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Chapter 23
Though his twenty-eighth-story New York office was silent, Hunter could almost hear the noise of traffic on the streets below. Two days since he’d left Bliss Cove, and he still wasn’t accustomed to the shift from ocean waves to cars honking.
He checked his phone for the thousandth time. Aria hadn’t responded to his texts or phone calls since yesterday morning. There was no one he could call to find out if she was okay.
Unless…
He pulled up a website and dialed the number for Moonbeams. “Destiny? Hunter Armstrong.”
“Oh, hello, darling. How’s the Big Apple?”
“Big. Listen, have you seen Aria? I’ve been trying to reach her, but she’s not responding.”
“Sure, I saw her yesterday. She said she was going away somewhere, and she asked me to take care of the cats for a couple of days.”
Hunter’s heart slammed against his ribs. “She went away? Where?”
“Hopefully for some energy cleansing. Her aura has been rather stressed recently.”
He pushed his chair back and strode to the windows. Forcing his voice to stay even, he thanked Destiny and ended the call. He called Meow and Then, but the phone went to voicemail.
He took a breath and told himself to calm the fuck down. Aria wasn’t under any obligation to tell him where she was going or why. Maybe she was taking advantage of his absence to visit an old friend. God knew he’d been greedily occupying as much of her time as he could. She probably neededspaceor whatever.
Before the vote.
He turned away from the window and studied his computer screen, where the financial information for Oceanview Plaza was displayed in a spreadsheet.
He’d always loved starting a new project. Finalizing the plans, breaking ground, getting underway after months of prep work.Startingalways meant that the paperwork was done and the physical work was about to begin. The building was the part he enjoyed the most.
Under normal circumstances, he’d be anticipating closing the deal that meant he could start phase two. Not to mention gain a substantial promotion and eventually a virtual lock on the CEO position. A huge piece of his plan, right within his grasp.
He’d always done everything he could to keep his plans from going wrong. To keep things on track. It was his own shit luck he hadn’t realized that because plans didn’t go as…well,planned, that didn’t mean they went wrong.
Just the opposite, in fact—plans that went awry could sometimes lead to the best place ever.
Too bad for him that he couldn’t figure out how to stay there.
The complications buzzed like wasps in his brain.
Kill Oceanview. Come up with a new negotiation. A new design, a new plan. Undercut Bruce Sinclair and tell Mariposa owners to vote no. Close the deal and change everything when he was president of West Coast operations.
None of that would work. There was always a snag that would either hurt Aria unbearably or leave Mariposa Street to fester and die. Even if he turned over his hefty personal savings and investments to her renovation fund, it wouldn’t be enough to sustain the street’s revival. And the town council wasn’t in favor of holding on to Mariposa either.
Quit his job and convince Aria to run away with him to a secret island where they could laze naked in the sun, eat sweet, juicy mangoes, and make love under waterfalls.
That was the best option of all.
He typed an address into his computer and brought up Meow and Then’s website. A little message flashed at the top of the screen.Eighteen cats adopted since we opened! Congratulations, Porkchop, on finding your forever home with the Bennetts.
The message was accompanied by a photo of a smiling family—two parents, a boy of about ten, and a girl of five or six. The little girl was holding Porkchop, who was so large he overflowed her arms. The cat peered into the camera, his expression appearing both smug and happy at the same time.
“Good luck, old friend,” Hunter murmured. “Thanks for running away and ending up outside my window.”
“I’m sorry, did you say something, sir?” His assistant Margaret paused in the doorway with a sheaf of papers.
“No, just thinking out loud.” Hunter swiveled to face her.
“I wanted to remind you the meeting starts in fifteen minutes.”
