But try as she might, she just couldn’t feel lucky.
SEVENTEEN
Cade checked his phone for the dozenth time in the last half hour.
No messages. No texts. No e-mails.
Frowning, he pocketed his phone again and tried to concentrate on the philanthropist at the podium, who was droning on in a dry voice about the differences in solar energy versus wind energy and how they could utilize both for newly built hospitals in remote locations, such as Foula and McMurdo in Antarctica. It was good information, and everyone around him looked fascinated, but all Cade could think about was his too-silent phone.
It wasn’t like Kylie to not even send him so much as a message. Or even a smiley face or two to let him know she was thinking about him. She had a lot of downtime on the tour, and so she tended to text on a regular basis just to chitchat and check in.
But her phone had been silent for the last twenty-four hours. He’d tried calling but it had gone straight to her voice mail. Phone troubles, maybe. Maybe her battery had run out and she couldn’t charge it until she got back to her hotel room. He glanced at his watch, trying to decipher what time it would be in Portland, where Daphne’s next show was scheduled, and his location—Stockholm, Sweden. He was nine hours ahead. All right, then. It would be late, but Kylie tended to stay up late anyhow due to the tour.
Maybe she’d fallen asleep? He’d wait until later and call her, just to check in.
But eight hours later, the conference ended for the day. He shook hands and chatted with peers and other professionals. They’d all go out to dinner soon, and “work” would continue on into the night. This would be the perfect time to talk to Kylie. He excused himself from the crowd, wound his way through the busy conference center, and found a relatively quiet spot where he could get a few bars of signal for his phone.
She didn’t answer when he called, though. Again, it went straight to voice mail. Again, Cade worried. He called Jerome.
“Hey, boss,” Jerome said. “I was just about to call you.”
“Oh?” Cade frowned, tensing. Jerome rarely ever called him, because he only liked to “bother” Cade for emergencies. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Jerome said. “Just that you got an envelope this morning. Looks like it’s from a law office and it’s marked extremely confidential. I had to sign for it, but I didn’t want to open it if you were expecting some top secret information I shouldn’t see.”
“I’m not expecting anything of the sort,” Cade said, fighting impatience. “Go ahead and open it. Listen, I need you to look up some information for me in regards to—”
“Huh,” Jerome said, interrupting Cade’s thoughts.
“What?”
“Well, this is weird. It’s annulment papers.”
His heart felt as if it had dropped to his feet. “It’s what?”
“Paperwork to annul the marriage of Mr. Cade Christian Archer and Miss Kylie Anne Daniels. Reason: Impaired mental capacity due to drugs and/or alcohol.”
He felt gutted. Completely and utterly gutted. “She won’t call me. She won’t text me. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“There’s a note in here, too,” Jerome said, and Cade could hear him sorting through the paperwork. “Let’s see. It’s been printed on a computer. No handwriting or anything. And it’s on the law office’s letterhead. It says ‘Dear Cade, I can’t do this anymore. We both know we should have never gotten married. It should have been just the one night. I’m filing the annulment. Please respect my wishes and make no attempt to contact me. Yours, Kylie.’”
“Bullshit,” Cade snarled.
“Whoa there,” Jerome said, surprised at Cade’s reaction.
“It’s bullshit,” he said again. “Someone must have gotten to her. They’re pushing her to end this. We always say it’s just the one night, and it never is.” He shook his head, keeping his phone pressed to his ear as he began to storm down one of the hallways, heading for an elevator. “Kylie would at least talk to me. A text. Something. The fact that she won’t even answer her phone tells me something’s up. I need to talk to her in person. Can you book me a flight home?”
“How fast?”
“As fast as you can make it.”
“You should probably charter something, then.”
“Just do it,” Cade said, hammering the elevator button. “I need to see my wife before I sign anything.”
—
Sixteen hours later, an exhausted Cade arrived in Seattle, Washington. Daphne Petty’s next tour stop was Key Arena and he dozed in the back of the limo while waiting for the box office to open so he could pick up his will-call tickets and backstage pass. When the ticket window opened, he waited (rather impatiently) for his turn in line, then got his tickets and practically ran to the backstage area.
Once there, though, he was stopped by a security guard. “Daphne Petty is not allowing anyone backstage prior to the show,” the guard said. “She needs her concentration. She’ll meet all fans after the encore.”
Gritting his teeth, Cade pushed his way forward again. “I’m a personal friend of Daphne Petty,” he said, dropping her name even though he had no intentions of seeing her. “I’m sure she’d want me inside.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the man said. “We have our orders. No one inside until postshow.”
Fuck this. He’d been patient long enough. With a snarl of irritation, he pushed his way down another hall and out of the building, looking for the loading docks. Kylie had told him that the employees often went and found a Dumpster in the back area to have a smoke at throughout the night.