No. The thing that has changed isme.
I go through to the bedroom and throw myself down on the bed. I wonder what Teddy is doing.
Where he is.
Whether he’s obeyed my command to forget me, or whether he finds he cannot let go so easily of the memories.
My mind on him, on his shy smile, his deep blue eyes, I fall into sleep.
* * *
I wake suddenly, painfully, my face stinging as I jerk on the bed and slap around to find my cell phone. Ah, there—I threw it next to me on the bed when I lay down.
“What,” is my only greeting. I haven’t even checked the name.
“Hope I’m not disturbing your beauty sleep, Boss,” Jack’s voice drawls. “But I have an idea. Or rather…someone we know has an idea.”
“Who?”
“A little birdie, you might say. Or a little teddy bear.”
I roll over, sit up on the side of the bed. “Explain. Now.”
“Two words that time,” Jack says lightly. “I’ll have to leave explanations to your cuddle toy. He wants a word and, well,” he sighs, and I can hear real uneasiness in it, “I think he might have something.”
Everything I want to say is unwise on an unsecured line. I swallow the words down. “When?”
“Back to monosyllables? ASAP, is my guess. And before you bark out aWhere, that’smyquestion. Where are you?”
I envision Teddy MacCallum here in my home, myrealhome, and the sense of longing almost overwhelms me. Yesterday evening my worst nightmares, my greatest fears came true, but…
I still ache at the thought of seeing him again.
“I’m home,” I mutter to Jack. “You know where.”
CHAPTER43
TEDDY
I was soshellshocked last night that I’d spoken without thinking to Miller when he took me home to his house in the Hills. “The security at your place is much tighter than it used to be,” I commented, as the car pulled up at the front of Miller’s mansion.
He’d given me a weird look as we got out. “Yeah. Jack set it up.”
“Oh.” Of course.
After opening the front door he’d gone straight to the alarm panel. It’s a system made by my father’s company, in fact, and it’s a good one. The beeping halted and soft lighting came on in the foyer. I glanced up at a blinking red dot in the corner. “You have cameras inside now, too.”
“These ones are impossible to hack into. No need to give the Feds more opportunities. Feds like your mom,” he said softly. “Isn’t that right?”
Jack must have texted him, I realized. And more: Miller wasn’t sure if he could trust me. Just like Alessandro, he thought I was a traitor.
“I don’t tell my Mom anything,” I said at once. “I’ve never told heranythingabout your or Jack or anything that goes on at your parties. She doesn’t even know I come to them. But you should know, Miller,” I added, nodding at the camera above, “nothing like that is really impossible to hack into. But they do come set up with a warning for external interference…” I trailed off, my mouth open.
“Teddy?” Miller asked after a moment.
I snapped out of my reverie. “I need to speak to Alessandro,” I told Miller firmly.
And I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
