Page 25 of From LA to London, With Love

I sighed. I needed to focus on quashing these feelings for him before they got out of control.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHRIS

I WAS SIPPING my morning coffee on the couch in the now baby-proofed living room, practicing my accent. I hadn’t been as diligent with my voice training over the past few days because I’d been pissed off about the tabloid articles. While Sophie had told me not to worry, it killed me that Sophie and Elliot had been dragged into my mess. I knew how protective Sophie was of Elliot. And I felt protective of them both.

A phone call from Jenny interrupted my thoughts. I answered it with a sense of foreboding. It was around midnight in LA, late for her to be calling me. Alfie was arriving this morning. In fact, he should have just been picked up by my driver and on his way over now. My heart sank.

“Hi, Chris, um, so, you know how Alfie was flying into London this morning?” Jenny asked, her voice wavering.

“Yes.” My heart sank even further. I hoped he hadn’t been injured during the flight or stopped at the border because his immunization papers weren’t correct. An image of that little furball sitting on a metal chair, being interrogated by border control, popped into my head. If he could talk, he’d definitely incriminate himself—or at least pee on the chair and piss off border control.

“Well, he accidentally got on a flight to Barcelona instead.”

My heart had now well and truly bottomed out. If I hadn’t been so concerned about Alfie’s wellbeing, I would have laughed at the way Jenny had made it sound like it was Alfie’s fault. While Alfie had a lot of accidents, getting on the wrong plane wasn’t an accident of his own making.

“What! How did that even happen? Is he okay? Where is he now?”

“Apparently, someone picked him up from Barcelona airport.”

Nausea washed over me.

“What the hell? Does the airline know who it was? Surely they don’t just hand over puppies without seeing some identification or proof of ownership.”

“No. The person who picked him up signed for him, but they can’t read the signature. The airline sent it to me, and I can’t make it out either. I’ll send it to you. I’m so sorry, Chris.”

My heart softened slightly. I knew how fond Jenny was of Alfie, and she sounded genuinely upset.

“That’s outrageous. Who would have picked him up? How could the airline let this happen? What the hell are we supposed to do?”

I didn’t know where to start. How do you track down a missing dog, especially in a foreign country? I couldn’t imagine the police would be interested, so I’d probably have to hire a private investigator, or maybe a pet detective, if they existed outside of the movies. I started looking up flights to Barcelona. I wanted to be there when Alfie was found, to comfort him and bring him safely back to London.

I’d felt badly enough about the little guy being alone in the plane for the trip from LA to London. And now he’d been picked up by a stranger, in a new country, with a different language. Although, to be honest, since he’d never learned any commands, he probably wouldn’t notice the language change.

After hanging up on Jenny, I went to call Sophie to cancel our plans when an idea dawned on me. On our first walk together, Sophie said she missed traveling and spontaneity…

Could Sophie and Elliot come with me and make an adventure of it? Besides making the whole trip a lot more fun, Sophie spoke Spanish, which would be extremely helpful. And the rest of the time, she’d speak in English, which would be good for my accent.

If I planned everything carefully, I might have a chance of convincing her to come with me. Maybe going on a trip with a gorgeous, unavailable woman I was pining after wasn’t the best idea, but…screw it.

I picked up the phone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SOPHIE

“HEY SOPH, what’s up? Is everything okay?” Josh sounded surprised.

“Sorry—yes, everything is fine, but do you have time to speak? I know you’re at work.” I’d just gotten off the phone with Chris and was agonizing over what to do. Josh was the only person I’d confided in about my feelings for Chris, so I hoped he could help. I paced the living room, fizzing with nervous energy.

“Yep, I’m on my lunch break.”

“Okay, great. So, Chris just invited me and Elliot to go to Barcelona with him…this afternoon.”

Elliot, vigorously sucking a blue pear-shaped teething toy on my parents’ living room floor, was completely unaware he might be jetting off on his first overseas trip in a few hours.

“What! Why? That sounds…amazing!” Josh’s voice bubbled with excitement.