Fascination.
He picked up his fork automatically then put it down.Stared at his plate.The salmon looked like bruised, raw flesh.A flashback to Cam sprawled in the street, bleeding out, eyes so desperately trying to convey something he hadn’t had the time to share.His stomach lurched, and the ambient restaurant noises sounded loud and brutal, like a waterfall tumbling over him.Crushing him.
“Hey, hey.”She crouched by his chair.Her hand covered his, and he realized he was shaking by the way hers moved.Confused, he stared at their hands—hers creamy, his dark with a multitude of heritages.He felt out of his body, untethered, floating free.He hadn’t been like this since his mother and grandfather were murdered.But Cam had found him.Rescued him.And Cam was gone forever.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said, firmly, tucking her arm through his and pulling him to standing with deceptive strength.She snagged up her shawl, whirled it over her shoulders and grabbed the bottle of champagne.
They were striding out of the restaurant, before he realized what was happening.
“I have to…” He wasn’t sure what to do.
He and Cam had a membership at the restaurant for the private dining room.But the check was always handled with no awkwardness.Automatic payment.But was it in Cam’s name or the business?Sydney, their attorney, had contacted him, but he wasn’t ready to meet.
“I got it.”She whipped a credit card out of somewhere in her flowy clothing and handed it to a surprised server.
“Not on your account, sir?”
“My treat.My money,” she said, firmly, barely pausing in her pursuit of the exit.“Thirty percent tip.Thirty seconds.”
Less than that and they disgorged into the sunlight, an island in a stream of businesspeople and shoppers flowing around them.
He squinted in the brightness.It felt absurdly, like being born again.She pulled his Oliver Peoples shades from his pocket and put them on him like he was a child while he gasped for breath, feeling the need to double over, but he feared losing his balance and being swallowed into the sea of humanity sucking at him.
“Follow me,” she said, still holding on while he fought dizzy disorientation.
She began to walk, in long purposeful strides like she had a destination in mind.
Chapter Four
Her blood fizzed,and she felt alive, even amused at the turn of events, though there was nothing funny about the panic and grief and confusion she’d seen swirling in his eyes.His distress had felt visceral.His energy had dimmed and gone snap-crackly chaotic.She’d dealt with her sister Alissa’s panic attacks during her all too short fifteen years.So today, instinct had kicked in, and she’d felt compelled to take charge.
The need to help him had been intense, and that should worry her.This thousand-dollar suit had aloof arrogance and confidence in his standing in the world stamped into his bones.He was the last person she’d have predicted would have needed her help.And the incongruity fascinated her.He was rich.Thought he and his business partner could order up a bride and kids and legacy like takeout.She should despise him.But there wassomething.
Did that make her a fool?Weak?Alissa had not been cut out to live the life they’d been born into, nor had she been prepared to run with her.
Ayana shook off the doubt and remembered from her ChatGPT search that there was a river park near the downtown business core.Cam had mentioned water kayaking at sunset.Water soothed her.Maybe it would help him recollect himself.
Ayana had a twist in her tummy that there might be a grim reason Cam hadn’t texted Vesna back or sent a car to the airport as promised, though the hotel suite had been ready with a fruit and chocolate basket.And a bottle of champagne chilling.But no Cam.
Survival depended on her ability to pivot.And reading a room.And the people in it.She walked like she knew where she was going and never looked like she was puzzling over her next step.A paid-for weekend at a high-end hotel in Denver while she considered her future options was only a gift if it didn’t have any sticky expectations along with it.Paying for the lunch she didn’t have a chance to eat—her growling tummy reminded her that—was enough of a blow.She wasn’t going to pay for the hotel as well.
She came to the end of the street and stared at the unexpected site—rapids.She laughed.
“Serendipity,” she murmured.“I was just thinking about getting my feet wet.”
She dropped his arm and hurried across the street and a ribbon of grass to the wide path and quickly untied her white Docs and peeled off her socks.
“Now this is a city.”She smiled, tossing her shawl and vest over her leather tote-style purse that held her crochet work in progress, phone, and wallet.
Eyeing him as he stood a few feet away.She tilted the bottle of champagne to her mouth.She wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
“Cork won’t fit back in the bottle.Shame to waste it.”Still holding the bottle, she spun in a circle, and then, barefoot, picked her way across a couple of boulders to a flat rock that allowed her to dip her toes in the rushing water.“Hope you’re willing to spot me some bail money if Denver has a puritanical law that ignores its wild west roots.Whoa.The water’s ice.”
She turned back and grinned at him, tilting the bottle back and forth—inviting him to join her.
“Wildly invigorating.”She laughed.“Didn’t figure you for a man who stood on the sidelines weighing and rejecting all options.”She goaded him because she had read him that way, but she hoped to snap him out of whatever fugue state he was in.“I’m only here for the weekend.We might as well have a little fun, or do you leave all the fun to Cam while you stand on the sidelines, the loyal guard dog, waiting for your next command?”
Yeah, she’d jerked his chain.She’d done some research.Cam was the face of Saunders Crow.The company had been featured in several local business profiles and forty under forty and mover and shaker lists over the past few years.Telford couldn’t have earned all that something from nothing by playing it safe.
