“You’re really in Adrian’s confidence, aren’t you?”
“I can’t do my job if I’m not.” John smiled again, and this time it was easy and reassuring. “I gotta do those errands. You ok packing? I’ll be back in an hour.Withyour Nutella and baguette.”
“I’ll be ready.”
Inhaling another breath, Layla thought suddenly of all the goodbyes she’d have to make in the next hour. It wasn’t enough time, especially seeing Luke standing on the front porch now, arms crossed as he leaned up against the river rock porch-support and eyeballed her interaction with John, hostile to the max. She could feel him as if he stood next to her, radiating bad energy down upon her interaction in the driveway. But Luke didn’t get to be protective of her anymore. They weren’t dating anymore, and shaking up her life was something Layla needed to do. The Hotel had seemed severely sketchy at first, but the more Layla interacted with John, the more she realized it was actually a job – a strange job, for sure, but one that would take her far away from Seattle.
And hopefully, into something better.
“See you soon, Ms. Price.” With a grin for Layla and a small salute up to Luke on the porch, John opened the Bentley’s door and slid back into the driver’s seat. Layla stepped back so he could start the engine and roll out of the driveway, then smoothly accelerate that fine black sedan up the darkening street as streetlights popped on in the gloom.
“What the fuck, Layla?!” Luke stormed down the porch the moment John left, his green eyes flashing as his arms came unwound. He was a storm of fury, coming for her like a hurricane. Vicious protectiveness seethed from him, his shoulders set stiff as he bristled. “You contacted those Red Letter Hotel fuckers? Aftereverythingthat’s happened and how fucking sketchy it is?”
“It’s a legit job, Luke.” Layla eyeballed him, moving past his righteous fury and stepping up the stairs. She felt tired suddenly, and didn’t want another argument. She just wanted to go, to leave all this blistering heat and wretchedness behind. “I have to get upstairs, I need to pack.”
“Pack?!” He stormed up after her. “You’re leaving, now? To run off into some crazy stalker organization you don’t have any clue about? God, how could you even get in a car with that man?!”
“He’s abodyguard, Luke!” Layla rounded on him as they stepped into the foyer, all the housemates staring at them from the front room now that they were back inside. “Christ! You wanted a change for me, well here it is! International travel, a great position I have a chance to excel at, and someone who thinks I could do a damn good job.” Flashing her phone up, Layla hammered in her password for her student loans and shoved the phone in his face. “Just forconsideringthis job, they paid off my student loans. Not a bribe. For real.”
Luke blinked at the phone, stunned. His green eyes were enormous, his mouth fallen open. His eyes tracked to hers but his lips were speechless. In the pause, Layla turned and headed up the stairs, feeling the hamsa-mark on her arm burn in her fury. Storming to her room, she went straight to the desk – and clapped the Moroccan cuff to her wrist, setting the pin.
Ease suddenly flowed through her. A feeling like being scoured clean by desert winds, smelling spice and anise and orange peel on hot zephyrs. It was as if she could feel the wind catching her shirt and sand sighing around her bare feet. Except she was still wearing boots and there was no wind – just the mystery of Adrian Rhakvir and their connection through the Moroccan cuff, a mystery that needed to be solved.
“So you’re really doing it? You’re really going – just like that?” Luke stood in her doorway, his green eyes desolate; raw. “We have one fight and you take off? Call some sketchy fucking hotel and fly away in the night?”
She turned, watching him. She could have said a million things to try and make it better, this gulf and tension between them. Borne of love, borne of fury, borne of a thousand emotions Layla couldn’t even name that she had once thought might have been for always. But it was for never now. Someday, Luke would find someone to make him happy – but Layla was not that someone.
“Today wasn’t just one fight,” Layla sighed, apology in her voice. “Today was tomorrow, and tomorrow will be the next day, and the day after that. We’ve always been that way, Luke.”
“We weren’t, once.” Luke’s green eyes burned, and Layla could see tears just behind them.
“That was a long time ago.” She murmured, watching him. “That was before my parents died and before you started med school and before we started living together. What are we now, huh? Just a fight-fuck away from tearing each other’s throats out.”
“I don’t want you to leave.” As Layla watched, the first tear spilled from Luke’s vibrant eyes; followed by another.
“I have to go, Luke.” She spoke softly. “We can’t live like this.”
He nodded. Chewing his lower lip, his head kept nodding like a broken marionette, another tear sliding down his face. In his eyes, she could see it – that she had broken him. Broken his heart in a way that might never mend. Opening his hand, he placed it to her door, touching it as if he had something to say, his green eyes burning with tears. But then he turned abruptly, moving off toward his room down the hall. Layla heard his door click shut. Not Luke’s regular vigorous slam, just a final, annihilating click.
She closed her eyes.
And then with a deep inhalation and a sigh, turned and began to pack.
Pulling out her rolling suitcase from the closet, she threw it open on the bed. She didn’t have much. Moving to the bureau, she snagged her family photo album, then grabbed the bureau’s secret drawer of Mimi’s jewelry – items that ranged from ornate costume pieces to real sets of pearls and diamonds Layla had never had the heart to sell, no matter how strapped for cash she got. That all went into a zippered bank bag, then in the suitcase. Her passport and documents went in a ziplock bag, then into her red leather purse. Moving to her closet, Layla fetched her only stuffed animal, a dappled grey horse that had somehow survived her entire childhood, and nestled it in the suitcase.
For clothes, she packed her favorite pair of Victorian-style tall boots in scarlet leather and her more modest black ones, already wearing the tan. Packing her best bar-clothes, she went for professionally sexy, the little black dress and the scarlet one making the cut with some black stiletto heels. Layla packed light on her casual wardrobe; jeans, a few nice sweaters, her royal blue peacoat, v-neck shirts, and her soft grey sleep-shirt. If she was making as much money as John suggested, she’d probably have a whole wardrobe from Paris in short order.
Toiletries were next. Moving down the hall to the shared bathroom, Layla passed Luke’s door. She thought about knocking but decided it was better this way, stepping into the tiled bathroom and flicking on the light. Rummaging through her cubby, she packed only the most essential personal items, plus some tampons and pads just in case. Moving back to her room, everything was quickly packed into her suitcase with her laptop and chargers – and then there was nothing else.
Surveying her room, Layla suddenly felt a strange vertigo, as if viewing herself from outside her body as a flare of heat washed up her wrist through her core. This was leaving. All her things would end up in storage, and even if she did eventually move back to Seattle, she’d probably never live here again. Rolling her suitcase to the hall, she hefted it down the stairs with her purse to the front door. The housemates were staring at her from the living room. Rising from the ratty couches, they approached, big Charlie, skinny Arron, and sweet Celia, their faces ranging from astonished to incredulous.
Reaching out, Celia brushed a lock of Layla’s hair back from her shoulder, her pretty dark eyes concerned behind her chunky glasses. “You ok? We were listening through the open front window. We heard everything. Are you certain this is right for you Layloo?”
“I’m sure.” Layla gave them a smile and an encouraging nod, a little more solid than she felt. “I wanted a chance to travel again, and now I have it. I know it seems sudden, but I’ve really been thinking about it for weeks. This is the best thing for me. I can feel it.”
“Are you sure, hun-bun? Because you always have a home here with us, you know that, right?” Arron’s grey gaze was concerned as he watched her, and Layla felt his deep worry. “You don’t have to leave. We can figure out a new living situation—”
“I’ll be fine.” She smiled at him, hoping it looked more certain than she felt. “I need to get out of Seattle, Arron, out of this dead-end I’ve hit. This is it. This is my chance. It’s now or never, and the never is now.”
