I start the engine and pull away from the curb, the city lights blurring past as I merge into traffic.
First thing in the morning, I’ll be on a first-class flight to Switzerland.
Just me. A place to disappear for two weeks. Fresh powder and steep runs that don’t care who I am or what I owe.
And definitely no five-foot-and-a-half crisis manager with dark brown hair and a scowl, trying to fix a problem I don’t need fixing.
I press the accelerator, and in my mind, I'm already halfway gone.
Chapter Five
NATALIA
My phone rings at six forty-three in the morning, and I already know something’s wrong.
No one calls that early unless they’re panicking or apologizing… sometimes both.
I fumble for my phone on the nightstand, knocking over a half-empty glass of water in the process. I hear the moment the glass hits my notepad, and I can imagine the ink beginning to run. I send out a muffled curse as I fumble to grab my phone.
The caller says Randolph (Luka’s agent). The contact I input ahead of time, like Carey suggested.
Luka’s agent is calling me at the butt crack of dawn. That can’t be good.
"Hello?" I say, voice thick with sleep.
"Oh, good, you’re up. He’s gone, and you need to follow him."
The words hit before my brain fully comes online.
"What?" I sit up, rubbing my eyes. I look around and am reminded that I’m back in Seattle and sleeping in my childhood bedroom. "Who’s gone?"
"Popovich," he snaps. He sounds wired, like he’s already had three coffees this morning. "He boarded a flight to Switzerland this morning."
Switzerland.
I stare at the wall across from me as if it might blink back and tell me I misheard.
"He left for Switzerland with everything going on?" I say, confused as to how someone leaves for vacation when their career is on the line.
"I explicitly told him not to," Randolph says. "He was supposed to stay in town until we got ahead of this."
"Well," I say, pulse starting to thump, "clearly he didn’t get the memo."
"This isn’t funny, Natalia."
"I’m aware," I say. "I’m just trying to understand what you expect me to do about it."
"You’re going to follow him," Randolph says as if it’s the most obvious solution in the world.
I let out a sharp laugh. "I’m sorry… You expect me to do what?"
"I’m sending you the details now," he continues, like he hadn’t just upended my entire life before sunrise. "The resort name that he always books. He goes there every bye-week to get away and go skiing."
"Did you just say skiing? As in, skiing in the freezing cold snow?"
"What other kind is there?"
"I don’t know, the warm lake and sandy beach kind, for starters."
