Saltwater Kisses: A Billionaire Love Story (The Kisses Series Book 1) (19 page)

The hurt in my heart fueled a fire of anger, the pain masquerading as rage. I knew my words had hit their target. I had hurt him. My arrows had slipped past his carefully constructed armor and gone straight to his heart. It felt like a betrayal, but I was angry enough that I didn’t care.

T
he small plane landed with a thud, shaking me loose from my thoughts. I replayed our fight over and over again in my head, trying to figure out what had happened. I couldn’t understand why he thought I was trying to use him. I had wanted to choose him! Thinking about it made my whole body ache. The plane stopped smoothly at the terminal, and the businessman sitting next to me stood up and left without a word. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t exactly in a making friends mood.

The plane slowly emptied and I stood up. The short blonde hair on my wig felt strange against my chin, but Rachel had promised me it looked natural. I kept wanting to tug at it, but I didn’t want anyone to recognize me. The stewardess smiled politely as I exited the plane, her eyes looking past me at the empty seats. I could tell she was already cleaning it in her mind so she could return to New York. I didn’t even try to smile back.

The small airport was empty and I said a silent,
Thank you
. I didn’t want to face the paparazzi reporters today, I didn’t have the energy. Rachel had found a small charter flight with a seat available. I had snuck through the airport and boarded quietly, hoping no one would notice me. No one did. I spent the flight staring out the window and trying not to annoy the passenger next to me with my sighs.

I had stayed two more nights in New York, hoping that Jack and I would make up. He chose to sleep at his office and wouldn’t answer my calls. It had been a long two days by myself. Rachel found me the second day sitting at the kitchen table in tears, surrounded by the dying roses he had sent me. They had all wilted and the similarity to our relationship had been too much.

“I’m going to call him up right now, and tell him exactly what I think,” Rachel had said when I finally stopped sniffling enough to tell her what happened. She seemed shocked. “The happiest I have seen him in years is with you, and then he goes and does this... ?”

Her anger at Jack eased the pain a little. It was like cool water on a sunburn—too little to stop the pain, but enough relief to make it better for a moment. She had picked up her cell phone and dialed him right then, full of righteous indignation.

“Jack, I’m with Emma, and—” she started out with strength, but suddenly paled as his voice carried through the phone. It was angry and full of the confidence of a businessman. She stepped away, speaking into the phone with far less forcefulness than she started with. In a matter of moments, she was replying with a meek ‘“Yes, Sir. No, I understand, Sir. I will see to it, Sir.”

She sat down, setting the phone with a quiet tap on the wooden table. She stared at it like it might turn and bite her at any moment.

“Thank you for trying,” I said quietly. I knew then that it was time for me to leave.

“I’m sorry Emma. I don’t like this at all.”

“We're from different worlds. I’m not Cinderella, and you aren’t a fairy godmother. Some things aren’t meant to be.” The words came out with a sad surety. I should have seen this coming. A billionaire and the broke girl from Small Town, Nowhere? That was never going to happen. It had been foolish to think it would. “Will you help me arrange things so I can go home? I’m tired and I want to go back to the way things are supposed to be.”

Rachel frowned and then looked up. She looked for a moment like she was going to try and persuade me otherwise, but she glanced at her phone again and sighed. She nodded and stood up slowly. “I’ll take care of everything. You go and pack.”

Everything had gone quickly from there. Rachel was the only one to see me off at the airport, dropping me off in a nondescript car. I had tried not to cry as she hugged me goodbye, but I was going to miss her can-do attitude and easy smile. I wondered as the car had pulled away if she was going to tell Jack I was gone. I still hadn’t heard from him since our fight, despite leaving him multiple messages.

“Miss Street? Miss Anna Street?” A light masculine voice cut through my memories. A tall older gentleman, with combed back brown hair sliced with gray and bright blue eyes was trying to catch my attention. I suddenly recognized Dean, though it took me a moment before I remembered that I was traveling as Anna Street to avoid alerting any of the press. I rushed over and hugged him, glad to have a familiar face when my world seemed so empty. He grinned and hugged me back before tucking the sign with my false name printed neatly across it under his arm and ushering me to a waiting black SUV.

