Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 67644 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67644 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Acknowledging my love for him gave me a much-needed boost of confidence. It was impossible to believe that my feelings were one-sided. Loving someone meant you trusted them...and talked to them when stuff was bothering you. “You’re right. I should call him.”
I pressed the button to power up my phone since I hadn’t bothered to turn it on this morning. My heart began to race, but in a good way, when I saw that I had two missed calls from Griffith. Then my text notifications popped up, and there were a few missed messages from him. I quickly scanned them, my lips curving up when I saw that he’d assumed I’d fallen asleep while we were talking last night since I hadn’t picked up when he called me back after he realized we’d been disconnected.
I suddenly couldn’t wait to talk to him, even if it meant waking him up. I clicked on his number, but the call went straight to voicemail, making me groan. He must’ve turned his phone off when he finally went to sleep, and it only served me right since I’d done the same to him last night.
I’d felt so much better after my talk with Aurora. Even though I hadn’t been able to get ahold of Griffith, I was sure when we talked, everything would be set straight.
I waited until the time he was normally up and tried him again, but it went to voicemail like last time. After another hour, I tried again. And so it went for most of the morning. Finally, in the early afternoon, he picked up.
“Hey baby, I can’t talk right now. I’ll have to call you back.” His tone was distracted, and it pricked at my insecurities.
“Griffith, I really need to talk—”
“Baby,” he cut me off impatiently. “I promise, we’ll talk later but right now, I just can’t.” I heard a muffled female voice and Griffith telling her to hang on. Tears gathered in my eyes. “I’m sorry, Belle. I’ve got to go.” Then he hung up.
Fear and sorrow welled up inside me, churning in my stomach. Had I been right? Had he…moved on already? Suddenly, my tummy lurched, and I slapped a hand over my mouth as I bolted for the bathroom in the back of the shop.
Chapter 9
Griffith
Shit.
I hated having to practically hang up on Belle, but I was running to catch my connection and cut it so close that I had to sweet talk the flight attendant into opening the door back up with a promise of VIP tickets and autographed albums. I worried the whole way to Las Vegas but once I stepped off that plane, I felt like I could finally breathe again. I was so close to my love.
I grabbed my bags and headed to the area where I was supposed to meet the driver picking me up. When I got there, my name wasn’t on the list.
I was irritated but figured it was no big deal and headed out to the cab line. It was just my luck that I decided to travel on a day when there was not only one of the biggest MMA fights in the world happening, but also, the finals of the Poker World Series.
The wait for a cab was over three hours long. If I didn’t get to The Lennox soon, I was liable to murder the next person to piss me off.
Then I was almost mobbed when someone recognized me. After I got away, I swore a blue streak in my head as I stomped back into the airport to the offices for the car service. The woman at the counter was harried and close to falling apart, but she was still staring at me with starry eyes and it was making her even more incompetent. She typed away on her computer, sneaking glances at me every few seconds. After a minute, she stared intently at the screen then looked up at me warily. “I’m sorry sir, I don’t have your reservation.”
“Look again,” I growled. I was beyond caring about manners. All I cared about was getting my ass to The Lennox. She typed some more then lifted her head, but her suspiciously shiny eyes wouldn’t meet mine. “Sorry, sir—um.”
“Whether it’s there or not isn’t the issue at this point,” I snapped. “I need to get to my fucking hotel as soon as possible, so get me a damn ride!”
I knew I’d been distant the last week, even more so the last few days. Levi and Brooklynn had been awesome when I explained the situation, and we worked pretty much around the clock for three days to get our song done. It was the last track that needed to be finished before I could get back to my Belle. We’d even worked it out with the label to do any necessary tweaking at a studio in Las Vegas.