I collapsed into my chair with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, well, that’s probably not going to happen. I doubt I’ll be lucky enough to runinto her again, and I have no idea where she went when she ran off.”
I bit my thumbnail, angry at myself. “I should have followed her.”
“Whoa. An hour ago, you didn’t want to snoop on her phone, now you wanted to stalk her.” Ava kicked at me playfully.
“Well, an hour ago, I wasn’t desperate. Now, I am. And when I’m desperate, I do really dumb things.”
Alex’s phone chimed as I let my head fall into my hand, rubbing my forehead. Things were looking grim. The first woman who had intrigued me had disappeared. My shot at love had dried up in less than twenty-four hours. I really didn’t have much luck with this at all.
I slouched down, prepared to slip into a depression over my inability to find happiness when Alex said, “How dumb of a thing are you willing to do to see her again?”
I snapped my gaze to him, my brows knitting tightly. “Are you asking for a list, or is this a scale of one to ten type of thing?”
“Would you pretend that you were out walking the beach right about now?” Alex asked.
What a ridiculous question. If I thought Nattie was outside on the beach, I’d be racing out the door to run into her. “Of course. If it was that easy–“
“It is. I set up a proximity alert for her burner. She’s outside.”
My heart stopped as my lips parted. “What?”
My eyes went straight to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the pool. Nattie was on the other side of them.
A thick pane of glass in the sliding door was the only thing separating me from seeing the woman I’d wanted information on.
My heart rose into my throat. Could I find out more, or was I about to get my heart broken?
CHAPTER 4
NATASHA
Idrummed my fingers against my thigh as I stared at the black television screen. I hadn’t brought myself to be able to turn it on, not wanting the added background noise. I wasn’t used to it. From the serious newscasters that seemed to only be harbingers of bad news to ridiculous game shows that mixed for entertainment but missed their mark, I couldn’t be bothered.
Not when my world had fallen apart so recently.
But despite my recent tragedy, I couldn’t stop staring down at the picture of that smiling face. Why did I feel this unexplained attraction to him?
Could he help us with our problem? He was a doctor.
I grabbed a screenshot of the photograph that had become my new beacon of hope and backed from the article about Alex Stone’s recent wedding. With the search bar available again, I tried again to search for information about Dr. Kyle Carter.
After a bit of digging, I found an article linking him to energy mogul Grant Harrington. Apparently, Grant was his long-lost father.
My heart skipped a beat, and I searched my memory as I scanned the write-up for more information. Had I met Dr. Carter before?
I shook my head. I would have remembered meeting him. We’d had an instant connection–at least I’d hoped so.
But maybe I’d been so desperate for a connection with anyone since my impromptu exile to the States that I’d made the entire thing up.
After reading further, I settled onto the idea that I couldn’t have met Kyle. He’d only met his father two years ago.
The last time I’d seen Grant had been at least five years ago.
I searched for more information, but I couldn’t come up with anything that helped. Instead, I returned to staring at the picture of him.
“Are you my savior, Kyle Carter?”
My heart ached as I stared at the picture, a mix of longing for real companionship and a return to my home filling me.
