1 Chapter 1 : Tahir Gujic

The first time I saw his face, I knew that I was in trouble. Even in a low resolution photo, his dark eyes seemed to smolder. Irrational though it may be, it felt like those eyes were looking into my soul. His warm chestnut skin and windswept black hair wouldn’t leave my mind. It was driving me crazy.

My editor had asked me to write up a short article on the eligible new bachelor in town. I’d been working at The Bell City Journal for four years now, and I was frustrated to still be stuck on human interest pieces. Not that there was much else to write about in a small town. I knew that if I really wanted to work on hard hitting news, I’d have to leave home and move to a big city, but that wasn’t in the cards for me.

Still, I thought there had to be something more important for me to write about than some foreign billionaire moving into town. That is, until I actually started researching Tahir Gujic. I couldn’t nail down anything about the man. I had been researching him for nearly two weeks and I still didn’t know how old he was, where he was from, or what business he was in.

How was I supposed to write anything about the man when I didn’t know anything about him? All I’d found was that damned photo. That was the reason I couldn’t stop thinking about it. At least, I told myself that was the reason. Part of me knew that there was more to it than that.

Mentioning the situation to Kimberly was a mistake. I hadn’t talked to anyone else about it, so bringing it up with her just solidified it in my mind. I was obsessing over Tahir Gujic and I hadn’t even met him.

Kim called me on my lunch break on Friday. I should know after nearly fifteen years of friendship that Kim would only rile me up more.

“Thea,” she said excitedly. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“Working,” I answered with a groan. “Raine wants an article about some rich guy that’s moving to town. They want the write up before Monday, but he’s like a ghost. All I know is that he’s coming from somewhere overseas and he apparently has just an insane amount of money.”

“A mysterious billionaire,” she muttered. “That’s exciting!”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “It’s not exciting, it’s weird,” I said. “Why is he coming here? How did he get all this money? What if he’s some drug lord or mafia hitman or something?”

Kim laughed so loud I had to move the phone away from my ear. I scowled at her reaction. I was losing sleep trying to figure out anything about this guy and she thought it was funny.

I’d exhausted all of my usual resources and still had nothing. I wanted to pull my hair out. In this day and age, for someone to have zero online presence was unheard of. I couldn’t find so much as a defunct blog page.

“He’s not a hitman, Thea,” Kim scoffed.

“How would you know?” I demanded. “I can’t even find a birth year for the guy. He’s a total mystery.”

“Is this the guy you sent me the pic of?” she asked.

“Yes.” I sighed in frustration. “That’s all I’ve been able to find. Just one old paparazzi photo from ten years ago. I’d have better luck looking for info on Bigfoot at this point.”

“Bigfoot isn’t an eligible bachelor moving to the middle of Tennessee out of the blue,” she responded. “You’ll get more readers with this story. Raine is never wrong, you know that.”

“Raine is sticking me with filler work again,” I whined. My editor was great, but they knew that I had an in with the socialites in town because of my friendship with Kimberly Ashworth.

It was true that I could get into almost any event by name dropping Kim or asking her to bring me along, but being pigeonholed like this was beyond frustrating. I was great at research and investigation, why wouldn’t they let me do that?

“Oh, boo hoo, you’ll get your name in print on the society page again. How awful for you,” she said sarcastically.

I groaned. “I know. I’m being ungrateful,” I said. “I just want to do something that feels more important, you know? Ace would be thrilled with an assignment like this. I don’t know why they don’t give the job to her.”

“Because they gave it to you. Now stop whining and put those investigative abilities of yours to work, girl.” She was right. I sighed and nodded, even though she couldn’t see me. “I was calling to invite you to a party Daddy is throwing this weekend, but it sounds like you’re going to be busy.”

“Yeah, no fun until I can figure out something about this guy to fill out my word count. Right now, all I have written down is his name and that he’s supposed to arrive in town tomorrow.”

“Eat lunch, get coffee, work it out. Call me tomorrow morning because you know that I’ll be bored to death if you don’t come. Manny is going to be there and I do not want to deal with him without you.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes. “You think telling me that my ex will be there is going to convince me to come?” I asked bitterly.

“I think that telling you that your ex is going to hit on me mercilessly if you aren’t there to protect me will convince you,” she responded.

