Custom Love by Chantal Fernando

Prologue

Trade

This moment has been a long time coming.

I’m not sure why it has taken me three years to propose to Ariel. I knew she was mine the second I saw her, but after a drunken night out when she said she wants to have a baby with me, our first together, I realized that I need to get my shit together. We already have four kids, three mine and one hers, but to us they are all of ours. I take my role as a father very seriously, and I love Mila just like she is my own blood. Her biological father, Merve, is an absolute deadbeat and Mila doesn’t even know him. She knows me, and me only, as her dad.

And as for Ariel?

Call me Prince Eric, because that woman was born to be mine.

When I told her we were going out for our anniversary and I had asked my brother, Temper, to babysit, Ariel decided she wanted to look her best and booked an appointment at a beauty salon. My woman deserves to be pampered, and it’s so rare that the two of us get to be kid-free. Little does she know, though, that tonight is going to be much more than an anniversary dinner.

I just hope she says yes. I mean, wanting to add to our brood is pretty much saying she wants me forever, right? And we have discussed marriage before, so I don’t know why I feel so nervous right now.

I shift on my feet uneasily and check the time once more. She was supposed to be back about forty-five minutes ago, so I call her. When she doesn’t answer, I leave a message.

“Hey, beautiful, it’s me. You almost done? Call me back. Love you.”

Taking a seat at our dining table, I scroll through pictures on my phone to pass the time. Pictures of us posing with the kids, pictures of just me and Ariel smiling happily, arms wrapped around each other. There’s even a sexier one of the two of us, me lying behind her in bed, my hands cupping her breasts possessively.

When another thirty minutes pass, I call her again. She still doesn’t answer, so I call the salon, only to be told she had left over an hour ago.

An uncomfortable feeling fills my stomach. Where the hell could she be? She might have made another stop somewhere, but it’s not like her to be late or to ignore her phone. I hit her sister’s number and bring the phone to my ear.

“Hey,” Izzy says. “Aren’t you supposed to be at dinner?”

I pause. “So Ariel isn’t with you then?”

“What do you mean?” she asks, sounding confused. “She messaged me when she was leaving the salon, which was about an hour ago. She said she was going right home.”

It’s seven o’clock now and she knows our reservation is for seven thirty. She reminded me this morning. “She never got here. I’m still waiting for her.”

Izzy goes silent for a second. “She should have been home by now,” she says, tone taking a serious edge. “Where else could she have gone?”

“I don’t know. And she’s not picking up her phone,” I explain, standing up and looking outside the front window. “Something’s not right.” I can feel it in my bones. “I’m going to go and look for her.”

“No, let me,” Izzy says, and I hear scuffling in the background. “Renny is here—he’s going to call Temper and everyone else.” Renny, short for Renegade, is Izzy’s husband and a member of the Knights of Fury MC, of which Temper is president.

“The kids are with Temper—I don’t want to upset them until we find her.”

“I know. We will be discreet, and Abbie can watch them if we need Temper, don’t worry. We’ll all go look for her. I’m going to start at the salon; they might have surveillance cameras there. You wait there in case she comes home.”

“Okay,” I say with a nod, and then hang up.

I start to pace. I don’t want to be sitting here doing nothing while everyone is out trying to find her, so I leave a note for Ariel on the table, telling her to call me immediately, and then I call Temper, who left the kids with his wife, Abbie, and is retracing Ariel’s steps in his car. I meet up with him and we spend the next two hours looking for her in the area, and calling all of her friends and family, but she is nowhere to be found. I go to the police, but they say they can’t do anything until she has been missing for more than twenty-four hours.

We all meet back at my house, and my stomach clenches when Ariel isn’t there waiting for me, like I hoped she would be.

Izzy starts crying as she sits down on our couch, and she looks just how I feel. I want to break down right now and fucking scream. I want to rage and set this whole fucking city on fire.

But that’s not going to help right now. I just need to find her.

I’m standing in our living room, looking at the home we made together, and feel utterly helpless. “I don’t know what to do,” I say to Temper, taking a deep, slow breath. “She has to be okay. I’m going to lose it if something happened to her.”

Temper comes over to me, grabs onto my shoulders and looks me in the eye. “No, you’re not. Because we don’t know if anything happened to her. She could’ve forgotten to run an errand or...”

We don’t know if we’ve lost her.

Abbie, Temper’s wife, approaches and gives me a big hug. “We’ll find her.”

I nod, thanking her with my eyes. I’m going to need all the support I can get right now.

“I’m heading back out,” I announce.

A woman doesn’t just go missing into thin air.

Something has happened, and I’m not going to rest until I find out what that is.