Chapter 30
Addy
Once Marco and I had boarded his private jet to Portland, it felt like my soul returned to my body. It wasn’t because of the crazy opulence of the jet, though. It was knowing that I was on my way to my brother. Nothing I did now could get me to him faster.
As we’d gotten onto the plane, I’d received a text from a friend of his to let me know that Kyle was still doing fine. Sleeping apparently. He’d assured me he would stay with Kyle until we arrived, so at least I knew he wasn’t alone.
Feeling slowly started seeping back into me, and I let out a whistle beneath my teeth. “Do you really have your own jet, or are you renting this thing or something? We really could have flown commercial.”
“It would have taken longer,” Marco replied, his tone more tender than I’d ever heard it. “You doing okay? Are you sure you don’t want anything to drink?”
“No, I’m fine.” I couldn’t even remember him offering me a drink before, but I’d been so out of it, I wasn’t surprised.
I’d never experienced anything like what I had today. My body and mind had become completely paralyzed with fear as soon as I’d heard the words “heart attack,” “Kyle,” and “hospital” in the same sentence.
Thank God Marco had been there with me, and for me. I didn’t remember exactly when he’d barged into my office, his jaw set tight with determination over… something. All I knew was that he’d been there when I’d needed him most.
I didn’t know if or how I’d ever be able to repay him for that. The man had even packed my underwear for me when all I’d been capable of doing was staring helplessly into my wardrobe.
Apart from my hands that wouldn’t stop shaking, I felt more composed now. I reached out to Marco, and he caught my fingers between his with no hesitation. “Thank you for organizing this. I definitely wouldn’t have been on my way already if not for you.”
We soared through the bright blue skies like a rocket. Somewhere far beneath us, there were puffy clouds, but the pilot had announced that the skies were mostly clear all the way home. The best thing of all was that while we had to make one stop to refuel, I vaguely recalled Marco assuring me it would be a fast one.
He lifted our hands to his lips and kissed my fingers, a turbulent storm of worry darkening his eyes when they met mine. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I said, though I knew I still sounded weak. “It was just a shock. Kyle’s young. He’s healthy. I never expected anything like this.”
He held our hands to his chest, the rhythmic, calm beating of his heart soothing my own. “No one ever does. Have you gotten any more news?”
I nodded. “A friend of his is at the hospital. He’ll keep updating me, but he said Kyle’s sleeping now.”
“Good.” He glanced down at his watch, narrowing his eyes as he thought. “Our flight time is just over twelve hours. Depending on the medication they’ve given him, we should be there when he wakes up.”
“You’re an angel.” Leaning over the armrests between our large seats, I smacked a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you. I owe you big time for this.”
“You don’t owe me a thing. Let me do this for you without you worrying about what it’s going to cost you, please?”
I pursed my lips and moved them to the side, but the way he was looking at me made rational thought impossible. As much as he could never really do the whole puppy-eyes thing, he sure was giving it his best.
The result was him looking at me with eyes somewhere between tender and smoldering. It was adorable and sexy at the same time, which was a new look on anyone for me.
“Fine.” I caved. “I can’t say no to that face.”
“What face?” He exaggerated the pout. “This is just my face.”
My cheeks felt like they would crack from doing it, like it had been months instead of hours since I’d last done it, but I laughed anyway. It felt good.
His pout melted away and was replaced by a gentle smile. “It’s good to have you back, Addy. For a while there, I wondered if I’d ever hear that beautiful sound again.”
“Yeah, me too.” I tried to swallow around a rock the size of a boulder that suddenly lodged itself in my throat. “If something would have happened to Kyle…”
The thought of it was enough to choke me, cutting off my voice. Marco pulled me into him, then slid his hands underneath my legs to lift me into his lap. He stroked my back and held me until it felt like I could breathe again.
“He’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “I know the news came as a shock, but your brother is going to be fine. We’ll stay with him until we know it.”
A new kind of panic hit me square in the chest. My eyes flew wide open as I pulled back so I’d be able to look into his eyes. “What about work? I had meetings this afternoon. And you? You run a billion-dollar company. You can’t just fall off the map.”
“I can, and I will.” Empathy and compassion came off him in waves, but there was something else there, too. Something deeper that sent an entirely different kind of shiver through me.
The moment passed before I could figure out what it was, though, and a smirk spread across his lips. “You hit the nail on the head when you said I run the company. I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“Sure, you can, but that doesn’t mean you have to bail on important stuff for me.”
A deep frown appeared between his eyebrows, but he
