“Paul Simpson. No one you know.”
“What did he ask for?” His father finally entered the conversation.
“A million-dollar ransom, delivered tomorrow in exchange for Jared.”
“Our accountant can make that happen,” Byron confirmed.
“And today,” Gavin continued, “the cancellation of my latest business deal.”
Sabine gasped and squeezed his hand even tighter. “The one you were working with the private jet company?”
Gavin nodded, his gaze dropping down to his lap. “Yes. I hope you enjoyed riding in that plane to Bermuda. That will probably be the last time.”
“Oh, Gavin, I’m so sorry.” Her pale eyes, lined with worry, were at once glassy with tears. For a moment he was jealous that she could cry for what he was losing and he couldn’t. “I know how important that was to you. Maybe you can still—”
Gavin pulled his hand away and held it up to silence her. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with the maybes and other consolations she could offer. It wouldn’t matter. “Even if this all works out, I think my dealings with the Simpson family are over.”
“We can acquire more planes, son.”
He shook his head at his father. “Finding another company with a quality fleet I can afford is nearly impossible. The shareholders won’t back a more expensive merger. The whole concierge plan is dead.”
He turned away from his family and picked up his phone. He needed to call Roger, but that would wait a few more minutes. More important was calling his accountant. He didn’t exactly leave thousands of dollars just lying around, much less a million. Some things would need to be shifted around so he had liquid assets for the ransom. His accountant would get everything together for him with little fuss.
The awkward call to his accountant took only a few minutes. The man seemed confused by the sudden and out-of-ordinary request, but he didn’t question it. The money would be ready for pickup in the morning. That done, he couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer.
Gavin slowly dialed the familiar number of Roger Simpson. With every fiber of his being, he didn’t want to back out of this deal. It was everything he’d desired, and it was mere days from being his at last. He wasn’t even sure how he would say the words out loud. His tongue might not cooperate. He’d rather shout at Roger about how his son was volatile, if not plain disturbed. But he wouldn’t. Not while Jared’s life was in another person’s hands.
“Gavin?” Roger answered. “I didn’t expect to hear from you today. You’re back early from Bermuda. Did something happen? Was something wrong with the jet I loaned you?”
“The jet was fine. Don’t worry about any of that. Something came up and we had to come back ahead of schedule.” He just couldn’t tell him that the something involved blackmail and kidnapping. “I—I’m sorry to have to make this call, Roger. I’m afraid I have to withdraw my offer to buy Exclusivity Jetliners.”
“What?” Roger’s voice cracked over the line. “You were thrilled about the offer when we last spoke just a few days ago. What’s wrong? What happened to change your mind so suddenly? Did you find a better company to meet your needs? Our arrangement is completely negotiable.”
“No, please, Roger. I’m sorry, but I can’t really elaborate on the subject. I hate that I have to do this, but I must. I’m sorry for the trouble I’m causing you, but I have to go.”
Gavin hung up the phone before Roger could grill him for more information. He did what he had to do for Jared’s sake, but he didn’t have to like it. Dropping his phone onto the coffee table, he got up, brushing off the questions and sympathetic looks of Sabine and his family, and walked out of the room. He needed some space to mourn his dreams, privately.
* * *
It was 10:00 a.m. and Gavin had returned from the bank with the million-dollar ransom a few minutes ago. The whole family was gathered around the phone waiting for Paul’s call and the instructions for today’s trade-off.
Sabine hadn’t slept. They had all stayed at the Brooks mansion, but even an expensive mattress with luxury linens couldn’t lure her to sleep. And from the looks of it, Gavin hadn’t slept, either. Never in her life had she seen him look like he did right now. His eyes were lined with exhaustion and sadness. Gray smudges circled beneath them. He wasn’t frowning, but he wasn’t smiling, either. He had shut everything off. She recognized that in him. There was too much to deal with, too much that could go wrong, so he had chosen to numb himself to the possibilities.
She knew it was hard on him. Not only because of his concern for Jared but what it cost him to ensure his son’s safety. That jet acquisition had meant everything to him. Seeing him in the cockpit of that plane had been an eye-opening experience. She had experienced what she thought was the pinnacle of passion when she made love to Gavin. But for him, there was a higher joy, a greater pleasure.
He’d been so close to merging his work and his dreams. And he’d been forced to throw it away.
Sabine placed a reassuring hand on his knee, and he covered it with his own. The warmth of his skin against hers chased away the fears that threatened from the corners of her mind. She wouldn’t allow herself to indulge those thoughts. She’d be no good to her son if she was a hysterical mess.
As much as she’d yelled at Gavin, and blamed him for this whole mess, she was glad to have him here with her during this. No one should have to deal with this sort of thing alone. He had handled everything, and well. There were benefits to having a take-charge man in her life, even when it was sometimes frustrating.
Gavin would do whatever it took to see that their son came home safely. Jared was their number one priority.
The phone rang. The loud sound was amplified in the silent room, sending Sabine straight up out of her seat. Gavin calmly reached out and hit the button for the speakerphone. Sabine hated listening to only half the conversation and had asked him to let her listen this time, as well.
