Page 115 of Stolen Faith
“Don’t apologize,” Rowan interjected. “Not for that. Not for any of it.”
She stared at him. “Okay, I won’t. As long as you promise me the same.”
Rowan gave her a crooked grin; aware he’d basically cut himself with his own knife. He blew out a hard breath. “Fine.”
Izabel could count on one hand with fingers left over the number of times she’d cried in front of someone else since becoming an adult. She thought perhaps she should be embarrassed, but the truth was, she wasn’t. “I know we’re safe now, so my reactions feel wildly delayed.”
“This is the first chance you’ve had to process all the shit we just went through,” Brennon said. “It’s the first time any of us could truly let our guard down.”
Izabel looked up and realized his eyes were puffy as well. Had he cried at some point? She wondered if his tears had been driven by trauma or Rowan’s story or both.
“You wanna hear something funny?” Brennon asked. “We only met six days ago.”
“Jesus.” Rowan shook his head. “That’s not possible.”
Izabel agreed. “I feel like I’ve always known you. Does that seem strange?”
Both men shook their heads.
“Not at all. We lived three lifetimes in the past four days,” Brennon said.
Rowan blew out a long, slow breath. “You can say that again.”
“Of course, if we’re looking for silver linings,” Brennon said, his shit-eating grin emerging. “I have enough material to write at least ten screenplays. The box office isn’t going to know what hit it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Franco nearly fell down the steps they’d rolled up to the door of the small aircraft in his haste to get out. To get to them.
Sebastian was right behind him, phone to his ear. “…they’re just at a Hilton. A really expensive hotel wouldn’t work for the optics and might alienate people.”
Franco was already ripping open the door to the ubiquitous black SUV that was waiting for them on the tarmac of the small private airport outside Atlanta. Sebastian stowed their bags and slid in beside him. The car started. Franco resisted the urge to reach forward and shake the driver.
“Get the presidential suite. Maybe get that whole floor if you can,” Sebastian was saying. “Yes. Yes. No. We’ll see you when you get here.”
Sebastian ended the call. “Almost there,” he told Franco. “Lachlan and Rose are on their way.”
Franco only nodded. He was desperate to hold them the way a man in a desert was desperate for water.
Sebastian went back to his phone, this time opening a news site. Franco saw the picture at the top of the article out of the corner of his eye. A blonde woman wrapped in a gray blanket being walked to an ambulance. A man with an oxygen mask on a gurney being wheeled beside her.
He looked away. He couldn’t bear to watch the news coverage of Juliette and Devon’s “rescue” one more time.
Sebastian continued to work, coordinating with Lachlan as they used all the influence and resources at their disposal to craft a protective lie and untangle the facts of what exactly had happened.
Franco didn’t care about any of it.
He didn’t care who owned the mansion or the hunting cabins where Juliette, Devon, and the others had been held along their way to Atlanta. He didn’t care who knew what. Hadn’t listened to the plans that were made as Black Arrow helped to stage the scene before Juliette’s fake, frantic 9-1-1 call that finally led to the “rescue.”
All he cared about was holding his spouses in his arms again.
The car pulled up outside a nice, but not remarkable hotel. There were reporters gathering around the doors, being corralled by bored-looking cops.
“Don’t run,” Sebastian said. “You need to gawk and look like just another hotel guest who doesn’t know what’s going on.”
Franco nodded. He and Sebastian were in suits—Colum had basically dressed him before they left Boston—and the driver passed them the suitcases Sebastian had loaded into the car when Franco wasn’t paying attention.
Sebastian not only gawked on his way into the hotel but stopped and asked one of the officers what was going on. Franco held perfectly still, waiting, his suitcase handle gripped tight in his fingers.