. It looked like a model home staged for a showing, not a place where a boy and his smart-mouthed nanny lived and played and left evidence of their existence.
I pulled out my phone.
Griffin: Just got home. Where are you two?
Three dots appeared.
Jessa: We’re here. But you have to find us. We have something for you.
I huffed. Half laugh, half growl.
Jessa: Find us
“Childish games,” I muttered. But my mouth kicked up, anyway.
Games. That’s what started all of this in the first place. If families across America didn’t play one of the hundred and fifty West Games available on the market today, I’d be standing in something much smaller than a penthouse.
I checked Theo’s room first. Empty bed, tidy desk, hockey stick propped in the corner. No kid. No nanny.
I crossed to my room. “Where are you?”
I opened my closet carefully. Half expected confetti to explode. My closet returned my smirk with rows of charcoal suits and starched shirts. No culprits.
Guest room next. Jessa’s room.
I paused in the doorway. We slept together every night in either hers or mine, but she’d made this room her own in small ways. A framed photo sat on the dresser of Jessa between her sisters and her mom, their arms tangled with grins and bad lighting. She’d told me once there was a criminal lack of family photos in my home. That maybe it would be good for Theo to see life on the walls, not only on screens.
I’d added it to my mental list right then.
The room smelled of her. Soft. Clean. Some floral thing that made me think of spring.
A scrap of black lace lay folded on the dresser.
Lingerie.
My throat tightened. I didn’t have time for this kind of distraction. And yet here I was. Distracted. My palm braced the doorframe. My mind tried not to imagine that lace against her curves.
Her closet was closed. Bathroom too. I checked both. Empty.
“All right.” My voice bounced down the hall. “Where are you two?”
A giggle drifted from the far side of the penthouse. Then a shushed whisper. Then another giggle.