“Yes?”
“I’m surprised, Gavin.” Paul’s voice boomed through the speaker. “You’ve done everything I’ve asked so far without a whisper to the police. My father was quite disappointed that your deal fell through. It was hard not to laugh in his face. You’ve been so cooperative you must really care about this brat. Funny, considering you’ve only known about him for two weeks.”
Sabine fought back her urge to scream profanities into the phone. They were too close to getting Jared home safely. She could say or do whatever she wanted after that.
“I’ve got the money,” Gavin said, ignoring his taunts. “What now?”
“Meet me in an hour in Washington Square Park. I’ll be waiting by the arch with junior. You hand over the backpack, I hand over the kid.”
“I’ll be there.”
“If I so much as smell a cop, we’re done. And so is the kid.”
Paul hung up, leaving them all in a stunned silence. After a moment, Celia started crying. Byron put his arm around her.
“Don’t worry, dear. He doesn’t have the nerve to actually hurt Jared, no matter what he says.”
Gavin stood up and nodded. “He’s right. Roger told me once that Paul didn’t have enough ambition to get out of bed before noon most days. This is just the quickest, easiest way to make some money and get his father to do what he wants.” He slung the backpack with the money onto his shoulder. “I’d better go.”
Sabine leaped up, as well. “I’m going with you.”
Gavin’s jaw tightened. He looked as though he wanted to argue with her, but he didn’t. Gavin might be able to get his way when it came to unimportant things, but that was because most times, Sabine didn’t care. She cared about this, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Sabine grabbed her own red backpack. It had a change of clothes, Pull-Ups, dry cereal, Jared’s favorite stuffed dinosaur and one of his trucks. She wanted to have everything she needed to clean him up and comfort him the minute she could finally get herself to let go
.
Gavin had a car drive them downtown. It let them off about a block from the park and would circle until he called to be picked up. If all went well, this shouldn’t take long.
Sabine’s heart was pounding wildly in her chest as they walked through the park and headed toward the arch. She could barely hear the sounds of the traffic and people surrounding them. Gavin clutched her hand in his, steadying and guiding her to the rendezvous point.
They were about five minutes early. She didn’t know what Paul Simpson looked like, but Jared was nowhere in sight.
The minutes ticked by. Anxiously waiting. Then she heard it.
“Mommy!”
Like an arrow through her brain, Sabine immediately recognized the voice of her child amid the chaos of downtown. Her head turned sharply to the left. There, an older man was walking toward them carrying Jared in his arms.
She broke into a sprint, closing the gap between them. It wasn’t part of the plan, but Sabine didn’t care. She could hear Gavin running behind her. She stopped herself short of the man, who looked nothing like she expected him to. He was in his late fifties easily, in a nice suit. He also immediately lifted Jared from his hip and handed him into her arms.
Something about this didn’t seem right, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the warm, snuggling body of her baby back in her arms. Jared clung to her neck, his breathing a little labored as she nearly squeezed the life out of him. When she could finally ease up, she inspected her son for signs of his abduction. He was clean. Rosy-cheeked. Smiling. He actually didn’t appear to think anything was awry.
What the hell was really going on?
“Roger?”
Sabine pried her attention away to listen to Gavin’s conversation. Roger? That was Paul’s father. Was he involved in this, too?
“Gavin, I am so sorry. You have no idea how disturbed I was to find out what was really going on. My son...” His voice trailed off. “It’s inexcusable. There are no words to express how horrified I am. This must have been a day of pure hell for you both.”
“What happened, Roger? We were supposed to be meeting Paul here.” Gavin’s dark eyes flickered over Sabine and Jared, but he didn’t dare try to hold his son. He’d have to pry him from Sabine’s dead arms.
“After your call last night, I got concerned. When I went into the office this morning, I heard Paul talking to someone in the day care center of our offices. He doesn’t have children, so there was no reason for him to be there. Later, I overheard him talking on the phone to you. After he hung up, I confronted him and he confessed everything to me. My wife and I have been concerned about him for a while, but you never believe your children could ever do something as horrible as this.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s in one of my jets on his way to a very expensive long-term rehab facility in Vermont. It was that or I disinherited him. If you want to press charges, I completely understand. I can give you the facility address for the police to pick him up. I just wanted to start getting him help right away. It seems he had more problems than even I knew, including an expensive drug habit. He owed his dealer quite a bit and had worked out a deal where he would let them use our planes to import and export drugs. That was the only reason he wanted the company. Can you imagine?”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Roger.”
The old man shook his head sadly and looked over at Jared. It must be hard to know your child did something terrible when all you can see is them when they were little.
“I want you to know your little boy was in the best possible care the entire time he was gone. Paul put him in the Exclusivity Jetliners day care center. We run a twenty-four-hour facility for our employees who might have to go on long flights or overnight trips. Jared spent the last day playing with the other children. I personally guarantee there’s not a scratch on him.”
Sabine felt a wave of relief wash over her. No wonder Jared seemed perfectly contented. He thought he had spent the day at school with new friends and had no clue he was a kidnapping victim. Thank goodness for that. She ran her palm over his head, messing up the soft, dark hairs and standing them on end.
