Page 66 of Strangers in Love

“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “I know I didn’t sound very grateful before, but I am.”

“I would’ve been surprised if you hadn’t been concerned about the others,” he said. “Your sister always said your big heart was one of your best qualities.”

I chuckled. That wasn’t all she’d said, I’d bet. “And one of my worst, too, I’m sure.”

He laughed. “That too.” He turned a bottle of water around and around in his hands. “I’m guessing you didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Heat flooded my cheeks as memories flooded my mind. “Some.”

“I’m not going to ask about what you went through.” His expression was serious now. “But I know that things like this leave a mark in your mind.”

Something about his voice made me think he was speaking from personal experience, but I didn’t know him well enough to ask, especially after he’d just said he wouldn’t ask me about what’d happened.

“It can make it hard to sleep.” He held out a hand with two round yellow pills. “These will help, if you want them.”

I didn’t have to think twice about it. I took them with a murmured, “Thank you,” and downed them with a gulp of water. As Cain went back to his seat near Eoin, I put my chair back and got comfortable. Sleep sounded like exactly what I needed.

* * *

More than twelve hours later,I woke up disoriented. While I let my body and mind register where I was and adjust accordingly, I had something to eat and then freshened up. Because of the time difference, when we landed in L.A., it’d be only a few hours later on the same day that we’d left Iran. Thursday afternoon as opposed to Thursday morning. It would’ve thrown me off even if everything about my trip had gone according to plan. Having spent so many days not even knowing the time completely threw me.

By the time we landed, I was together enough to get to the door and feel like I could handle what was waiting on the other side.

Between Freedom having been in the hospital and my kidnapping, it’d been nearly two weeks since I’d last seen her. How different she looked shocked me. Even from this distance, I could see she was as pale as she’d been when she’d woken up with her appendix about to burst, but the dark smudges under her eyes were worse. Her expression was pinched, exhausted. A wave of guilt washed over me. While she’d been making herself sick with worry, I’d been eating and sleeping and…fucking.

The word itself was enough to make me blush.

I went down the stairs as fast as I dared and practically ran to her. We collided hard enough to almost knock the wind out of me, but all I cared about was that she was hugging me, and we were together again. No matter how safe I’d felt with Eoin or how annoyed I ever was with my sister, it was Freedom who’d always been home for me.

“I’m so glad to see you.” Freedom’s voice was choked with emotion. “I was so worried. We all were.”

I pulled back a bit but didn’t completely step out of her embrace. “Speaking ofwe, where are Mom and Dad?”

Freedom’s clear blue eyes grew stormy. “They wanted to be here, but we didn’t think it was a good idea. Not long after the ransom video, Mom ended up canceling a meeting with one of her charities, citing a family emergency, and she’d forgotten that a reporter was supposed to be doing a piece on them. No surprise, Mrs. Mason ‘suggested’ to the reporter that perhaps Mom should consider resigning as the board chairwoman until ‘things at home settle down.’ Of course, that just piqued the reporter’s interest.”

I sighed. I’d only met Mrs. Mason once, but it’d been enough. The woman served on three of the same charity boards as Mom, and she hated the fact that Mom was the chair of all three.

“Anyway,” Freedom continued, “we’ve managed to keep the kidnapping out of the news so far, and we thought the best way to keep things private would be for me to come alone.”

“That makes sense,” I said, nodding. I also liked that it gave me a little more time to pull myself together before I saw them.

“Freedom.” Cain came up behind us.

I stepped to the side, removing myself from her embrace, but I didn’t go far. Right now, I wanted to be close to her, and it wasn’t only because of what she represented to me or that I’d missed her. Staying close to her gave me someone else to look at than Eoin.

I could feel his eyes on me, but I kept my attention firmly on Cain and Freedom.

“What do I owe you?” she asked, reaching for her purse.

He shook his head. “I’ll email you an invoice on Monday. Take your sister home, spend some time with your family.”

“That sounds good,” I said, reaching out to touch her arm. “Can we go?”

“Of course.” The concern was back in her voice.

“Thank you all.” I looked at each man in turn but made a point to not meet any of their eyes. If they or Freedom noticed, none of them said a word. They all nodded, and then we went our separate ways, never to see each other again.

Forty-Five

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