CHAPTER 60
“There are some over-the-counter pills in the bathroom cabinet.” His eyes were weary, his brow lined with worry, his features sharp.
“You haven’t slept much since we left San Francisco.”
She hadn’t. Because she’d been too busy making love with Darius.
But she’d finally remembered her brother was her true duty. And she would never, ever let anything happen to Zion again. Because when they found him—God, please let me find him, I’ll do anything you want—things were going back to the way they had been before they’d ever met Darius Spencer.
Nathalie’s silence made Darius gut churn. He needed to know what she was thinking, what she was
feeling. She meant everything to him—she and Zion both did—and he would give up literally every
penny he had just to have her brother safe and sound again.
And to know that he hadn’t lost her love.
Right now, he was praying for at least one out of two to come true, since he couldn’t imagine
Nathalie ever saying she loved him again. Not after he’d done the exact thing she’d been so
frightened of...
“I’m so sorry, Nathalie. I shouldn’t have let this happen.”
The cords of her neck were taut, and her mouth thinned to a hard line. She was biting on the inside
of her lip, as if she was trying to keep everything in.
He didn’t know what to do for her. He’d been so busy on the phone calling absolutely everyone he
could think of to help that every other thought had been pushed out of his mind. But now there was
nothing left to do but wait. Nothing left to say except that he’d screwed up royally.
Finally, she spoke. “This trip was ill-advised. I shouldn’t have agreed.” The coffee sat untouched in
front of her, the steam fading, the cream rising to the top and coagulating.
He wanted to rewind back to the day he’d asked her to come with him. He shouldn’t have pushed
her to come. He should have accepted her excuses. “We’ll find him, Nathalie. He’ll be okay.”
As if he hadn’t spoken, she continued, “Letting him go up to the city to work every day, where I
wasn’t close by if he needed me—that was wrong, too.”
Darius had loved the routine and Zion’s happy chatter when they’d picked up dinner on the way
home to Nathalie. Those quiet evenings sitting with her on the sofa, her body tucked close to his,
had been the best he’d ever known.
But she was regretting it all.
“He was better off at the grocery store,” she said in a firm tone. “He was better off with his regular
routines.”
Darius had been telling himself the same thing, that he should have had the clerk fired and left Zion
where he was. Where everything was familiar to him. But no, he had to have what he wanted. He
had to choose the method, the job, fix the problem. He had to stick his nose into her affairs.
And he’d screwed up every damn thing.
“I didn’t even call him.” Her voice was higher, harsher.
Every word out of her mouth killed another piece of him. “It’s not your fault, Nathalie. I was
wrong. I didn’t think. We should have called him together.”
“I’m not blaming you.” Her cheeks were tinged an angry pink. “I’m talking about my choices. I
should have listened to my instincts.”
Instead, she’d listened to his. And now, they were here, waiting, fearing.
Just that quickly, the anger, the hardness, the grim set of her mouth drained away, replaced by a
pool of tears welling at the rims of her eyes. “Oh God, Darius, what if something terrible has
happened to him?”
“He’s going to be fine, Nathalie. We’ll find him.” But he knew they were useless words when they
were stuck thirty thousand feet in the air.
And when her tears spilled over, he didn’t think, just instinctively rose, stepping around the table, to
reach for her.
Her hands shot out and she pushed against his chest before he could even get close enough to put
his arms around her. She whirled in the swivel chair, away from him, getting out on the other side as
she scraped the tears off her cheeks.
Darius froze. Every muscle, every organ, the breath in his lungs, the beat of his heart. He wanted to
calm her, comfort her, take her in his arms and stroke her hair. He wanted to promise her that
everything would be all right. But he’d already broken every promise he’d made to her, because
Zion was gone.
“You’re right.” Each word was raw. Broken. “I should take a nap. Or at least lie down for a while.”
“That’ll be good.” He could barely keep himself from begging her to let him hold her. To let him try
to do whatever he could to take her pain away. “Take the pill. Then you won’t be lying there with a
bunch of worries running through your mind.” It was a pathetic offer, and he felt as helpless as he’d
been as a kid, with no right words to say, no action to take, nothing to do to fix things. “I’ll wake
you with any news.”
If anything happened to her brother…
No, he couldn’t let himself think that way. He had to believe that Zion would be found, that he was
fine, just as he’d told Nathalie. Because if Darius allowed any other scenario into his head, he
wouldn’t make it through the flight.
