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“I’m sorry,” Robert said after another awkward moment.
“It’s hardly your fault. I know you have the team on it, and you’re working as hard as you can.”
We ended the conversation and I requested a stiff glass of bourbon through the plane’s intercom system. Joan complied with my request, and while I drank away some of my frustration, I contemplated the nightmare unfolding in front of me. This didn’t just affect me, it drastically impacted Rebecca, who I suspected would make out far worse than me during the fallout of our indiscretion.
And that’s what it was in many ways—a terrible indiscretion that violated the tenuous relationship that existed between a reporter and the person being interviewed. I’d suffer some short-term fallout, but she’d endure much more.
How in the world could I have let something like this happen?
I opened my email on the cell phone app and located her phone number through the myriad of emails we’d used to communicate over the last few weeks. I was probably the last person she wanted to hear from, but it was at least worth a try. I dialed the number and put the phone back to my ear.
But the call went to voice mail. So did the second call. And the third.
After the fourth, I sent her a text message. She didn’t write back.
And when the plane arrived in Palm Beach, I didn’t feel much better.I think I lost something far more valuable than my wealth. Happiness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
REBECCA
I’d never been to theHocking Hills or to Rockbridge.
Two and a half hours northeast of Cincinnati, and a world away from the bustle of a midsized midwestern metropolis. Rockbridge wasn’t much more than a few stoplights, a small business district, a couple gas stations, some shops catering to summer tourists, and a coffee shop determined to make this slip of a town more glamorous than it really was.
But it was quiet.
Best of all, it was about the farthest I could be from the media firestorm encircling my condo back in the city. By the time Olivia snuck me into the maintenance elevator and stuffed me under a blanket in the backseat of her car, she estimated more than fifty journalists and news crews occupied the space outside the building, their live trucks monopolizing street parking, their equipment crowding the broken concrete and the curb. It felt over the top, and even impossible, but I knew Landon fascinated the media at all levels.
And this circus confirmed that.
“Jesus Christ, this is crazy,” Olivia said before she tucked the blanket around me, covering my head and body. After some discussion and debate about how to get out of there, we decided I’d don an old black Halloween wig, a large hat, and sunglasses as part of my efforts to disguise my appearance. The getup might have looked ridiculous, but we felt we had no other choice, and she wanted to get me to the car as fast as possible.
“I can really pick ’em, can’t I?”
I pulled the blanket around my head, my body stretched across the backseat of the car, a mess of sprawled limbs and squished body parts. "This is ridiculous.”