Jared rubbed his hair back down with both hands. “Dinosaur?” he asked.
Sabine crouched down, settling him on his feet and pulling her bag off her shoulder. “He’s right here.” She pulled out the plush triceratops from their trip to the American Museum of Natural History.
Jared happily hugged the dinosaur and leaned against her leg. He wasn’t traumatized by the whole ordeal, but Mommy was gone a little too long for his taste. She wasn’t going to be out of his sight for a while, and she knew exactly how he felt.
“I want to make this up to you,” Roger said. He was shuffling awkwardly in his loafers. “At least I want to try. I doubt anything can make it better.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over this, Roger. You can’t control what your kids do when they’re adults.”
“No, Gavin. I’m taking responsibility for this whole mess. I kept waiting for him to grow up, and I let things go too far. Now I want to change what I can. If you’re still interested, I want to make sure you get these planes you’re after. There’s no way in hell I want my son to ever have his hands in the company—rehab or no. Because of everything that happened, I’d like to sell it to you for twenty percent less than we previously negotiated. How’s that sound?”
Sabine watched Gavin’s eyes widen in surprise. Twenty percent of the money they were talking about was apparently a huge amount. She couldn’t even imagine it.
“Roger, I—”
“And I’ll throw in Beth.”
“No.” Gavin shook his head. “Absolutely not. That’s your private jet. You named it after your wife!”
Roger smiled and patted Gavin on the shoulder. “My first wife,” he clarified. “She’s not a part of the Exclusivity Jetliners fleet, I know. But I want to give her to you. Not to BXS, but to you. Even if the merger is off the table. I know you’ve always wanted your own jet, and it doesn’t get much better than my Beth, I assure you.”
“What about you?” Gavin asked.
“I’ll take some of the money I make off the sale and maybe I’ll buy a smaller plane. I don’t need such a big one anymore. Anyway, I don’t want to give Paul too many options. Maybe I’ll just get a nice yacht instead and take the missus to Monaco.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I’ll have my lawyers redraft the agreement and we’ll be back on for Tuesday.” Roger smiled and looked down at Jared with a touch of sadness in his eyes. “Again, I’m sorry about all of this. Please, take your son home and enjoy your afternoon with him.”
Then he leaned in closer to Gavin. “And for the love of God, stop by the bank and get that cash put back someplace safe. You can’t just walk around with a million dollars in a backpack.”
Twelve
“Well,” Gavin said, breaking the long silence. “Tomorrow I’m going to call the Realtor and let her know that the apartment overlooking Washington Square Park is out.”
“Out? Why?” Sabine asked from the seat beside him. The town car had picked them up after Roger left and was taking them back uptown to his apartment.
“I’m not paying five million dollars for a place that will do nothing but remind you of all of this every time you look out the window. This location is tainted.”
Sabine sighed. “We looked at over half a dozen apartments last week, and that was the only one I really liked. I understand your concerns, but I hate to start over.”
Thankfully, Gavin had no intention of putting her through all that again. There was only one apartment she needed to tour. It had taken him a long time to come to this conclusion, but now his mind was made up. “We’re not. A place has come available that no one knows about yet. I think you’re really going to love it.”
Her brows arched in question, but she didn’t press him. At least not now. She was too busy holding a squirming Jared in her lap. After th
e past twenty-four hours of hell, she probably didn’t think apartment hunting was high on their agenda. She would question him later.
Besides, they hadn’t spoken—really spoken—since their fight on the beach. They were angry with one another and then they set that aside while they focused on getting Jared back. Now, with all of that behind them, they had nothing to do but deal with each other and the fallout of their heated and regretful words.
Gavin wasn’t ready to start that awkward conversation yet. He was much happier to watch Sabine and Jared interact as they drove home. Occasionally she leaned down and inhaled the scent of his baby shampoo and smiled, very nearly on the verge of tears. How could she ever have thought he could split the two of them up? It was an impossible task.
And as time went by, splitting Gavin from Sabine and Jared was an even more impossible task.
He’d signed off on the custody agreements because they were fair and reasonable, but he didn’t like them. He wouldn’t see Jared nearly enough. And aside from the occasional custody trade-off, nowhere in the pile of paperwork did it say how often he would get to see Sabine. There was no such thing as visitation with the mother.
At this point, she might not want anything else to do with him. They had both said terrible things to each other. He hadn’t meant a word of it. He’d been hurt by her blame and flung the most convenient insults he could find. He could tell her that. But he knew Sabine. She wouldn’t pay any attention to his apologies. They were just words, and she had told him more than once that actions spoke louder.
Now was the time for action.
The car finally pulled up outside of the Ritz-Carlton. He ushered them both inside through the crowd of tourists and over to the residential elevator. He swiped the card that had special access to his floor of the hotel. In his apartment with the door locked, Gavin finally felt secure again. His family was safe and intact and he was never going to let them out of his sight again.
Once they settled in, he called his parents to let them know Jared was okay. He should’ve called from the car, but he needed time to mentally unwind and process everything that happened.
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