Babysitting the Bad Boy: Books 1&2

2: 19.

"Okay, if Nathan truly isn't evil, he'd probably make it subtly easier for us to find my mother," I told Ryan, still giving Nathan the benefit of the doubt. I could tell Ryan wanted to roll his eyes, but his composure remained and nodded his head slowly, and gave me a look to continue speaking. "Well.. I think your father likes to hide people in obvious places, like your mother.. except.. I don't know what the 'obvious' place is."

"Hmm.. unless he decided to switch his tactic."

"He's already ahead of the game, though. I don't think he'd change things up now when he's having a grand time laughing at us," I responded with a frown as I imagined Mr. Winchester probably thinking how stupid we were and incompetent.

"You think his assistant would know?" Ryan asked as I saw his eyes fixate in one position, a sign of him going into deep thought. "Maybe we should get ahold of his assistant."

"Oh my god. I just remembered something."

"What?"

"Don't you have a brother? Well, half-brother? We met him a while ago, but do you think that there's anyway we can go get him? Would this maybe change things up? I mean, we sort of forgot about him and I have no idea how important he is to have any sort of effect on the outcome of all this.." I couldn't remember his brother's name and I saw Ryan's eyes widen as he stared at me.

"David.." He whispered his brother's name as he stood from his chair. "David Sterling. I honestly didn't look into him. I still believed it was just another one of my father's pranks.. but I'll have my assistant look into him. If he truly has a connection with my father, this could change a lot of things for us," he explained as he pulled out his cellphone.

I didn't even respond because we was already dialing his assistant and halfway out of the room. I sighed as I tapped my nails against the hard surface of the table. Things were moving agonizingly slow. Every second that ticked, so many morbid thoughts crossed my mind and I grew more and more and more worried for my mother.

***

It had been hours later and we sent Hailey off to be watched by Ryan's assistant. Smith. I had looked over a few papers regarding David's information that Ryan had given to me once he obtained it from his assistant. And we decided that we were going to go meet him and discuss things in a civil manner rather than abducting him and forcing information out of him.

I was in the master bedroom trying to decide what I was going to wear when we meet him. I couldn't decide between formal or casual or something in between or even more business-like instead. Ryan watched me as I paced around the bedroom.

"Kimberly, you're driving me crazy. Just pick something already because we don't have all day. We're just going to discuss things, it's not like you have a date or something," he said to me as he slipped into his clean and wrinkle-free baby blue polo shirt.

"You don't understand, though. If I dress too uptight, it might make him uncomfortable and make me seem a bit harder to approach. If I dress too casual, then it seems like I don't take this meeting serious because we will be discussing a very serious matter."

"Then do both."

"But it might look like I'm trying too hard. Or it could make it harder to convey a message because I'm dressed up with both... ugh! I can't decide. I'll just go naked," I complained out loud and then paused, realizing what I said at the end. ".. I won't do that.. but.."

"Yeah. I wouldn't let you do that. What's underneath all those clothes, is for me to see and for me to see only," Ryan commented as he waved his finger around at my body. I rolled my eyes as I stepped in front of the closet and then I sighed.