Road to Casablanca (31 page)

“Are you sure you didn’t have some other plans tonight?
 
I hate for you to have to stay here and take care of me.”

“Believe it or not, I had no plans tonight, so it’s nice to have the company.”

“Thanks a million.
 
I really do appreciate your coming to get me.”

“That’s what friends are for.
 
And speaking of that, are you sure you don’t want to stay here tonight?”

“No, I want to get home to Max.
 
So far, he’s been the only man in my entire life I could completely trust.”

Victoria
was busy buttering a piece of bread and seemed to be only half listening.

“Max?
 
Have I met him?”

“Uh yeah, Max.
 
You know; my cat, Max?”

Victoria
laughed and something about the look on her face sent Cindy into a fit of hysterical laughter.

“Glad to see you laughing, my friend.
 
Don’t worry.
 
It won’t be long until you find somebody else.”

That was the last thing on Cindy’s mind at the moment.
 
Within the hour she was riding back to her apartment.

“You sure you don’t want to bring the cat back to my place?
 
You’re both welcome, you know.”

“No, that’s okay.
 
I better start getting back to my life and the sooner I do that, the better.”

“If you need anything at all, you call me, okay?”

“Thanks.”

Cindy picked up her bag and walked up the concrete stairway to her front door, where Max greeted her with a hearty meow and rubbing on her legs.

As she looked around the lifeless room, Cindy felt she was seeing this place for the first time.
 
She wasn’t the same person who’d left a week ago.
 
She’d been to the other side of the world and back and how she could ever be the same again, she didn’t know.
 
It just wasn’t possible.

She climbed the stairs and instantly got into bed, heavy with exhaustion that should have put her immediately to sleep.
 
Instead, she cried until there was nothing left in her before finally drifting off to sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“There aren’t any flights from
Paris
. They’re all leaving out of
London
and by the time you land there, from what I can see there won’t be any way to get there at all due to the weather hanging over the place.”

“What do you mean, Gloria?” Erick shouted at her, knowing he’d just lost even more precious time.
 
The plane was already en route to
Paris
and it was too late to turn back now.
 

“It is December, sir. You’re bound to run into weather. Plus, now you have the holiday travelers to contend with.”

Erick took a deep breath, finding it increasingly harder to maintain his cool.

“Why don’t you send the jet then?
 
Send it to
Paris
and pick me up there, will you?”

“Okay. I just hope I can reach the pilot, sir.
 
He may be out flying someplace and unable to be reached.”

“I don’t want to hear that, Gloria!
 
Find him!”

“Yes sir.
 
I’ll do my best.”

“And more importantly, I need to have you call the agency…
the Lovemore matchmaking service
….and get Cindy’s home number for me.
 
It’s critical I get hold of her immediately and I’m pretty sure she’s home by now.”

“That will be difficult to do today, sir. It is Sunday, you know.”

“Just do your best, will you?
 
Try to call them and if we can’t get them today, I guess tomorrow will have to do.
 
And also look up the name Cindy Brown in the
Dallas
area phone directory and see if you can find her there. Do it now while I wait on the phone if you can.”

“Do which now?”

“The phone number for the girl!”

By now Gloria was more than fully awake and had long since fired up her home computer.
 
She pulled up an online directory and did a search for Brown in the
Dallas
area.

“There are over three hundred Browns in the area. It’s a big place, not too unlike
Los Angeles
.
 
There are fifty seven C Browns in the directory, and no Cindy Browns.
 
You would also need to know which area of town she lives in because there are several suburbs there.”

Erick didn’t want to hear any of this. The more he thought about it, the more he was beginning to lose it. He knew if he didn’t get in touch with Cindy at least by phone and get himself out of
Europe
soon, he risked losing her forever.
 

“Okay, just make the calls then and get back to me as soon as you can.”

Monday morning found Erick impatiently pacing the terminal of the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in
Paris
on, still waiting for his private jet to arrive from
California
.

The previous day had been a nightmare for him during which nothing seemed to go his way.
 
