Nothing. Not a drop of emotion crossed those pretty features. “She’ll be fine. She has my car.”
“I’ll go to the airport right now and find her,” Tate offered.
“Sit down, Tate.” Eric understood that Tate sometimes needed a handler. Or maybe a leash…
So, based on Kinley’s reply, Kell guessed that Belle hadn’t gone to the airport. He changed tactics. “Do you know how dangerous the highway could be in the middle of the night? If she’s driving any distance, she could break down. Without a phone, she’d have no way to contact you or roadside assistance.”
A flicker of worry crossed Kinley’s delicate face, underscored by the way she shifted in her seat before she shook her head. “The car is in perfect condition.”
“But tires go flat, don’t they? Belle doesn’t know how to change one.”
“She doesn’t,” Tate put in with a nod. “She called me a few months ago when her beater got a flat.”
“It’s a new car, so the tires are new, too,” Kinley defended.
“That doesn’t help if she accidentally runs over glass or nails. She could be all alone, stranded on a highway right now, and you’d never know.”
Kinley fidgeted, looking to a corner of the room, not meeting anyone’s gaze.
“And there are a lot of drunks on the road at three in the morning. What if something happened to her? How long would it take for us to know?”
Kinley bit her lip, then sighed. “She’s fine, okay. She’s already where she needs to be, so you can stop worrying. We bought her another phone and I’ve already talked to her. Don’t expect me to give you the number. She doesn’t want to talk to you. And she wasn’t alone because she had Sir.”
Kellan had his doubts about Sir. “Tell me about this guy. Where did she meet him?”
“I introduced them. All he wants is her happiness. When he kissed her and she put her arms around him, I left them alone. I knew they’d be fine together.” Her eyes slid off and to the right again.
Maybe Kinley wasn’t coughing up the whole truth, he decided, but she wasn’t totally lying, either. Had she packed a blow-up doll in Belle’s bags as a joke? Or maybe they’d taken to naming their vibrators, but then why say they were kissing and hugging? Kell wasn’t sure about that, but he doubted highly that Belle had run off with some guy she’d just met. She hadn’t saved herself all these years only to give her innocence to the first prick Kinley introduced her to.
Unless she was so hurt and angry that she decided to do away with her hymen to spite them. That didn’t sound like the Belle he knew. But he also hadn’t imagined she would skip this morning’s meeting without a word. She was definitely hurt and making decisions that could affect all their futures.
All the more reason to find her.
But Kinley hadn’t cracked so far.
Tate leaned closer to Kinley, his whole face pleading. “Please just tell us where she is. I can’t stand that she’s out there hurting and thinking we don’t care.”
Kinley’s face softened from rage to regret. “Belle asked me not to. I’m sorry, but I won’t betray her confidence. And Dom Dom here can spank me all day long.” She hooked out a thumb in Dominic’s direction. “I’m not talking.”
Dominic stood and held a hand out to his wife. “I’ll add that to the list, too. After this child is born, you should know there’s one hell of a hurricane waiting to hit your backside, love.”
She put her hand in her husband’s. “I accept that. I’ll do anything to protect Belle.”
With a sigh, Dominic tucked Kinley against him and turned to Kellan. “I’m afraid she’s done. She and Belle are like sisters. I can’t say I don’t understand. I wouldn’t break a brother’s trust myself. The truth is, Belle isn’t your submissive since she hasn’t accepted your collar.” He shrugged. “If there’s anything I or the company can do to help you, I’ll arrange that, but I won’t expect Kinley to divide her loyalties anymore.”
“We’ll hire you.” Eric stood, looking incredibly resolved.
Kellan shook his head at his friend. They had a resource they hadn’t yet used because he’d hoped said resource was no longer behaving like a damn stalker. “Hold up on that request. I think we should talk to Tate first. He knows about Belle in a way we don’t.”
Tate flushed.
Bingo. Even a lawyer had tells.
“Let’s go pack up while Tate tells us everything he knows about our girl.” Kellan gave Tate his best big-brother look. “I mean everything.”
* * * *
Tate let the door to their suite shut behind him, wondering if he would get punched once he told Eric and Kell the truth. He was pretty sure they were about to ask him a bunch of questions he didn’t really want to answer. But there would be no pleading the fifth.
Eric turned on him the minute the door shut. “Dude, you told me you’d stopped the stalker stuff.”
He rolled his eyes. “You make it sound like I’m lurking outside her bedroom window, snapping pictures of her while she’s undressing.”
“You wanted to,” Eric pointed out.
Of course. He wanted to even more now that he’d seen her naked. Still, even he knew there were boundaries that, once crossed, got a man slapped with a restraining order.
“But I didn’t. So let’s stop lecturing me and find Belle. I don’t care what Kinley says. She shouldn’t be out there alone. Anything could happen to her.”
He hated not knowing where she was and if she was truly all right.
Kellan ran a hand through his hair, looking tired and wrung out, before he dropped onto the sofa. “We’ll find her faster than Anthony Anders, even without Kinley’s help, because you’ve obsessively memorized everything about her. Haven’t you?”
Frustration welled. “I’m not stalking her. I only followed her home to make sure she was safe.”
“Yeah,” Eric drawled. “You keep telling yourself that, buddy. Let’s dig through that treasure trove of trivia in your head about Belle and figure out where she’s gone.”
She was his whole world, so yeah, Eric’s implication was a safe one. He didn’t see why that made him a stalker. He’d followed her home at night because there had been a rash of rapes in her neighborhood. Imagining what could happen to her if he didn’t see her in safely made him sick. He’d feel better after they installed a security system in her place. Or better yet, after they moved her into their house, into their bed.
And so what if he checked out her Facebook page more often than necessary? They were friends. She’d accepted his request, giving him permission to look at everything on her timeline.
“Think, Tate. If she’s already reached her destination, then it’s within a ten-hour drive from here. She’s likely in Texas, Louisiana, maybe Oklahoma, or even as far as Kansas. Has she talked about having friends in any of those places?”
“She has Kinley here, but most of her friends are in New York or Chicago.” Tate sighed, trying to get his brain to work. Usually he was perfectly clear, but now he understood why his father had warned him that emotion was deadly to logic. All Tate could think about now was the fact that Belle was alone and upset, that she probably hated him…and was planning to spend her life without him. That there was even a remote chance this guy she called Sir had already taken their place.
“I don’t think Kinley has stashed her somewhere,” Eric said. “I watched her face while Kellan questioned her. She lent Belle the car, but I don’t think she helped our girl get to wherever she was going in any other way. They’re in touch, but if Belle got a new phone before she headed out and gave Kinley the number, then I don’t believe she’s staying with or near Kinley. Belle wouldn’t want to disrupt her friend’s life that way.”