Chapter 31

Jade

Bells grabbed her suitcase handle and cocked her head. “Hmm, it depends on what kind of curse to really get my attention, you know.”

Shrugging, I leaned nonchalantly against the car to count off my fingers. “You take your pick: bad hair day, skin rash, nasty cold from hell, broken Jimmy Choo heel…”

She gasped and clutched her chest. “How dare you. You know how much I adore my Jimmy Choos.”

“Then you know how serious I am. Capisce?”

“Capisce, ma’am,” she responded with a salute, causing a laugh to bubble out of me.

“At ease, soldier. You’re dismissed.”

She pulled me into a hug before whispering into my ear, “Tell Julian I’m going to fly over here and skin him balls first if he ever fucking makes you sad or hurt or cry again, you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

She released me then squeezed one of my boobs with a cheeky wink. “Love ya, babe. Leaving now. Drive safe.”

I echoed back her first words and watched her head towards the check-in counters before turning away and climbing back into my car.

On the way back, I cranked up Dua Lipa on the stereo to drown out my loud-as-hell thoughts and began singing along to her upbeat vocals.

I might have been having a little too much fun bopping to the music and gotten a little distracted because I carelessly switched lanes without checking my blind spot.

The next thing I heard was a loud crunch ringing through my ears as my Range Rover sideswiped a car beside me, sending my heart flying straight into my throat.

I immediately slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel back to stop the car.

Hunched forward with a pounding pulse, my sunglasses having slipped down the bridge of my nose from the impact, I glanced towards the sideview mirror to see the driver of the car I had clipped angrily getting out of his car and charging towards my door with a pissed off expression on his face.

“Oh my God, oh my God.” I locked the doors in a panic just as he pulled up by my window and hit on the glass with a balled-up fist.

“What the fuck was that? Your car knocked into mine and you’re just going to sit in there and act like you did nothing wrong?!”

Feeling slightly shaky and not sure what else to do, I rolled down the window about two inches so it wouldn’t come off like I was ignoring him. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking and-—”

“Yeah of course, you weren’t! Not with those huge sunglasses probably taking half your eyesight away. Do you even have a fucking license?”

Freezing in place, I stared wide-eyed at him from beneath the cover of my aviators. “I—”

“You don’t, do you?” He turned slightly away to pinch the bridge of his nose while mumbling curses about reckless trust-fund idiots.

“I-I do.” I spoke over him in a voice I was regretfully aware didn’t sound confident in the least. Grabbing my bag, I jerked up my glasses and began pretending to fumble through it to buy time so I could think of a solution out of this. “I just need to find it in here somewhere…”

I needed to call someone, but who?

Bells was gone. Dad would wonder why I didn’t call Julian and would eventually get the reason out of me which would lead to him convincing me to call off the engagement because my happiness always came first for him. And then the Julian in question wasn’t reliable since he never picked up my calls anyway.

Besides, I was trying to make him believe I could handle myself in any kind of situation without his help. Calling him to bail me out of this one would defeat that entire purpose.

“You need to get the fuck out. I’m calling the cops,” the man threatened, clearly at the end of his patience now.

Oh God.

Spurred on by nerves and desperation, my hand landed on my phone without much thought, fingers moving towards my contacts and tapping on one of them almost blindly.

Please pick up. Please pick up…