Nathalie walked to his cabin with slumped shoulders. Defeated. He’d done that to her. He’d done it
to Zion. He thought he knew best. He planned and arranged and argued until he got what he wanted.
He’d dragged her into his life when she clearly hadn’t wanted it, not in the beginning, at least. But
he’d made her want it.
The bedroom door closed with a click he could hear over the jet engines, one that sounded so final.
Like the lock closing back down on a heart that had only just been set free.
She’d lain in his arms last night and whispered that she loved him. But it hadn’t taken Darius more
than a couple of hours to show her that he didn’t deserve her love.
* * *
Nathalie didn’t think she’d sleep. Yet she was aware of nothing until Darius stroked her arm. He sat
beside her on the bed, his phone in his hand, not touching her except for that one brief caress.
“They found him. Your brother is all right. He’s just fine, Nathalie. Totally fine.”
She put a hand to her mouth to stifle the cry. The sudden wave of relief was physical, a warm rush
of sensation that seemed to flow up from her belly and wrap around her heart. Oh God, thank you,
thank you, thank you. She’d been praying when she’d fallen asleep.
“He wants to talk to you.”
She grabbed the phone. “Zion?”
“Hi, Nathalie.” Zion’s voice was loud, as though he wasn’t still thousands of miles away.
“Are you okay?” Her pulse was like the roar of the jet engines in her ears.
“Yeah, Nathalie. I got lost. I was dumb.”
“You are not dumb, Zion.” She turned away from Darius, rolling to her other side, hugging the
phone close to her ear with two hands. “Where are you now?”
“I’m at the police station in San Francisco. Ben came to get me.”
“Good.”
“Are you mad at me?” came his plaintive question.
“No, sweetie, I’m not.” Later, when she’d come down off the relief high, she’d probably do a bit of
yelling about how badly he’d scared her. But for now, she only cared that he was safe.
“Is Darius mad?”
She didn’t turn, didn’t look at Darius. “No, he’s not mad. But you’ll need to tell him you’re sorry.”
“Yes. Promise.” It reminded her of Darius promises, and her heart ached. “Hey, Nathalie, I have to
go. They brought pizza. I’m really hungry. I didn’t get to eat dinner.”
He wanted pizza. She wanted to cry. But he was all right. Everything was all right. “Okay, honey.
You better get home and get some sleep. I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye, Nathalie. Ben wants to talk to Darius again, okay?”
“Sure, sweetie.” She held the phone over her shoulder, not looking, until Darius took it. “Ben for
you.” She lay there, her eyes closed, her back to him as she struggled to keep her breathing steady.
“We’ll get in around six in the morning your time,” Darius said. “You can pick us up then.” He
paused, listening. “Yeah. That’s fine. I’m sure Nathalie would like that.”
When he disconnected, she rolled back to him. “He sounds okay. But I have to see him for myself,
make sure he’s fine.”
“I know.” Darius eyes seemed sunken, with dark circles under them and lines on his face that hadn’t
been there yesterday. “Zion wants to come when Ben picks us up. It’s probably better if he takes the
day off school as well as work and goes home with you.”
“All right. That’s good.” She glanced at her watch, but she wasn’t sure whether she was on London
or San Francisco time and she was too tired to figure it out. “How long before we’re there?”
“Six hours.”
She groaned. They weren’t even halfway there.
“Where was he? What happened?” She almost put a hand on Will’s arm, before she stopped herself.
“He said he got lost.”
Darius flexed his jaw. “He went to the Exploratorium.”
“The Exploratorium?” That didn’t even make sense. “But he was working.”
Darius blinked. He didn’t move another muscle, not to touch her, not to lie down beside her. His
lids were hooded, masking his expression, his voice a monotone when he spoke. “A guy in the
supply room has been telling him the Exploratorium is awesome. So when he wasn’t very busy in
the afternoon, he asked his supervisor if he could leave early. That was about three o’clock.”
“His supervisor just let him walk out?” The fury that wanted out trembled on the edge of her voice.
“Yes.” No expression leaked into his tone, it was simply flat, no reaction.
“How could that happen, Darius? His supervisor should have known better.” And she should have
called Zion during the day, before he asked to leave. He would have told her what he planned, and
she would have told him to wait until she got home. God, she’d been so stupid. “And how did he
get all the way over there from your office?”
“It’s been moved into one of the pier buildings. It’s not that far from Market Street, so he walked
there.”
