Summer Attractions (15 page)

It was an argument she’d had with herself for years. “But if I care about
him
,” Jemma asked, “how can I do whatever I want while knowing it’s going to break his heart?”

Gabe reached for her, curving his other palm around her cheek. “I don’t think you can really prevent that. You’ve got to live your own life.”

“I was trying to do that,” Jemma whispered into Gabe’s shoulder as he pulled her close. “I was trying to do something for
me
.”

Gabe pulled back a little and gave her an encouraging smile. “Don’t just try, Jemma.
Do
it. Own it.”

Jemma laughed. “And I suppose you have no interest in the matter.”

“I know I do, but I also know you can’t live your life afraid of what it might do to your friend. And he wouldn’t want that either.”

The guilt didn’t magically go away. It still existed, but it felt easier to live with, somehow. Even telling him had helped. Jemma didn’t understand it, but it scared her all the same. She was falling hard and fast, and when she reached up, pressing her lips to his, the entirety of Rio spread out beneath them, it felt like taking another step closer to the edge of the cliff.

Later, when they returned back to the hotel, a little burnt and a little tipsy, Jemma took a moment to send Colin a quick email back.

She didn’t post the selfie that she and Gabe took together. She wasn’t quite ready. But she did post one of herself that Gabe had taken late in the day, all of Rio spread out in the background, and a smile on her face that made her eyes shine.

Jemma got the text message two days later.

She was getting ready for their first event of the day, a handful of beach volleyball matches that were being held further down Copacabana Beach when her phone buzzed. She ignored it, fussing with her hair, until a second later, a flash of realization hit her and Jemma froze.

Only one person knew that phone number besides Gabe, and he was laying on what had apparently become
their
bed as he waited for her to finish getting ready.

Jemma reached over and plucked it up from the counter. It was a short message and it was undeniable.

“SOS! She told me SOS!” Jemma screeched as she rushed into the bedroom. “I’ve got . . . I’ve got to get to her.”

Gabe’s eyes met hers, confusion evident. “Who? What? Did something happen?”

Jemma marched over to the bed and stuck the phone right into his face. “
Kimber
is the only one who has this number—my temporary number while I’m in Rio except for you. And you didn’t send this.”

“I thought you’d already been texting her?” Gabe asked.

“It can’t be a good sign that she had to get a new phone,” Jemma said, pacing now.

The skin between his brows creased with confusion. “SOS? That could be anything. That could be meant for someone else.”

“I don’t think so,” Jemma said. “At 9 in the morning?” Her entire being was vibrating with nervous energy. And
fear
. She didn’t even know Kimber Holloway, other than a single afternoon, and still she feared for her. What had her mother done? What was she threatening to do? Jemma’s stomach clenched.

“Maybe try replying?” Gabe suggested.

Normally this would’ve been the first thing Jemma tried, but
SOS
. SOS was far, far past a simple text exchange. To Jemma, SOS was, “I’m over my head and I need help.
Now
.”

Jemma crossed her arms over her chest and shot him a glare. “I was thinking of something a bit more immediate.”

“Texting is pretty damn immediate, Jemma,” Gabe said, all annoyingly logical unconcern.

And, Jemma reminded herself, that made sense. He’d not been there, that afternoon. He hadn’t seen the look in her eyes for himself. Yes, he’d seen the last week of Kimber’s clearly worsening state, but that was on a TV screen, or far, far away; he’d never actually been face to face with her.

She made a frustrated noise and turned to go back to the bathroom and finish getting ready. Why should he help her? Jemma wasn’t sure anybody else would either.

“Wait,” he said patiently, reaching out and grabbing her arm before she could leave. He sighed. “I want to help. But it’s probably better to text her first, see if you can get any details, see if we can arrange something via text, rather than just doing something crazy and desperate and likely unsuccessful.”

Jemma smiled. “And if the crazy and desperate is necessary?”

He looked resolute. “Then we do something about it. But before we run in, guns blazing, let’s do a bit of reconnaissance.”

As they sat in the stands waiting for the first beach volleyball match to begin, Gabe even helped her type out a reasonable response, hopefully something that could create a conversation between them that might give Jemma a better idea of where to start.

It was a great match between the Australian and the Chinese women; both teams agile and clearly determined, score quite close, but Jemma couldn’t take her eyes off her phone. Gabe looked over at her a few times, and just sighed as she checked it for the millionth time.

As for Jemma, with each passing hour that she didn’t hear anything back from Kimber, her nerves wrenched a little tighter.

By the time she and Gabe walked back to the hotel, the sun had fallen lower in the sky, and Jemma began to fill with dread.

“I don’t think she’s going to reply,” Jemma said for probably the tenth time since they’d left the volleyball arena.

Gabe had brushed her off the first nine times, but this time, he glanced down at his watch, and then up at the sky. “Is there any reason she’d be away from her phone for hours? Practice?”

Jemma shook her head. “Kimber mentioned they have some stretching and loosening they do over the course of the Games, but they don’t hold regular practices.”

“An interview maybe? A race?”

“I checked the schedule before we left the room,” Jemma reminded him. “There are no interviews scheduled that I can see, and she doesn’t have a race tonight.”

“So she’d be in the Olympic Village,” he stated, punctuating it with a final, resigned sigh.

“Probably,” Jemma ventured. “From what she said, her mother wasn’t really letting her do much of anything. No tourist stuff, no watching other events, nothing really.”