“You’re right.” I sighed. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Damn right you will.” She hung up and I shoved my phone in my pocket. Maybe seeing Manny would remind me why men weren’t worth the headache and I’d be able to get Tahir’s handsome face out of my mind. It was a long shot, but I could hope.

I spent the rest of the day working on a story about a local family that had lost their house in an electrical fire. No one was hurt, but they weren’t insured. The community would rally around them and I was sure a fundraiser would be planned before this edition even went to print.

Our community might be small, but it was generous. You could always count on a neighbor to lend a helping hand and if all else failed, Kim’s dad would take care of them.

Kim’s family was the wealthiest in town and her dad liked to spend his money. As far as billionaire’s went, he was a good one. He’d made his money himself, rather than inheriting it. Maybe that was why he felt that spending it before he died was a good goal to have. He shopped locally, hired locally, and donated regularly.

Kim and I had been friends since grade school. When my mom died, her father paid for everything, and when my dad lost his job because he didn’t return to work right afterwards, Mr. Ashworth hired him. My family felt indebted to hers, but Mr. Ashworth didn’t see it that way. He was helping his daughter’s best friend because he had the means to do so. He never held it over our heads or treated us like we were below him.

I forwarded Kim the link to the article about the fire as soon as it went live. She always wanted to know when there was someone in the community that needed support.

I tried to put the handsome ghost of a billionaire out of my mind. I had other work to do today.

I had been able to forget about him until I’d clocked out for the day. I walked home from work with my earbuds in and music playing a little too loud to drown out my intrusive thoughts.

It wasn’t until I reached my apartment and kicked off my shoes that my mind started to wander again. I thought about turning on the radio, but I didn’t want to annoy the elderly woman that lived next door to me.

I went into the kitchen to find something to eat.

Tahir basically didn’t exist on the internet. What kind of person is so careful to keep the details of their life a secret? It would have to be intentional. Most people don’t even know how much information is readily available about them with a simple search. You have to go out of your way to make yourself unsearchable. Why did Tahir do it?

Did his money come from some nefarious means? It seemed far-fetched, but not impossible. Or maybe he had enemies? Maybe he was hiding for some reason? If that was the case, I couldn’t publish a story about him. Not even a fluff piece. Or was it something else entirely? Maybe the guy just had some serious hang ups about his privacy. If he was born into his money, then I could see that being the case. Kim often complained about the persona she had to maintain because of how public her entire life had been.

Why did Raine want me to write about this guy anyway? It wasn’t like them to put a lot of importance on this kind of story. There was nothing really notable or pressing about it, after all. The guy hadn’t even arrived in town yet. Why was it so important for the paper to cover him at all?

I felt obsessive and it made me angry with myself. There was nothing special about this guy but his money. Why had his name stuck into my mind so firmly and why couldn’t I stop thinking about him?

I had been pacing my kitchen as I cooked a quick dinner for myself. I was going to wear a hole in the rug if I kept this up. Those deep, obsidian eyes were haunting me. I poured myself a glass of wine and sat on the couch to eat. I had to find a distraction.

As if on cue, my phone started to ring. I put it on speakerphone and sat it beside me on the couch. “What’s up, Kim?”

“Aren’t you lucky to be my bestie?” she asked excitedly. “Remember how I said that Daddy is throwing a party tomorrow night?”

“Of course I remember, you just told me a few hours ago.” I took a sip of my wine and waited for her to continue.

“Your mystery man is going to be there.”

I choked on my drink. “You’re joking,” I said in disbelief. I shouldn’t be surprised that Mr. Ashworth would welcome the newcomer with a get together. I’m sure it was his way of being friendly.

“Wear the wine colored Jovani dress and come by the house at 8,” she said. “I’ll make sure you get your story.”

In typical fashion, she hung up on me before I could answer.

Of course I was going to go. I had to. I didn’t even care about the article anymore. I hated mysteries and I wanted to know. It was probably something boring. He was probably some aging trust fund baby that was coming to sample our world famous whiskey and check the US off of his world travel bucket list. I was very likely making too much out of this.

There was no way he could still look the way he did in that photo after ten years. I would be able to keep my cool when I was face to face with him. I was a professional after all.

However, that didn’t stop me from picturing his face as I lay down for bed that night. Why did it feel like his eyes were burning into me even from a photograph? I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something vital about meeting this man.

All I knew was that my dreams that night were filled with heat and his intense eyes.