“Without his jacket or phone.” She’d always tried to impress on Zion how important it was to carry
his phone everywhere.
“He made it there fine. But he got lost coming back, got himself turned around and didn’t recognize
anything. Eventually he found a cop who helped him. But Zion didn’t remember our office
address.”
And the only phone number Zion had memorized was hers. She closed her eyes.
“You’re tired. Sleep. That’ll make the trip go faster.”
Darius face had always been the most beautiful one she’d ever seen. From the start his eyes had
given away everything to her—his appreciation, his attraction, his love. And now? Now she could
see his frustration, his guilt, and his regret.
Regret so deep that it was tearing through both of them.
Unable to take any more of it in, she rolled away from him and closed her eyes. Zion was safe,
thank God, but anything could have happened to him while he was wandering around San
Francisco.
The last thought she had before pure exhaustion claimed her against her will, was that her mother
must be rolling over in her grave.
* * *
Zion was safe. It was the only thing that kept Darius from losing his mind.
He left Nathalie to sleep away the rest of the seemingly endless flight, and poured himself a glass of Scotch. It burned going down. But it couldn’t burn away his thoughts.
His blood powered up with the need to fire every damn last one of them, from Ben to Zion’s
supervisor to the kid who’d told him about the Exploratorium. Every freaking one of them. Come
out with his fists swinging, just like the Black Warrior inside him. Hit first, think later. Smash and
hack his way through.
But he’d come far enough to know that the fighting had been a symptom of his powerlessness, his
inability to truly control everything around him. It had never fixed anything. It never even made
him feel better.
And the fact was, he should have prepared his employees better. Much better. He should have
stressed that Zion was disabled. Only, Darius didn’t think of him that way, and the idea of putting
any stigma on him by giving his issues a name hadn’t sat well, especially after the grocery store
incident.
Now, Darius knew that the clerk should have called him an idiot instead of Zion. Because being
clear regarding Zion’s limitations wasn’t about stigma. It was about ensuring his safety.
He took another slug, let it burn, then catalogued over and over the mistakes he’d made during the
past two months. Mistakes that had just cost him the love of his life and a boy who had become
very important to him, as well.
When they were forty-five minutes out of SFO, Darius ordered breakfast, and his crew had it
waiting so that Nathalie could eat before they landed. He knocked lightly on the door to let her
know.
“Did you sleep?”
She nodded. She didn’t talk much. She didn’t eat much either. It would have been easier if she’d
yelled it all out, reamed him a new one. He was used to Nathalie speaking her mind. But she was
completely closed off from him now, the lounge of his jet seeming as big as a cavern between them.
He knew what he needed to do. He wasn’t good for them. He didn’t deserve them.
But how could he ever get the words out to let her go when she was everything he’d ever wanted?
Everything he’d ever needed.
They landed. He thanked his crew. He didn’t dare touch Nathalie, not even to help her down the
stairs.
Ben had the car waiting on the tarmac. And Zion ran over the moment he saw Nathalie, throwing
himself into her arms.
The lump in Darius throat grew larger, the tightness in his chest clenching harder. Nathalie and Zion
were a family that he wasn’t a part of. That he would never be a part of.
“I’m sorry, Nathalie. Don’t be mad, okay? I won’t do it again.” Zion stepped back, his lips pressed
together in a sad pout. “Mrs. Oswald said I scared everyone.”
“You did.” Darius noticed how gentle Nathalie kept her voice, even though it was clear she was still
right there on the verge of shattering. “You know you shouldn’t go anywhere without your phone.
We’ve talked a lot about that.”
His head drooped on his neck, and he wagged it back and forth. “I know.”
“And what do you say to Darius?”
Turning, his shoulders slumped, he was like a puppy who’d been picked on by his littermates. “I’m
sorry, Darius. Do you still love me?”
His father had burned all the tears out of him years ago, but Zion’s words brought him closer to
crying than he’d come since his mother died. “Yeah, buddy, you know I do.” His voice sounded
odd, the words choked. “Let’s get you home. Your sister’s had a long night.”
“Sure, Darius.” Zion skipped back to the car, where Ben was stowing their two bags in the trunk.
“Have you ever been to the Exploratorium?”
“Once, years ago.”
“It’s so cool, isn’t it?”
Darius opened the car door for Nathalie, then let Zion climb into the back with her to give them
time together, while Darius took the front seat next to Ben. Zion chattered about his adventure for
the entire drive down the Peninsula.