Gabe shook his head. “Caging someone like a prisoner,” he grumbled. “It’s not right.”

“It’s
not
right,” Jemma agreed as they walked through the lobby. He hesitated behind her as she pushed the elevator button to go back up to their floor.

“What?” she asked. “I thought we were going to go back to the room and get ready for dinner? You said there was this place you wanted to take me.”

“I did. I do,” Gabe soothed, reaching out for her hand. He drew her aside, away from the crowds getting on and off the bank of elevators. “But I think you might be right.” His expression was solemn.

“Right about what?”

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him so intensely serious. Maybe that first day, when he’d been out of his mind with worry over Nick and he’d picked her from the airport. But this wasn’t life or death, the way it had been then.

“I think maybe this has moved past text messages,” Gabe said. “I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. She’s smart. You said she was smart.”

“She’s brilliant, you saw it in the interviews yourself.” He had remarked on her intelligence when an interviewer managed to relax her more than once. Of course, that hadn’t happened in at least a week. When Kimber was tense she tended to give shortened, awkward answers.

He nodded. “I think maybe she was sending a message.”

Jemma shot him an incredulous look. “She actually
sent me a message
, Gabe.”

“I mean,” Gabe said, taking her hand and pulling her further into one of the darker corners of the lobby, practically behind one of the potted palms. “I think she was trying to tell you that she couldn’t send any more messages. That was the one message she could send without giving too much away.”

Jemma felt ice coalesce in her stomach. “Her mother is reading her text messages.”

Gabe gave a sharp nod of agreement and Jemma felt sick.

“She didn’t say more because she couldn’t. She didn’t reply to my messages because she
couldn’t
.”

“I’ve seen people with that hunted look before. It was always when they were being watched.” Gabe’s voice had the grimmest edge.

“What can we do?” Jemma asked, her tone pleading.

“We can make sure she’s okay,” Gabe said. “We can go to the Olympic Village and make sure.”

“That’s . . . we can’t just
go
there,” she said, because she wasn’t quite sure he really understood. “We aren’t allowed in. No press allowed.”

“That’s why I’m not coming to the room with you,” Gabe said.

Her eyes widened and Jemma realized finally what he was trying to tell her. “We’re going to sneak in!” she exclaimed before she could stop herself.

He slapped a hand tight over her mouth. “For the
love of god
, don’t say that so loud,” Gabe hissed. “This is an improved Rio, but I can’t promise what’ll happen if we get arrested. There is still corruption in some of the police bureaus.”

“So we can’t get caught,” she whispered. “How do we do that?”

“I’m working on a plan,” he said, his voice growing even grimmer. “I should be back in an hour. I’m afraid our dinner date is going to have to wait.”

“It’s not important,” Jemma said, flustered that he’d called it a date and even more flustered that instead of going to dinner, they were going to sneak into the Olympic Village.

“You’ve lost your mind,” Jemma exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning at the skimpy bikini top and bottom that Gabe had pulled from the plastic bag he’d brought in. “I’m not wearing that!”

“I thought you wanted to talk to Kimber? Make sure she’s okay?”

Jemma glowered. “I do. I’m just not going to wear
that
to do it. Where’s your disguise?”

“I don’t need one, really,” Gabe smirked. “I speak Portuguese. I can easily pretend to be what I already am—private security.
You’re
the problem.”

“I’m still not wearing it,” Jemma retorted testily. “Find me something else.”

“You’d really abandon Kimber because of a little bare skin?” he asked teasingly, dangling the swimsuit closer to her face. “I’ve seen it, and it’s all amazing. No need to be ashamed.”

Jemma gritted her teeth. “In the hotel room isn’t the same as flouncing around the streets of Rio in a bikini!”

Gabe inwardly counted to ten, dragging out Jemma’s frustration a hair longer, mostly because he was enjoying himself. “Oh, of course you’re wearing
this
over it,” he said, whipping out a track suit from the plastic bag he’d carried everything in after
liberating it from the beach volleyball pavilion.

Jemma’s glare grew darker and she grabbed the jacket from his outstretched hand. “I don’t like you,” she said, taking off to the bathroom with a definite flounce in her step.

“I thought you were gonna let me see you wear it, babe?” he called out to her retreating back. She merely held up a hand and flipped him the bird. He chuckled, vastly amused by her reaction, which had been even funnier than he’d imagined.

He hadn’t lied, he didn’t really have a disguise, per se. But Gabe still let himself out of her hotel room and crossed to his, quickly exchanging his jeans and t-shirt for a pair of khaki slacks and a plain black polo.

It would have been better if he’d brought one of the polos he wore working extra hours doing security at the Staples Center embroidered with their private security logo, but he hadn’t brought any of those with him. He hadn’t exactly anticipated sneaking into the Olympic Village, but then he hadn’t really anticipated Jemma.

He couldn’t ever remember having more fun than he’d had the last few weeks, and he’d realized, to some not-insignificant guilt, that he wouldn’t have enjoyed it nearly as much if he’d been with Nick.

He’d told himself that this made perfect sense
because he wasn’t sleeping with Nick, but still the thoughts lingered, because it wasn’t just the sex, though that was fucking fantastic. It was
everything
. It was the way he took so much joy in the joy in
her
. He’d never enjoyed someone else’s happiness so much before. And while he’d only originally intended to be with her during this time in Rio as a fling to keep her occupied and compliant, he knew deep down it had always been more.