“Looks like you made it here safe and sound. Rachel hired me to look out for you for the next few weeks. She thought it was best if it was someone you knew and trusted already.” I was so glad it was Dean who was going to look out for me. Just hearing his voice was soothing. It was like he was always smiling, even though his face was straight and professional. He reminded me so much of my father it was easy to trust him.

“I’m glad you’re here Dean. Where are we going?”

“Ms. Weber has arranged for you to stay at a local hotel.”

“A hotel? You mean I don’t get to go home?” I felt a push of despair. All I wanted was to curl up in
my
bed, in
my
house, with
my
special coffee mug and try to forget this whole thing had ever even happened.

“I’m sorry, but no. There are at least three photographers waiting at your home and several more positioned at places that you are known to frequent. I’m afraid I'll have to ask you to stay at the hotel and keep your contact with people here as brief as possible for your own safety.” His voice lost the smiling sound as he smiled apologetically at me. I sighed and nodded. I should have known this was going to keep haunting me.

Dean carefully parked the car in the parking lot of a small hotel outside of downtown Des Moines. The city was so tiny compared to New York that calling it a city seemed like a sad joke. It seemed grayer than I remembered—less alive. The trees reached up with grasping fingers, scratching at an unforgiving sky for warmth and light. Even though the trees were starting to sprout little buds, I couldn’t see the green. The day would have been warm if the wind wasn’t blowing, but dark clouds were building across the sky as the sun set. Spring snow threatened, but I didn’t care.

Dean walked in front of me, his thin frame easy to follow through the empty hallways to my room. It was a nice room, nicer than anything I could have afforded, but it was still just a hotel room. I went to the closet to hang my jacket and found my things already arranged neatly. Glancing around the room, I could see small touches that could only be the work of Rachel. My mail on the table, fresh flowers in a vase by the door, my toothbrush and a red cup by the sink.

Dean handed me a card with his name and telephone number, reminding me if I needed anything to call him. “I’ll bring by some pizza in an hour or so for you. What would you like?”

“Pineapple and bacon,” I answered automatically. Comfort food sounded good. He grinned and shut the heavy door softly behind him. I stood in the center of the room, suddenly lost. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be in New York. I wanted to be somewhere I belonged. I wanted this hole in my heart to either disappear or fill up with something that didn’t hurt so much.

I slid the blonde wig off my head and onto a wig stand in the bathroom. Rachel had thought of everything. I looked at myself in the mirror. I still looked the same, brown hair, brown eyes, but I knew something must be different about me. I didn’t feel like me anymore. I suddenly wanted out of my expensive clothes, out of everything that had anything to do with New York or the almost-life I had left behind.

I threw the suit on the tile floor, a sick sense of satisfaction at the expensive fabric lying in a pile. I stepped on it as I walked past. All I wanted was a pair of old sweats and a t-shirt. I dug through the drawers, but all I could find was beautiful expensive clothes from New York. I ripped them out of the drawers and off their hangers, tossing them in angry showers to the floor as I searched. I didn’t want this. All I wanted was something simple, comfortable. Finally, in the bottom drawer of the last dresser, I found my ratty scrub pants and a t-shirt.

With a sob of relief I dove into the familiar fabric, feeling it rub against my skin. The hem on the pants was fraying and a hole had developed in the t-shirt, but I didn’t care. Hot tears leaked down my cheeks, leaving red lines of frustration and hurt behind them. I sat down on the bed, a raft in a sea of clothes, and cried until I passed out, exhausted.

F
ive days, three hours, and twenty three minutes since I left New York. I had been cooped up in the hotel room for five days, and I was ready to kill. Dean brought me whatever kind of food I wanted, and I had free reign of room service and the coffee cart in the library, provided I wore the blonde wig whenever I opened the door.

I hated it. The weather outside was slowly getting warmer, the sunshine teasing me with happiness. I went out in the hotel courtyard several times, but there was always a businessman on his phone, or a family planning their drive back through Nebraska. I wanted to be alone, not silently sharing strangers’ lives, so I tended to stay in my room and pull the drapes.

