How had she not realized she was in love with him then?
Adrenaline and hope flooded through her. With a few quick swipes on her screen, there it was. The reassuring homing beacon ping of the GPS phone locator. She squinted at the direction.
Patrick was still in the hotel. Kim. Kim was in the hotel.
She frantically pulled outward on the map, trying to narrow it down.
There.
She allowed a smile to tilt her lips and dashed from the room as quickly as her sneakers could take her.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Patrick’s eyes were shut tightly, his mouth uncomfortably dry again. Kim paced at the foot of the bed, checking her phone repeatedly and muttering to herself.
Fuckwas the only word he could muster. How long had he been there now? Would Anita even be looking for him after this morning? His chest clenched at the memory of her words. How had last night meant so little to her, that she could just write it off as a mistake? Patrick had fallen asleep last night, breathing in her shampoo on his hands, feeling for one of the few times in his life completely content. Whole.
Then she shattered his heart.
Not to mention he was then drugged, kidnapped, and tied to a bed by a woman who had been stalking him since college. So, yeah, fuck.Fuckfuckfuckfuck.
“Oh, baby, you poor, poor baby,” she cooed. She moved to the side of bed, knelt beside him, and a cool drip of water touched his lips. He drank as greedily as he could from the paper hotel cup, sick at his delight of the water coursing down his chin. His stomach growled at the influx. He wondered if maybe she could order him a cheeseburger. All she had allowed him to eat was half of a protein bar.
Kim didn’t seem to notice his audible hunger and ran a finger down his cheek. “Sweet Patrick.” She bent forward to kiss his eyebrow, and he caught another whiff of tuberose and something that smelled musky, like mushrooms or aged ham. Yup, he was officially starving.
“What are you going to do to me?” Hopefully it did not involve disembowelment or breaking of his appendages, but after what he had seen in her suitcase, he could not rule anything out.
She looked at him, nonplussed, as if she had not even contemplated how he would not understand her wishes.
His was to eat.
“Patrick, I think you know the answer. Now that you know how I feel, I’m sure you feel it, too. We have such a history together. We can be happy.” She clapped her hands together, like a toddler getting a chocolate cupcake.
Patrick pushed thoughts of dessert from his mind and did his best to sit up, but it was impossible with his arms pulled out to his sides. He slid back down the sheets. “Kim, I can’t.”
“What do you mean?” A storm clouded her features, her voice thickened with ice. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing! Nothing! You’re a wonderful person. It’s just, I-I’m in love with someone else.”
Kim lunged toward him, wrapping her hands around his throat. The shock hurt almost more than the choking, but no, no, being choked was definitely the worst thing that had ever happened to him. The pressure on his throat was a vise, clamping and gripping, and the light at the edges of his vision dimmed.
“Please—” he attempted, but all that came out was a gawk.
“You have to love me!” Kim tightened her grip.
He was passing out. Shit, he was passing out, and everything was going dark, and it all hurt so fucking much—
And then there was a firm and rapid series of knocks at the door.
****
Anita tapped her foot impatiently and knocked again. And again. Patrick was in there. He was definitely in there. She could smell him.
At last she heard footsteps inside the room approaching the door. She posed and pasted on her “ditsy blonde needs a favor” smile.
She could do this.
Kim opened the door a mere inch, and Anita resisted the urge to shove the door into the other woman’s face. Patrick was in there. She couldn’t make the wrong move, or Kim might kill him. She should have seen it earlier.
