Free RECKLESS - Part 4 (The RECKLESS Series) by Alice Ward Page A

going to let me sleep, I politely excused myself for a shower; after ten hours of being on a plane, I felt absolutely disgusting.
    Thankfully, by the time I came out, she’d disappeared, probably to go and have crazy newlywed sex somewhere. A note on the nightstand confirmed my theory. Any other time, under any other circumstances, I might have been disappointed, but right then, I couldn’t have been more relieved. It gave me a chance to call Jace, to see what might have kept him from seeing me, to hopefully calm the storm inside of me that was reaching F5 status the longer I went not hearing from him.
    I glanced at the time on my phone and decided that two in the morning wasn’t too late to call—of course, I also knew that there was a chance he was asleep, but that possibility raised a lot of concerns for me. Would I be asleep if I knew he was on his way home? Wouldn’t I have shown up to meet him at the airport, regardless of my obligations? Or, at the very least, wouldn’t I have left a message or a text to let him know I couldn’t make it?
    When I got nothing more than his voice mail, I tossed my phone onto the nightstand and let the tears of worry and exhaustion take over. When those had finished running their course, I curled up in bed and pulled the covers around me. I let our last kiss play over and over in my head as I drifted off to sleep. I reminded myself that he’d said he loved me, and you don’t fall out of love in three days... do you? Hadn’t my mother said that our kind of love was the strongest?
    Maybe tomorrow would be better. Maybe I’d see him then.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    I awoke in the middle of the night, a cold sweat covering every inch of my body. A nightmare, that’s all it had been. Jace hadn’t left me, hadn’t found someone else, hadn’t stopped loving me, or been in a car accident. It was nothing more than the fears and worries working overtime, bleeding into my sleep. Yet, I couldn’t shake that feeling, that sense of dread, like there was something wrong and I needed to see him right that very second, or, at the very least, hear his voice.
    I glanced at the clock on my bedside table. Almost six in the morning. A call was definitely more feasible at that hour, especially if he was still asleep and I paid for a cab ride for no good reason. I tried to call him, but again, his phone went to voice mail. I called one more time, just for good measure. Still no answer so I put my phone on the charger and tried to go back to sleep.
    Only I couldn’t.
    So instead, I got up, powered up my computer and pulled up the campus website. I searched the forums for missed assignments. I tried to concentrate on doing some of the work I’d missed while gone in Seattle. When that didn’t pan out so well, when my brain refused to focus, I started looking for potential internships back home. An hour passed and I tried to call Jace again.
    Still no answer.
    I got dressed, brushed my teeth, and then started a load of laundry. Another hour down so I tried calling again. This time, there was an answer... only, I had to have the wrong number. Because the person on the other end of the line was a woman. I hung up quickly and then pulled up my call log to see who I might have called by accident, but there it was, staring me right in the face. His name. I’d called him.
    Everything in me stopped. My heart. My lungs. Everything but that brain of mine.
    He’d moved on? In three days? Or had I been the back-up? Had I been the other woman, the one he’d had on the side? Could I have missed something like that? Something so damn obvious?
    My phone rang and vibrated in my hands. I couldn’t answer it. Couldn’t face the voice on the other end of the line or the possible accusations that might be getting thrown at me. What if I really was the back-up? That would mean having some crazy girlfriend or fiancé, or wife, ready to claw my eyes out. I would if I were in her shoes. Fuck, I was in her shoes.
    Still numb,