Kate’s return interrupted his thoughts. He immediately noted her face was pale and she held her phone in a white-knuckled death grip.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Could you give us a moment alone?” she asked the jeweler.
“Of course.” The jeweler faded back into the woodwork, leaving them to their private conversation.
“What’s wrong?” Nathan asked.
“The movers just opened up Layla’s apartment and they found something disturbing.”
Nathan stood up straighter, anger already working its way into his gut. “It was another threat wasn’t it?”
Kate nodded. “This time spray painted across her living room wall.”
“What did it say?”
Kate grimaced as if it physically pained her to have to repeat the words out loud. “Leave Pittsburgh, or I’ll kill you.”
***
That was exactly what it said as Nathan found out for himself fifteen minutes later. He stood in front of the large, spray painted message with the movers and Spencer Greeley, the private investigator he’d hired back in August looking on.
“I checked the security camera we had installed in the lobby, but the guy was good. Wore a hoodie and kept his face down,” Greeley told him. “Other than that, the case has gone pretty cold. I’m doing extensive background checks on everyone who signed in at Ms. Matthews physical therapy center the day of the first incident, but so far no hits. No one who ever came into contact with Layla in a non-patient way and no one who’d wish her any harm. I’m almost done.”
Fear for Layla’s well-being fueled the hot anger in Nathan’s gut. “Almost isn’t good enough,” he said. “I want full reports on everybody who came into the center by tomorrow morning. This maniac broke into her apartment. What if she had been here?”
Not waiting for an answer, he started walking back out to his car, his need to see that Layla was safe with his own eyes sudden and great. “I understand you’re upset, Mr. Sinclair,” Greeley said, running to catch up with him outside the building. “I’m doing the best I can, but there just aren’t many leads here.”
“I don’t need your empathy,” Nathan said. “I need you to do your job.”
He turned to step into his car. He was about to call Layla when a call from Diana came through.
He picked it up, even though talking to his soon-to-be-former sister-in-law was the last thing he wanted to do right now. “What?”
Diana could barely speak, she was crying so hard. “Andrew’s back in town,” she said.
Nathan gripped the steering wheel. “What? Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure, because the bastard just served me with divorce papers himself,” she wailed. “And he said he knew Layla was back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LAYLA spent the morning before the Sinclair Ball primping at an exclusive spa, which was followed by an afternoon hair and make-up appointment with Mark and Jacob. The good news was it took way less time to get her presentable than it had for the opera fundraiser. The bad news was she still hadn’t decided what to wear to the event. She’d assured Kate over and over again that she was perfectly capable of picking out her own dress…then she’d left actually shopping for it until the last minute—the very, very last minute.
She hit a department store after her hair and make-up appointment and ended up putting two dresses, an elegant purple sheath and glittery black dress, on the card Kate had given her a few weeks ago to shop with. And by the time she pulled up to Nathan’s building, she had less than an hour to spare before the car would arrive to take her to the Sinclair Ball.
She felt her phone, which she’d set to silent before her hair and makeup appointment, go off just as she was climbing out of her car with the two gowns. But, she didn’t manage to dig it out from the bottom of her large purse before it went to voicemail, and when she checked the display window, she saw she’d missed five calls from Nathan.
She frowned at the number of missed calls and was just about to call him back when she spotted him standing outside his building. He’d gotten a hair cut, she noticed. It made him look even more suave in the tuxedo he was wearing, but she missed his bad boy CEO look.
“Did you forget your keys?” she asked as she approached him. “That’s not like you.”
He didn’t answer, just stared at her, which Layla supposed meant he wasn’t up for being teased about forgetting his keys. He’d been a little on edge lately, due to the ongoing negotiations with the president of Matsuda Steel, who had been in town for three days now. Matsuda had promised Nathan he’d have a decision for him by tonight’s ball. No wonder he’d forgotten his keys. This was his first international deal, he’d been forced to step in for his brother, and it all came down to tonight. Layla decided to cut him a little slack.
“I’m really sorry I missed all of your calls. I didn’t know you were locked out. Here…” She handed him the two dresses and unlocked the fire door for them.
She noticed him hesitate, before saying, “That’s okay.”
“I thought we were supposed to meet at the Sinclair Ball,” she said as they walked inside.
“We were?” he asked.
“That’s what Kate said, but maybe I misunderstood.” She tried to take the dresses from him, but he had his hand wrapped around the dress bags loop in a white-knuckled death grip. When she touched him, she could almost feel his agitation. “Look, I know you have a lot riding on this Japan deal, but it’s going to be okay.”
“Really? You believe that?”
She took his hand in both of hers. “Yeah, I mean, I know your brother bailed on you and maybe you didn’t think you have the chops to negotiate a deal this huge. But you did it, and I know Matsuda’s going to come back with the right decision.”
He was silent for a long time before he relaxed his grip on the dress bags’ handles and said, “Thank you, Layla. You’ve always been very encouraging.”
She took the dresses from him and laid them out on the couch in the living room area. “I’m not just being encouraging. I really believe in you. You’ve worked so hard on this deal. Matsuda would be crazy not to want you as a business partner.”
He just stared at her, like she’d lost her mind, and she had the feeling somehow she was agitating him even further.
“You know what,” she said. “Let’s not talk about the Japan deal.”