Abby shot him a tiny smile. “You look adorable when you’re mad.”
“Please honey. Answer the question.”
Water dripped down her face. “I think we are.”
“About time!”
We all high-fived. It was finally time to go home. I guess we weren’t prepared for whatever Mother Nature threw at us.
James squeezed my hand and shot me an adorable look. “Hey babe.”
“Yeah?
“If we can survive bears and floods, I think we can survive anything.”
We all chuckled.
NOT TOO LONG AFTER that, we were back in the car with asphalt flying beneath our wheels, leaving our nightmare in the woods and heading quickly toward the safety of the London skyline.
Abby had passed out in the front seat, which was understandable since none of us had much rest the night before. Nick drove with his eyes locked on the horizon, one hand steadily on the wheel and the other on Abby’s leg as he sped us swiftly home. James, in the back seat with me, placed his arm around my shoulder, and I rested my tired head against his chest.
“I don’t want to go back,” I murmured.
He looked down in surprise, then kissed me softly on the top of the head. “It was nice to take a break from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Even if it wasn’t the vacation you were hoping for.”
I touched his cheek. “But it was. Because I was with you.”
He smiled and I could see him downplaying the emotion he felt.
“Oh, babe. That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me. But I’m thinking you shouldn’t have given the Alps trip away.” He said it softly, even though there wasn’t much need to lower his voice. The windows were open, and between that and the radio, it was relatively easy for us to have a private conversation. “I know you were looking forward to getting away. And I know you hate to go back earlier than planned.”
“It’s not that.” My shoulders stiffened, and I sighed. “I mean I don’t want to go back to that office, to that job....with him,” I dared.
The implication was clear, but he didn’t know how to address it. His head bowed for a second, and his dark hair spilled forward as he gazed down at me with an indecipherable look. “So quit,” he said.
“Can’t you do something to change it?” I fired back before I could stop myself.
His eyes widened in surprise, but I didn’t back down. I’d put it out there, and one way or another, he had to face it.
“James, you know as well as I do that your brother is tearing your father’s company apart at the seams, ruining all your dad worked for. How can you just sit back and let that happen?”
Nick’s eyes flickered to us in the rearview mirror, but he said nothing.
James remained similarly tongue-tied for a second before he struggled to defuse my sudden outburst. “There’s nothing I can do, Della. I don’t work there—”
“You choose to avoid it,” I replied curtly. “Robert doesn’t have any more claim to the place than you do.”
Some strange emotion flickered through James’s eyes, but he was quick to push it aside, quick to replace it with frustration that came through in his voice. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said shortly, with a harsh edge that effectively ended the discussion. “Dad will be back anytime now, and he’ll set everything right. In the meantime, everything is okay. We fixed things, for now.”
I glanced up at him, staring deeply into his eyes, then lowered my gaze back to the road. “Yeah, for now, I guess,” I said with a quiet sigh, but I didn’t believe it would last ver
y long at all, not with Robert Cross at the helm of a ship he was quickly sinking in the absence of its true captain.
That was the last any of us spoke on the ride home. Nick navigated his way quickly through the streets of London, and less than twenty minutes later, we were parked in front of James’s apartment and piling out onto the curb.
“Well,” Abby said, shaking back her hair and wearing a surprisingly cheerful, perky smile, “I don’t think we’ll be trying that again anytime soon.”
Nick looked down at her in exasperation, then scooped her off her feet. “That’s right, you little sadist,” he said with a giant grin. “No more camping for you, bets or not.”