“Seriously?”
I nodded. When he still seemed unconvinced, I said, “Please?”
He exhaled a long, almost defeated sigh. “Do you want to speak to them after I have?” When I shook my head, he groaned. “Fine. I’ll call them.” He then wagged a finger at me. “But you owe me.”
“You’re right. I do. But for more than I can possibly repay.”
“Some things are on the house,” he replied, with a tender smile that made my chest tighten with emotion.
“I’ll give you my father’s private number. That way you won’t get the run-around from his aides.”
To my surprise, Rev put the phone on speaker. My father picked up on the third ring. “This is Emmett Percy.” Hearing his voice should probably have brought me some form of comfort, but it didn’t move me at all. When your parents have kept you at arm’s length your entire life, even a catastrophic event doesn’t change the way you feel. The only person I would want to talk to at the house was Connie, my former nanny, who was now employed as my mother’s assistant.
“Mr. Percy, you don’t know me, and I don’t know you. The only thing you do need to know is your daughter Annabel is safe.”
My father sucked in a harsh breath. “What do you mean? Who are you? Where is my daughter?” he demanded.
“The fewer details you know of her kidnapping and rescue, the better. That can be said for all parties involved. She is safe and recuperating, so any search efforts you had should be canceled. She will be returning home to you in Virginia in a few days.”
“I don’t believe a fucking word you’ve said. I want to speak to my daughter this instant.”
Rev thrust out the phone to me. His no-nonsense look told me I had no choice but to speak to my father. With a resigned sigh, I said, “It’s me, Father.”
“Annabel? Annabel, are you really okay?”
“Yes, I am. I swear. And I’m not being coerced into saying that, either.”
“Where are you?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“The hell I don’t! Is that man the one who kidnapped you? I’ll have the CIA and the FBI on his ass in seconds.”
“Father, please. He saved me from something pretty horrible. He doesn’t need to be harassed by you or your minions.”
“I want you home—immediately. It’s been a media circus since you left—”
Rage boiled inside me at his comment. Gripping the phone tighter, I spat, “I didn’t just leave. I was kidnapped by a group of traffickers. Do you understand what that means? I had no choice. In anything that happened or anything that was done to me.”
My father remained silent for a moment as if he was trying to process the horror of what I had just said. But he wasn’t focusing on my torment—the unspeakable pain his daughter had gone through. No, I was certain he was worrying about how my family could find a way to get out of this unscathed both politically and socially. “I will send the plane for you right now. Wherever you are in the world.”
“No. It isn’t necessary.”
“Annabel, be reasonable. Your mother has barely slept in the two months you’ve been gone. Both of us are wrecks.”
Once again, he was thinking only of himself. It didn’t matter what I had gone through, the sleepless nights I had endured. “I’m sorry, Father. But that’s all you need to know right now.”
A humorless laugh came through the phone. “Fine. I see this experience hasn’t humbled you and has only made you even more headstrong. So if that’s the way you want to play it, I’ll just find your location from the phone tracer. Or have you forgotten that all my calls are traced?”
“This is a GoPhone. Good luck with that one,” I replied, before disconnecting the call. I tossed the phone back at Rev. “Happy now?”
He didn’t look happy. In fact, he appeared horrified at what had transpired between my father and me. “They had to know, Annabel.”
“Now do you understand why I didn’t want to call them?”
He jerked a hand through his hair. “Yes, I do. And I’m sorry—not for making you call, but I’m sorry that’s the family you have to go back home to.”
“It is what it is. My parents are horrible, my sister is tolerable, but at least I have a really good group of friends. They’re the ones I would want to know I was okay.”
His expression turned suddenly contemplative. “Do you have a boyfriend back home?”
For some reason, the very innocent question didn’t seem so innocent. “Why would you ask me that?”
He shrugged. “Just wondered who else there might be in your life worth getting back home to.”
“No, there’s no boyfriend.”
His brows shot up in surprise. “How is it possible a girl as pretty as you doesn’t have a boyfriend?”
The compliment seemed so foreign coming from him. In spite of that fact, warmth flooded my cheeks. “That’s sweet of you to say.”
Even though he looked slightly embarrassed, he said, “I mean it.”
“No, there’s not been a boyfriend for a while actually.” As I thought about the old Annabel’s life, I found myself almost smiling. “There was a guy I liked back in College Station.”
“A guy you went to school with?” Rev asked.
“Actually, he was a vet at the animal hospital I worked at.”
“Is that what you were in school for? To be a vet?”