A Very Merry Bromance (Bromance Book Club #5) (99)

Colton would have laughed at the irony.

Jorge smiled sadly and stood with a weary slowness. Panic clutched her heart. She swallowed and tried again. “Jorge, please.”

“If you still want this job in a month, it’s yours. But our clients deserve someone who’s here because she wants to be, not because she’s avoiding something else.”

“That’s not fair,” she protested weakly.

“Go home, Gretchen. Whatever you’re looking for, you’re not going to find it here.”

She was too stunned, too humiliated to respond. He left his office door open when he walked out, leaving her alone with heated cheeks and a pounding heart. Finally, though, she picked up her bag and tried to summon some semblance of dignity when she walked out.

She had no idea where to go, couldn’t see the destination. She took the Metro, lugging her heavy bag down the long, dark escalator into the bowels of the capital city. She used to be terrified of these escalators, so long that from the top you could barely see the bottom.

What an apt metaphor for her life.

A train arrived just as she stepped up to the track, its speed sending a whirl of hot, foul air into her face. The car was nearly empty when she walked on. Just one other person sat at the opposite end, a man in an Air Force uniform. She chose a seat near one of the doors and tucked her suitcase against her legs.

The doors closed, and the train took off, slowly at first, and then it hit top speed. She hadn’t even checked which way it was going. It had been so many years since she’d last used the Metro that she couldn’t remember which line she even needed to take to get to her hotel.

You’re just a scared little girl hiding in that damn tree house wishing someone would come find you and take you home . . .

Colton had called her a coward, and he was right. She could have stayed and fought Evan. She could have stood by Colton’s side and let the chips fall where they might. But she didn’t. Despite all her talk about not caring anymore about what her family thought, about being immune to Evan’s name-calling and gaslighting, she’d still let them win. She’d done exactly what everyone expected of her.

She’d run.

And she’d ruined the best thing that had ever happened to her.

Her body flushed where she sat as her heart raced and her mind whirred. What had she done? And how the hell was she going to undo it?

Jorge was right.

She had to go home.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


The flight to D.C. would take eighty minutes, but it took less than two for adrenaline to give way to panic.

“How do you know she’ll be there?” Even though Colton sat across from Jack on his Gulfstream, he had to raise his voice to be heard over the roar of the engine.

Vlad, Mack, and Noah were settled into the rest of the seats with Elena, Liv, and Alexis. The rest of the guys opted to stay behind.

“Addison said that was the hotel she booked.”

“How does she know?”

“She has access to Gretchen’s credit card accounts.”

Colton groaned. If Gretchen found out they’d tracked her down by invading her financial privacy, she’d never forgive him. And at that thought, panic became full-blown fear. There were a lot of things she might not forgive him for. Christ, the things he’d said to her. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and tipped his head back to hold back tears.

“Thank you for loving her so much,” Jack said.

“I don’t deserve to.”

“Of course you do. You might be the only man who does, in my opinion.”

“You don’t understand. All the things I said to her . . .” His stomach clenched. “She’s lived her entire life being rejected and mocked and yelled at by people who are supposed to love her, and what did I do? The same fucking thing. I accused her of pushing people away before they could hurt her, and then I just let her do it to me. Why would she ever trust me again?”

“Because you love her enough to say you’re sorry,” Jack said. “Not many people in her life have ever done that.”

That was hardly reassuring.

The rest of the flight was a painful, slow torture. When the plane finally touched down with a light bump and a hard brake, Colton was out of his seat before it was even safe. He’d arranged for cars to be waiting for them outside the hangar. Jack and Colton got in the first one, along with Mack and Liv.

The rest of the crew divided themselves up in the other two cars. When they pulled away, Colton turned off airplane mode on his phone. No messages from her. No missed calls. No voice mails.

Colton rubbed his sweaty hands on his jeans. “How are we going to get her to come down to the lobby if she’s not even answering her phone?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said.

“There’s no way they’ll give us her room number.”

“Probably not.”

The caravan of SUVs merged onto the freeway toward Georgetown. A hand rested on his shoulder from the back seat. Mack. “Breathe, Colton. We’re going to find her.”

That wasn’t what worried him.

What worried him was how she would react when they did.



* * *



? ? ?

“You want me to do what?”

The clerk at the front desk of the hotel looked like she was one second away from hitting the security button.