Page 104 of Love so Hot

"Condition?" My voice cracks slightly.

He leans back, studying me. "I'd like to speak with Willow. A father-daughter call, arranged by you."

My throat tightens. How can I arrange a call when Willow won't even answer my texts?

Before I can confess there's no hope of that call happening, Jason leans in. "Absolutely," he says smoothly. "We'll set it up. No problem at all."

Relief floods Billy's features. "Wonderful. Then we have an understanding." He stands, extending a hand which I shake mechanically, feeling like I'm sealing a deal with the devil himself.

"Thank you," he says, warmth in his voice. "For bringing hope back into our family."

The door shuts behind him, leaving me reeling, wondering how in the world we're going to pull off this impossible promise. I whirl on Jason, my hands clenched into fists at my sides.

"Are you out of your mind?" I hiss, glaring daggers at him. "We can't set up a call with Willow. I don't know where she is, let alone how to contact her!"

Jason doesn't even flinch. He adjusts his glasses with a calmness that grates on my frayed nerves. "Relax," he says coolly. "We'll figure something out."

"Figure something out?" I snap. Heat crawls up the back of my neck, a telltale sign of my temper boiling over. "This isn't some numbers game you can manipulate, Jay. This is real life, and we're in deep."

"Lawrence, come on." His voice is a steady anchor in the storm of my panic. "You think I'd offer without having a backup plan?"

"Then enlighten me!" I throw my hands up, pacing the length of the room like a caged animal. "Because right now, it feels like we just signed up for mission impossible."

Jason watches me pace, not a single crease of worry marring his composed face. I can't decide if I want to shake him or beg him for his secret to staying so damn unruffled.

"Sit down," he finally says, gesturing to the chair across from him. "I'm not saying it'll be easy, but we've handled worse."

"Have we?" I flop into the chair, the fight seeping out of me as the reality of our situation sinks in. "This isn't a simple fix. We're talking about Willow—unpredictable, passionate, nowhere-to-be-found Willow. Or, I guess we should call her Wilhelmina now."

"Exactly," Jason says, tapping his finger on the table. "Unpredictable means she could be anywhere, doing anything. Which also means there's a chance she'll pop up again."

"Or she won't," I mutter, dread pooling in my stomach.

"Or she won't," he concedes with a shrug.

I give him a look, but he doesn't care.

"This is a nothing-to-lose sort of situation," Jason says.

"How do you figure that?" I ask. "Because, the way I look at it, it's losing on all sides."

"If you told Hargraves the engagement was fake, he would never give you funding. So, you had to let him think it was real."

"Okay, and?"

"Since he thinks it's real, he was always going to condition his investment on you arranging this call? Way I see it, the moment you entered into that arrangement with Willow, you guaranteed this request from Hargraves. You just didn't know it yet."

I sigh and rub my temples. "I guess that makes sense."

"Until we hit that wall, we keep climbing. Agreed?"

I sigh, the weight of the world pressing down on me.

"Agreed," I say, though I'm not sure who I'm trying to convince more—him or myself.

Chapter Fifty

Lawrence