Page 121 of Life’s Too Short

Copeland, who is in the process of adopting Price’s infant niece, said he struggled with a lifelong fear of flying and had to spend a month in intensive therapy to overcome his phobia and deal with the feelings about Price’s potential diagnosis. He’s since followed leads all over the globe, baby in tow, in his attempt to locate Price, who has gone underground. We can’t say if she knows he’s looking, but Copeland has made one thing very clear:

“I’ll never stop looking. And when I find her, I’m spending the rest of her life letting her know how much I love her.”

“Oh my God…” I breathed.

“How the fuck did you not know about this until just now?” Brent said to the side of my face.

I looked at him wide-eyed. “I’m on a social media hiatus, and when I’m not, I get like two million notifications a day! It’s like a flock of seagulls squawking at me constantly over half a dozen different social media networks! I ignore it!! Why didn’t he call you to look for me? You knew where I was!”

“I blocked him in solidarity! He’s been dead to me since New Year’s!”

“Didn’t Dad call you?”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t answer! Who answers when Dad calls???”

Grace. Adrian was adopting Grace.

I did a laugh-cry as I felt around my dress for nonexistent pockets, searching frantically for a phone that I hadn’t even charged in a week. “My phone. I need my phone!”

Brent gestured dramatically to my hand. “You’re holding mine! Use mine!”

I fumbled to the call screen. “His number. I don’t know his number!” I typed his name into Brent’s contacts and it didn’t come up. “How do you not have his number?! He’s one of your investors!”

“It’s under Jesus’s Abs! No! Wait! It’s under Fancy Hall Cop! Type in Fancy Hall Cop!”

I pulled up the contact and hit Send, pacing along the bamboo railing.

The call wouldn’t connect.

I made a guttural shrieking noise and whirled to run to beg Drake for his satellite phone.

I was going to miss the wedding. I was going to get on The Weeknd’s Jet Ski and take it right to the nearest airport. I wouldn’t stop moving until Adrian was in front of me.

“Vanessa!” A faraway voice drifted from somewhere in the distance.

I slid to a halt in the sand, panting. “Did you guys hear that?” I asked, looking back at Laird and Brent, who’d followed me. Laird was still filming.

“Vanessaaa!”

I twisted around. “Okay, that was definitely closer. Who is calling me?”

Laird was looking around now too. Panning the shoreline with the camera.

I think we saw him at the same time, because Laird’s camera stopped moving and focused on a man running up the beach from the direction of the pig roast. It looked like a wedding guest. He was in a white linen outfit, kicking up sand at a full run.

“Vanessa!”

I narrowed my eyes.

And then I put a hand over my mouth.

It was him.

Adrian.

I only had a moment to register it before I broke into a run toward him down the beach and we crashed into each other.

I was instantly whole.