After lengthy debate and no answers about Cindy’s whereabouts, Erick finally decided to return to
L.A.
and make plans to travel to
Texas
later in the week.

His father also expected him back in the office today and Erick had to call to tell him his flights were indefinitely delayed.
 
Reluctantly, he picked up the phone and called.
 
His father’s tone turned instantly ominous when he heard Erick’s voice on the line.

“I need to discuss some things with you when you get back,” Forrest Redmund told his son.

Erick felt his fist tighten at the words.

“Tomorrow, Dad, okay?” Erick said, his head pounding from the stress of his personal life.

“I’ll expect you in my office at 8:00 tomorrow morning,” his father commanded, never once asking about his trip.
 

Forrest Redmund always acted as though he knew his son well enough to know he always gallivanted around the globe, and always assumed Erick was up to no good as usual. But as far as Erick was concerned, the two men barely knew each other at all.

Erick continued pacing for several more hours until his plane finally arrived late that afternoon, again delayed by weather. When the familiar pilot greeted him, Erick breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that finally he would be able to get back home and get things straightened out once and for all.

Two more hours passed by the time the pilot readied the plane for the return trip to the States, passed customs and had everything inspected properly by French officials. Then they were finally in the air, headed back to
California
.

By that time Erick had resigned himself to the fact that it would be a while before he could get back into Cindy’s arms, especially after he’d heard from Gloria that the agency was not allowed to give out the personal information about their clients.

From the agency’s perspective, they did their part by introducing Erick and Cindy and setting them up on the date. If Cindy had wanted Erick to have her personal details, surely she would have given them to him herself.
 
It was neither their place nor their policy to give out personal client information; in fact, it would be both an ethical and legal violation to do so.

Erick was furious about it and threatened to sue, but knew there was nothing he could do about any of it now.
 
The battery on his Blackberry was running low and the charger for it was packed away.
 
It would have to wait, and waiting was something Erick simply hated to do.

After ten hours in the air, they landed uneventfully in the middle of the night at the small landing strip near Erick’s home.
 
Erick didn’t want to inconvenience Gloria at that hour, so he had the pilot take him home.

Erick was absolutely exhausted by the time his head hit the pillow at 3:00 a.m.
  
His body ached as if he’d run a marathon and he wanted nothing more than to fall asleep quickly and, for a few hours at least, put an end to the nightmare he was living.

“Cindy, I’m coming to get you tomorrow.
 
Please let me find you.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

By Monday morning, Cindy felt much better.
 
She and Victoria had a wonderful afternoon the day before.
Victoria
insisted on buying Cindy a new dress, which she wore to work that day to show off her new haircut and makeup.

She hadn’t kept any of the new makeup Erick had given her, but she had some of her own and was able to recreate some of the tips the salon people showed her.
 

When she walked into the office that morning, she turned heads throughout the firm, instantly capturing the attention of another of the junior partners, Stan, who stood next to the copier and smiled, fogging up his thick glasses. “Hi.
 
You look…great today.
 
I mean really great.” Cindy noticed Stan made no attempt to hide his once-over of her body.
 

In the office, Cindy was normally shy and reserved, rarely speaking to anyone. But today, she looked Stan directly in the eye and smiled back, running a hand through her new hairdo. “Well, thanks.”

“You really do, Cindy, you look absolutely fantastic.
 
I guess that means you had a nice vacation, huh?”

Cindy wondered how this guy knew she was on vacation, but realized that even in a big firm, it was a small world and gossip travels fast.
 
She hardly knew what to tell him though.
 
Was it a good vacation or was it the worst disaster of her adult life?
 
Both
, she realized.
 
Either way, she needed to pretend it was the best.

“Yes, it was great. Thanks for asking.”

“Where did you go…Africa or something?”

Wow, these people sure are nosy
.

“
Morocco
, actually.”

“That sounds incredible.
 
Would you like to have lunch today?
 
I would love to hear all about it.
 
I’ve never been to Africa before.”