Page 6 of Abduction
Chapter Four
Amber
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IYAWNED AS I ROLLEDout of the cab, wondering if I should have stayed out so late tonight. The exhaustion was really starting to hit me hard, and I knew I would be paying for it come tomorrow when I had to get up and go study for my exams before it turned ten in the morning.
But I needed a chance to blow off some steam, who knew how much, and Kimmy would never have let me sit around at home when she knew I was already up in my own head about everything that was going on. She’d heard plenty of my worries over the last few weeks, the fears about what was going on with Aaron, and she knew damn well I would have just been sitting around at home and worrying about them all night long if she didn’t do something about it.
I made my way to the door of the gorgeous townhouse Aaron had purchased for us and fumbled my key into the lock. I knew I was lucky to live somewhere like this; most of my classmates were bunking together just to afford an apartment, and I didn’t have to worry about taking on extra work to fit it all together. I could rely on a fiancé who wanted to take care of me, thank goodness, and I knew I should have been grateful for all the work he put in to make sure I didn’t have to worry about anything at all.
“Aaron?” I called into the house. He’d told me he’d be home by the time I got back, and I really wanted to just cuddle up in bed with him and remind myself we were okay, no matter what my stupid brain insisted on telling me. There were plenty of worse people I could be with, and I knew he was the kind of guy so many women my age would have been desperate to lock down and make a life with. I should have been more grateful. It wasn’t as though he didn’t do everything for me...
But the house was still, silent. Had he gone to bed? I headed up the stairs to our bedroom, my heart starting to pick up in my chest. Surely, he hadn’t spent another night out, had he...?
The bed was empty, the covers still pulled up just as I had left them. I chewed my lip. This...this wasn’t exactly what I had been hoping to see. I could feel the dread starting to inch up the back of my spine, and I tried to shut it down. There was no point overthinking this. He was just out. It wasn’t a big deal. He was working or something, and I needed to have a little more trust in the man I was going to marry. Why was I so quick to doubt him? Why was I so swift to just drop everything he had invested in us and believe he was up to no good?
I made my way back downstairs and poured myself a large glass of water, gulping it down to try and steady my nerves. I should call him, make sure he was doing okay, wherever he was. I knew how demanding his work could be; no doubt he’d just spent a little longer than he intended at the office. I would call him, ensure he was okay, and then go to bed, un-worried, the way I should.
Once I had finished the water, I pulled out my phone and dialed his number. I drummed my fingers on the counter as I waited for him to pick up, not entirely sure why I was so nervous right now.
He picked up after a couple of rings, and I felt a flood of relief as soon as I heard his voice.
“Amber?” he asked. He sounded distracted, as though there was something else on his mind.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you,” I blurted out, hoping he couldn’t sense the discomfort in my voice. “I just...you said you were going to be back here tonight, I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
There was a long pause. He was probably checking his watch, realizing he was late.
“Are you?”
“Am I what?” he asked, beginning to sound annoyed.
“Okay?” I finished, feeling a little stupid for being so concerned. He was an adult man; he could handle himself. It wasn’t like he was going to be anywhere else but the office, was he?
“I’m fine,” he replied quickly. “Sorry I’m not back yet. I stayed late at the office. They needed help pulling together the files for the meeting tomorrow, and we need to take on all the hours we can.”
I felt a stir of guilt in my guts. Yeah, he was talking about me—about us, about the wedding. He’d been working his ass off to pay for everything, and I couldn’t put anything toward it at all. I should have been grateful for him, not calling him up to check on him like this as though I doubted his commitment.
“Yeah, of course,” I replied, rubbing a hand over my face and reminding myself of how crazy I sounded. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine, baby,” he told me, his voice beginning to soften slightly. I just wanted him back here with me already. I knew it was clingy, and I knew he would have hated to hear me speaking like this, but I wanted to be able to trust him, and something at the back of my mind was beginning to doubt that I could.
“Are you?” he asked, shifting the conversation back around to me.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” I replied. “I just got back from seeing Kimmy. I should probably be in bed. How long do you think it’ll be before you get back? Maybe I could stay up...?”
“You should get some sleep,” he told me firmly. “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be here, and I don’t want you staying up to see me when we don’t know when I’ll be home.”
“Right, right,” I agreed, and I tried to push down the doubt threatening at the back of my mind. Why did he want to stay at the office so late? Even before, before we had decided on paying for the honeymoon abroad, he had been spending more and more time there, as though he would rather have been out and about instead of home in our apartment together.
“I miss you,” I told him, my voice taking on an edge of desperation. I had never wanted to be the girl who acted like this, the one who needed her partner around at all times, and truthfully, I’d never thought I would be. But something about the distance between us, especially as we got closer and closer to the wedding, was starting to freak me out, and I needed to know he was as invested in this as I was. It might have been paranoid, but it wasn’t weird for me to want to spend some time with the man I was going to marry, was it?
“I miss you too,” he told me, but he sounded distracted, as though his mind was somewhere else entirely. At work, probably, where I had just called up and gotten in his way.
