Billionaire's Match (by Tangy Candy) novel Chapter 47

Caleb’s POV

Some people disappear because they want to be found, and some people disappear because they’re running from something worse than loneliness.

Rachel hasn’t answered my calls or texts since yesterday. Eight messages, three voicemails—nothing but silence in return, and the gnawing unease in my gut grows heavier with every hour that passes without a word from her.

She’s probably busy. Probably fine. Probably just needs space after everything we talked about.

The reassurances ring hollow even inside my own head.

I drive to her address without telling anyone where I’m going, the familiar streets blurring past my windshield as the afternoon sun cuts harsh angles through the bare winter trees.

Her apartment complex looks the same as always—brick walls weathered to a dull gray, parking lot half-empty, curtains drawn against the weak light filtering through the clouds.

Her car isn’t in the driveway.

I knock anyway, three sharp raps against the worn wood of her door. The sound echoes down the empty hallway. I wait—nothing. I knock again, harder this time, calling her name through the barrier between us.

The apartment sits dark and still, offering no answers.

Maybe she went to the store. Maybe she’s at class. Maybe…

I pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts, landing on a few names I recognize from years ago. People Rachel used to hang out with, friends who might know where she’s gone.

I keep my questions casual, careful not to raise suspicion or alarm anyone who might talk to the wrong people.

“Haven’t seen her in a few days,” one of them tells me, her voice crackling through the speaker. “She’s been keeping to herself lately. You know how she gets.”

I do know. That’s what worries me.

Another contact goes straight to voicemail. A third picks up, pauses too long when I mention Rachel’s name, and mutters something about not wanting to get involved before hanging up.

They don’t want to talk. Or they don’t know anything. Either possibility makes my chest tight with dread I can’t name.

Did Rachel decide to disappear? Did she change her mind about helping and cut ties without warning?

Or did something terrible happen to her—something connected to Lucas, something I could have prevented if I’d been smarter, faster, more careful?

The uncertainty gnaws at me like teeth against bone.

I sit in my car outside her building for twenty minutes, watching the empty windows, waiting for a sign that never comes. Eventually, I start the engine and pull away from the curb, but I don’t head home.

I can’t go home.

Serena is there, and the thought of facing her right now makes my jaw clench so hard my teeth ache.

This morning’s fight still burns fresh in my memory—another argument about the racing, another round of accusations and ultimatums neither of us can win.

I mentioned the next race coming up, just a passing comment, and she immediately launched into her objections with the precision of someone who’s been rehearsing the attack.

“Why can’t you just stop?” Her voice had risen with each word, frustration bleeding into something rawer. “Why do you keep risking your life like it doesn’t matter?”

“It’s one more race. One. Then it’s done.”

“That’s what you said last time.” She stepped closer, her grey-green eyes blazing with fury and fear tangled together. “Doesn’t it bother you what this would do to your mother if something happened? What it would do to me?”

The admission slipped through her defenses before she could catch it, and I watched her face flush with the realization of what she’d revealed. But instead of softening toward her, I felt my own anger sharpen.

“You don’t get to demand anything from me,” I threw back, the words designed to wound, “while you’re still stringing Lucas along, still pretending you might actually marry the bastard.”

Here, I can breathe.

Here, the world feels far away—the racing, the debt, Lucas, Serena, all of it reduced to background noise against the peaceful silence of the woods.

The weight pressing down on my shoulders lifts, just slightly, just enough to remind me what it felt like before everything became so impossibly complicated.

This place holds warm memories too. Memories I don’t let myself examine too often because they hurt in ways I can’t afford.

As children, before our parents married, before everything became tangled and forbidden, Serena and I used to come here together.

We’d hide from the adults, push each other on this very swing, laugh without the shadows that follow us now. Her honey-blonde hair catching the sunlight. Her grey-green eyes bright with uncomplicated joy.

The sound of her laughter echoing through the trees like music I didn’t know I’d spend years trying to hear again.

Back then, she was just Serena. My friend. My partner in small crimes against boredom and bedtimes.

Now she’s everything I want and everything I can’t have, wrapped together in a package that shares my last name and sits across from me at family dinners while we both pretend we’re not counting the minutes until we can be alone.

I lower myself onto the creaking swing and push off gently with my feet, letting the motion carry me in slow, lazy arcs.

The ropes groan with familiar protest. The oak holds steady, ancient and unmoved by my small weight against its strength.

The sky darkens toward evening as I sit there, watching the light fade through the branches, wondering when everything became so tangled.

Wondering if there’s any way to untangle it without losing everything that matters.