I watched more TV in those few days than I had in my whole life. I suddenly understood the allure of reality TV, or at least the mind-numbing time-killing ability of it. It was at least a way to pass time while I waited for my world to settle enough that I could go back into it.

Dean kept his distance, bringing me food and movies at regular intervals. He was friendly and easy going, but he kept our relationship strictly professional. He was my bodyguard, not my friend. He had other things to do than sit in my hotel room and listen to me whine.

Rachel and I texted throughout the day, but she was busy with work. I had a feeling Jack was finding her extra tasks to keep her busy so she wouldn’t remind him about me. She kept telling me that things were going to get better, but, from my lonely hotel room, the world looked desolate and gray.

I wished for the umpteenth time that I could at least tell Ashley where I was so she could come visit me, but Dean had expressly forbidden it. I couldn’t tell anyone—not even my parents—that I was back in town, because anyone connected with me was probably being watched. I told him he was paranoid and crazy and he looked at me with icy blue eyes until I finally relented.

I felt lost. Without my friends or family, there was nothing in Iowa that I wanted. Without Jack and Rachel, there was nothing in New York that wanted me. I was in my home state, but I couldn’t have been farther away from home if I tried.

“Celebrities Revealed! Look who is back in rehab? The troubled starlet was seen checking in-” The TV blared out, suddenly loud as a tabloid show flashed on the screen. I flopped around on the bed, trying to find the remote. “Where is Emma LaRue? Are the two lovers splitting up?”

At my name, I turned to the screen. A video of Jack carrying me out of the restaurant as the paparazzi swarmed us flashed across the screen, making my chest squeeze. Jack’s eyes flashed furious as he cradled me close to him, protective and fierce. I could almost smell his cologne, the soft scent of his soap as I remembered. The void in my chest threatened to swallow me whole. I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking the tears that wanted to escape.
I’m past this
, I told myself. If I said it enough times, it would be true.

“Emma LaRue has not been seen entering the DS Oil and Gas Building for almost a week after weeks of almost nightly visits. No sightings of her, or the happy couple anywhere in New York.” The screen flashed to a video of Jack in his office. Someone with a camera was in the grand entrance looking through his open office door. He looked worn and tired, dark circles under his eyes. He seemed to carry a heavy weight across his shoulders, heavier than I had ever seen. Upon seeing the camera, his eyes blazed and the door to his office slammed shut, the angry face of Jeannette filling the screen before cutting back to a picture of me smiling in Times Square. “Jack Saunders appears hard at work, so where is the lovely Emma?”

I barely recognized myself in the photograph. The hair was mine, the arms and legs were right, the clothing matched something I knew was piled on the floor in the closet, but the smile was something foreign. I had been so happy. All the joy from loving Jack radiated out of that smile, filling the picture with sunny warmth. It was only on the screen for a moment before the announcer shifted stories, and grainy pictures of a long legged blonde woman in compromising positions filled the screen.

“What are you watching?” Dean asked, stepping through the doorway. I hadn’t even heard him knock, but I had given him a key. He stood with a bag of groceries, a perplexed look on his face as he watched the blurred images of a lurid sex tape flit across the screen. I finally found the remote and hit the power button.

The TV died with an electronic hiss. “Nothing worth watching,” I said sitting up. He set the food down on the table and walked over to the window, pulling the drapes open. I hissed like a vampire as bright sun flooded the room.

“It is a gorgeous day outside. You haven’t been out of this hotel room in over three days and—”

“I went to the courtyard on Monday!” I interjected. He gave me a look that made it very clear what he thought of that.

“The courtyard doesn’t count as outside. The crab apple trees are blooming and you are within walking distance of one of the largest collections of flowering crab apple trees in the world. Arie den Boer Arboretum is just down the road. You are going to get up, get dressed, and go take a walk. Absorb nature.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Don’t make me make you.” He gave me the same look my father used to give when I didn’t want to do my chores.

I sighed and rolled off the bed. It was easier to appease him than to fight him. Besides, I hadn’t been to the ‘crabby-apple park’ since I was a kid. I remembered that some horticulturist had collected hundreds of varieties of flowering crab apple trees and planted them in a park. My dad would take me for a picnic lunch when the trees first went into bloom until I started high school and decided it wasn’t cool anymore.