As I’m stopped at a red light, singing the bridge, a newmessage comes through on my phone, and when I glance at the screen to see who it’s from, an uneasy feeling settles in my gut. I slide to read the text message, rolling my eyes at words on the screen.
Baby Draper: Sorry, I’m not going to be able to go out.
I re-read her message a few times before a car horn sounds behind me, pulling me from my focus. Looking up, I notice the light is green, and I wave an apologetic hand to the person behind me, continuing along with the flow of traffic as I press the call button on my steering wheel.
It takes a few rings, and I’m almost certain she’s going to ignore me or send me to voicemail, so I’m sufficiently startled when she actually answers with a hurried, “Hey.”
“Baby Draper…” I say in a teasing tone. “Are you pussying out on me?”
There’s noise in the background, the sound of voices, but then I hear a lot of shuffling followed by the telltale click of a door, as if she’s found a quiet place to talk.
“Hey, no, it’s not that. I’m sorry, I—” She stops herself and then sniffles, and I don’t know why, but the sound of her sniffle immediately has my guard up.
“Are you okay?” I ask quickly.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She sounds so insincere, so unlike the confident Hannah Draper I know, so far from fine, it causes my gut to twist.
“Baby Draper, where are you?”
She sniffs again.
“Hannah,” I say a little more sternly. “I am about five seconds away from calling your dad. I don’t care if he kicks my ass. I’m worried. Where. Are. You?”
“I’m at the Four Seasons,” she says on a defeated sigh.
My brows knit together. “The Four Seasons?”
“Yeah. I’m… I’m with Brookes.”
I don’t miss the way my heart sinks down into the pit of my ass. She’s with Brookes. At his fucking hotel. When she’s supposed to going out to dinner with me. For my first ever goddamn date. An uncontainable rage swirls around in my chest, and I hate that I’m so affected.
“Oh… okay,” I bite out, forcing myself to swallow the words I know I shouldn’t say right now. “Well then… have a good night, I guess.”
“Happy, wait!”
I pause, my finger on the End Call button, doing as she says only because she sounds so fraught.
“It’s not what you think.”
It takes all I have not to laugh at that. “Oh, yeah?”
“I’m… I’m not supposed to say anything,” Hannah begins, her voice wavering a touch, causing the hairs at the back of my neck to prick. “I signed an NDA.”
My brow furrows again, anger making way for concern.
“I’ve been here almost all day,” Hannah continues tentatively. “Brookes… h-he almost died.”
Shit. “Hewhat?”
“He said he was sick this morning, and he couldn’t show up for filming. And my boss, Patrick, sent me to his hotel to check on him, to drag his ass to the studio, but when I got here, he was—” Hannah sucks in a breath, and that’s when I realize she’s crying, her soft sobs just about breaking my heart. “When I got here, the place was a mess, there were liquor bottles everywhere, and Brookes was passed out on the bathroom floor, covered in his own vomit. I didn’t know what to do. I-I thought he was dead. I called 911. The paramedics came, and they were able to pump his stomach. But his team didn’t want him going to the hospital because they… I don’t know, I guess they didn’t want the news getting out. I-I’ve been here all day with him because… he doesn’t have anyone else. Happy, I’m so sorry, I—” She breaks down, crying over the phone, and my hand balls into a fistbecause fuck, the sound of her crying does something to me that I’ve never felt before in my life.
“Which Four Seasons are you at? Midtown or Downtown?”
Hannah sniffles. “Midtown.”
I sniff a laugh. Of course. All this time she was mere blocks from my fucking house, dealing with this shit by herself. God, I feel sick at the thought. Shaking my head, I flick on my blinker, making a turn at the next block. “Text me the details, Baby Draper. I’m coming there right now.”
CHAPTER 19
