I was glad he stood up to her, but the last thing I ever expected to deal with on this night was finding out that Ryan had had sex with two girls at once. I had to reconcile that the wild version of Ryan was a thing of the past.
I glanced out our hotel window, basking in the beautiful sunrise over Rome. It was our last stop on the Thousand Miles press junket and in a few hours we’d be on another plane heading back to the States.
I felt Ryan’s warm chest press into my back. I wrapped my hands over his. “I don’t want to go home.”
He kissed my neck. “We’re not.” I looked up to see if he was kidding.
“We’re not?”
“Nope. We are taking a three-day detour.”
That sounded wonderful. “Can I even ask, or is it a surprise?”
Ryan smirked. “Well, it is sort of a surprise, but there’s this awesome restaurant built inside a cave on this cliff that my woman said she wanted to see.” It was better than winning the lottery.
“For real? You’re not just teasing me, are you?”
He patted my rear end. “I’d never tease.
Mike’s taking Marie, too. The four of us are going, but I don’t expect to see much of them.”
I was so happy, I started bouncing on my toes and clapping.
He bounced with me, mocking me. “You want more good news?”
I smiled wider. “Yes!”
“We’re going by helicopter to Polignano a Mare.”
I wanted to bounce out of my skin.
“So pack up, because we catch our ride in two hours.”
After kissing him wickedly for this huge surprise, I dashed around the room, packing up our stuff.
Ryan folded up the dress shirt he wore last night. “Pack only what you’ll need in your backpack. There’s not a lot of room for luggage inside the cabin.”
I had to do a carry-on overhaul. I had so much crap in my bag that things were starting to fall out.
“I want to call Mike, see if we have a car coming,” Ryan said.
I took the big manila envelope that the woman at the press panel gave me the day before out of my backpack. I was starting to believe I was turning into Ryan Christensen’s briefcase. I had receipts and notes and signed documents galore.
I made a pile of important paper stuff, thinking that the manila folder would be a perfect place to shove it all; unfortunately, it didn’t work out so well. I dumped the contents out on the bed, trying to re-access what was really important to keep.
Papers, brochures, you name it. Junk, junk . . .
Something fell and hit the bed when I opened up one of the brochures from the manila envelope. It was a small piece of folded magazine paper, made into what looked like a tiny envelope.
What the hell? I opened it up and gasped.
My hands started to shake. “Ryan?” Hearing the alarm in my voice, he came right to my side.
“What’s this?” It looked like chunks of compressed baby powder, and there was a lot of it.
He studied the item in my hands before attempting to take it away from me. “What the fuck? Don’t spill it.”
“What is it?” I asked.
I watched him take a careful sniff, and then his face twisted. “I’m not exactly sure, babe, but I think this is cocaine.”
Chapter 25
Done
I paced nervously while Mike and Ryan ana-lyzed the contents of the little envelope.
“I think Ryan’s right,” Mike announced.
“I’m pretty sure this is cocaine.” I felt my throat tighten. That was in my backpack.
Mike pegged me with inquisitive eyes.
“Where did you say you found this?” I pointed at the manila envelope. “It was in there.”
He picked it up, looking inside. “What else was in here?”
I shuffled through the papers, separating what I believed were the original contents.
To say Ryan was pissed was putting it mildly. “Where did that envelope even come from?”
“Remember the gorgeous redhead? The one with the painted-on skirt and legs that started here?” I pointed to my neck. “She gave it to me. She said it was for you.” Ryan suddenly slammed his fist into the dining table, stringing along a whole host of expletives.
“I think we should flush this down the toilet,” Mike said, appearing less than happy with Ryan’s outburst. “And then we are going to do a comprehensive check of all our luggage. Shirt pockets, pants, envelopes, everything gets checked. Marie, help Taryn. Go through everything and I mean everything.”
Marie and I dumped out our suitcases.
“Make a fucking list of names,” Ryan ordered. “There are only so many suspects here. When I find out who did this, I’m going to rip their throat out and bury them.”
“We’ve all touched the envelope so prints are out. I don’t think going to the authorities with it would be wise.” Mike shook his head.
“We can speculate all we want. Unless someone brags or confesses, I don’t think we’ll ever know.”
Ryan stood, grabbed the little envelope thing with his fingers, and stormed off to the bathroom. I heard the toilet flush a few times.
The evidence was gone.
Ryan came back, staring at Mike as if he could magically come up with answers.
Mike was just as aggravated. “I don’t know, man. Someone was trying to set you up. If one of us had been caught with that, we’d be looking at international jail time.” Ryan scoffed. “No shit.”
Mike ran his hand over his head. “Well, the good news is you found it before we tried to leave the country. We came in on a com-mercial flight, so that means the drugs had to be purchased here. Unless we contact the authorities, we have no way of launching an investigation, and you just flushed the evidence.”
“It was in my backpack,” I uttered somberly, holding back tears while I searched Ryan’s pockets for planted drugs. I turned his pocket inside out, feeling as if someone had just done the same thing to me.
“I would have gone to jail.” The thought cracked me. Tears blurred my vision while deep. burning sobs rolled up my throat. Visions of being handcuffed again, hauled away like some druggie to be locked away in some foreign women’s prison for years—I couldn’t deal with that.
I’d endured so much, knowing what it felt like to be placed under arrest, seeing Ryan being carted away from me in the back of a police car, the stress, the loss, the lies, the sacrifices.
It was finally too much. Too much.
Ryan fell to his knees next to me on the floor. “Hey, hey, baby. It will be okay. Shh.” I was shaking so hard, I couldn’t breathe.