“Future—I do have high standards.”
“Not in my book. If I want something I go after it. I don’t settle.”
“I don’t set—” I stopped as I realized that’s exactly what I had done with Robert, with my job back home, and it was what I was doing again by letting Kal choose when we’d see each other again. “I do, but not anymore. Dominic, I do want to be with Kal.”
“Then let’s get you up here.”
I hated to ask. “Is it . . . is it a formal event?”
“Some of it. I can have someone call you to make sure you have everything you need.”
“Okay,” I said tentatively. “I’m not going to be intruding on something personal, am I?”
“Jade, he wants you there. No, he needs you there. Just don’t mention that I arranged this.”
“Don’t mention it? You’re the one who invited me. What would I say I was doing there?”
“Yeah. I’m going to take heat for this, but Judy was right—I shouldn’t have led with the super yacht. Sometimes I come on too strong.”
My hands were shaking as I parked outside my apartment. “Maybe just a little.” I scanned the area and tensed when I saw the car from earlier parked down the street. “Dominic?”
“Yes?”
“I think someone’s following me. I mean, legitimately, tailing me. I’m going to call the police.”
“Don’t. I knew I should have sent one of my own guys down there. Do me a favor and walk over to the car.”
In a high-pitch tone, I asked, “You want me to what?”
“He needs to hear this from me.”
“He?”
“My guess is it’s Bartel’s son. We use Bartel’s security team sometimes when we need a few extra men. Lately Bartel has been grooming his son to take over. The kid is book smart, not street-smart. He needs to know he shouldn’t be seen when he’s watching someone.”
“Why would you have someone watch me?”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes.”
“People know that Kal is related to me. That makes him a possible target. He cares about you. Are you following this?”
“Yes.” And my heart was racing again. “Am I in danger?”
“Not tonight. Not from the idiot I want to have a few words with. Walk me over there.”
“Okay.” I got out of my car and walked down the street to the vehicle I’d run from earlier. The man behind the wheel looked fresh out of college. I handed him my phone “It’s for you.”
The man’s face turned bright red. “Sorry. I know. I didn’t mean to.” Something Dominic said silenced him. I felt bad for him until a huge smile lit his face. “You’d do that? Thanks. Yes, I’d love that. Absolutely. Do you want me to stay on the job? Awesome. Thanks. This really means a lot to me. I’ll tell her.”
The call ended before he returned the phone to me. “Sorry about the scare. I’m still learning.”
“That’s okay.” I mean, what else could I say?
“Mr. Corisi wanted me to tell you that he’ll send a car for you tonight. I’ll be flying up with you. He offered to send me through the same training his personal team goes through—Marc Stone’s boot camp. My dad is going to freak-out when I tell him. With that kind of training, I could take our company to the next level. Thank you for convincing Mr. Corisi to not fire me.”
“I didn’t. He’s just nice like that?”
The young man stepped out of his car. “I’ll walk you to your door.”
“Thank you.”
At the door he was still smiling. “I’m going to Massachusetts by Corisi invitation!”
“Me too,” I murmured, let myself into my apartment, waved to him, then closed the door behind me and repeated, “Me too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Kal
My flight from Boston to Martha’s Vineyard was canceled while I was making my way to the gate. After a frustrating hour of attempting to find an alternate flight only to discover they were booked solid, I was tempted to call Dominic, but my pride didn’t allow that. I was already grateful to him for the advice he’d given me.
The Catalina buoy project was now more than an idea. I’d spent the last two days contacting marine biologists I knew who had worked or were working on similar projects. They’d been intrigued and open to the possibility of participating in a documentary if I could land one. Then I contacted the master diver I’d taken the diving tour with. He was onboard although not optimistic that it would actually happen. Endless calls to people in traditional media as well as online environmental influencers and I could say I’d at least created interest in the project. Contacting potential production companies for such a documentary proved frustrating. Not surprising, but they weren’t eager to talk to someone who cold-called with an idea, not even when I said I’d drummed up interest in the project.
I was about to table the effort until after Riley’s engagement when I received a call from Bilboa. One of his friends had mentioned my project to him and my idea for filming the process. He gave me the name of someone he worked with at Netflix and told me he’d have the guy call me. After that, it would be up to me to sell the idea, but Bilboa said he would love to do a cameo appearance because anchor damage to reefs was a global concern.
I’d knocked and a door had opened.
It was exciting enough that I’d wanted to call Jade, but we hadn’t been on speaking terms until she’d texted me right before I’d boarded the plane to come North. An opportunity like the one that might be coming my way was too big to be shared in a text—and I wanted more than just a possibility of success before I told her.
Jade had trust issues. I understood why, but something she said haunted me: “You’ve given me no reason to believe you.”
Words carried little weight with her—she’d been let down by them in the past. I needed to go to her with something concrete, a win that would show her I was dedicated to our shared passion and to her. I might not currently be able to afford to return to school, but that was a situation I was finally confident I could turn around and still make a positive impact on the environment while doing it.
More pressing than that, though, was my need for an alternate method of getting to Martha’s Vineyard. I checked the ferry schedule, estimated travel time by car, booked an online ticket at a dock over an hour away, then ordered a car. Thankfully the only luggage I had was a backpack.
On my way to the dock, I realized I hadn’t told my family that I was coming. I’d meant to. I’d put those phone calls on my mental to-do list, but somehow the time had gotten away from me and I hadn’t.
More accurately, I hadn’t known what to say or where to start. My mother and I had had so many conversations about how neither of us wanted anything to do with the Corisis. Should I start off by asking about my mother’s new boyfriend? The one who was the father of the man who was about to ask my sister to marry him—even though I knew nothing about him.
I almost called Riley, but each version of the conversation I imagined promised to be awkward and not reflective of how I was feeling. For the first time in my life, I felt like an outsider in my own family and—although I was trying not to be—a little resentful of how much had changed in the short time I’d been gone.