Chapter 13

Rob was getting worried; it had been almost forty-five minutes since Aurora had left to go restock some of the giveaway swag he was running low on. Now he was almost out, and she still hadn’t returned. He quickly texted her, “Everything Ok? I’m running super low here.”

Despite waiting, he got no reply. He called her but got no answer, and the call eventually went to voicemail. After waiting for a while, he called Lynn, who was sitting across the large ballroom. “Hey, can you lend me Kelli for a bit? Aurora is missing and I’m almost out of swag. I need to go check on her.”

“Sure, I’ll send her right over. You think something’s wrong?”

Rob’s gut was churning. “Yeah, I think maybe something is.”

“I sent Kelli your way. She should be there in a few. Keep me informed, okay?”

“Thanks Lynn, I will.”

Just a few minutes later, Kelli arrived. “Grandma said to watch your table for a while.”

Rob stood. “I signed the first two copies of each book, so if anyone wants them, sell them. I’ll be back as soon as I find out what happened to Aurora.”

“No problem.”

He walked around the table and started to the entrance when a dark-haired woman in a tiny black dress and ridiculously high heels stumbled into him. He reached out and caught her by the upper arms to steady her, when she wrapped her arms around his neck and yanked his head down, kissing him. At the same time, she wrapped one of her legs around his and pulled herself closer. He fought to push her back and finally did. “Look, lady. I don’t know who you are, but I’m in a committed relationship.”

“Oh sorry, some lady told me you lost a bet and had to kiss any woman who wanted you, too. Sorry.”

Rob stepped around her and practically ran for the elevator. He opened the door to the suite and called for Aurora, but there was no answer. He looked around and then called her phone again. It rang and buzzed on the desk. Wherever she was, she’d left her phone behind.

Then her tablet caught his attention. I was on a website he thought he’d had taken down. The title was Donovan’s Discards. It was a site where all the women he’d used before the incident three years ago had gone and talked about how he used them and left them.

The one that really upset him, and had caused him to shut it down, was the woman whose husband had called that fateful morning, the woman who convinced him to change his ways. She’d started the site and gathered all the other women’s stories. But two years ago, he’d sent a cease and desist order, and she’d taken down the site.

Then, not long after, she’d sent him an email apologizing, stating that she knew she was the reason for her marriage failure, not him. So why was this site back up? Then he noticed it wasn’t the same site, and there were fresh stories with new pictures. None of which were true, but all stated that he’d seduced them and then dumped them. He needed to have a cyber investigator find out where this site had originated. Had Aurora been told about this site and left? That made no sense as her phone, tablet, and clothing were still here.

He didn’t have the luxury to worry about it right now. After grabbing the swag he was out of, he headed back to his table. He’d figure out what happened after the book signing event was done.