Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed. “Why is no one on the desk?”
“Oh, it’s been pretty hairy around here.” He laughed again but the note went sour.
I leaned a shoulder against the wall for support. “What’s wrong?”
“Mr. Skellen.”
I groaned because the man was one of the pickiest people who came to the Courtesan, but he paid dearly to have his whims and desires met, and so far he’d had few complaints I couldn’t resolve quickly. “What about dear, wonderful, very wealthy Mr. Skellen?”
“I don’t think he’s coming back.” The blood in my veins froze and maybe even started moving backward. For a second I clung to the phone with both hands. “And that man was going to fund my retirement account. He loves my—”
“Not over the phone!”
Romeo laughed and some of his usual humor was back. “Well, his room wasn’t to his liking. I shit you not, he had a fit because of the thread count of the sheets. His knobby knees hit five-hundred thread count instead of one thousand, and boy howdy, he could tell. I’ve never seen anyone wilt so fast in his life. Eiffel Tower one second, deflated Goodyear Blimp the next. Then he was out the door raging about it, but your mother told him to calm down or leave, instead of fixing it when she realized what he was upset about. She said, and I’m quoting here, in that charming Southern accent, ‘My dear Mr. Skellen, you’re being as absurd as a hen in a hat.’ ”
I nearly choked. “She did not fucking…. He brought in a lot of—”
“Not over the phone,” Romeo singsonged.
My hand hurt with the force I used to slap the wall. “I’ll call him and smooth it over when I get back,” I murmured. “I’m sorry. I know he was a regular visitor.”
“Yeah, well, that’s nothing.” My heart fell as Romeo proceeded to list one disaster after another until I turned and slid down the wall with the phone pressed to my ear. It took him five whole minutes, and I’d already forgotten the first things he’d said by the time he started talking about our cook walking off the job because the kitchen staff kept coming in late.
“You never told me why you answered the phone,” I said faintly.
“Your mother is… uh, maybe overwhelmed? She said to me, ‘Romeo, you do whatever the hell needs done around here, or I’ll feed you to the pigs.’ She seemed stressed and had a booking, too,” he said with a chuckle.
I knocked my head back against the wall. “Fuck.”
There was a loud sound in the other room that I thought might be the door slamming open, and my spine stiffened. “Darcy! Are you dressed? We have to go,” Brooks called. My heart was already racing from the phone call, and I jumped to my feet.
“What’s that?” Romeo asked.
“I’m not sure. Just… do whatever Mother said. Please. I have to go.”
“But wait, wait. Everyone wants to know when you’re coming back.” The desperation in Romeo’s voice was almost heartwarming.
“Darcy! Now!” There was some scrabbling in the other room, and a woof I thought sounded very much like chastisement, if a dog could tell you she thought you were being obnoxious.
“I have to go. Bye.” I hung up the phone and made my way as quickly as I could to where Brooks was standing in the entranceway with his cane tucked under his arm and Lemonade on her harness. His dark glasses reflected the soft lighting of the living room and made him seem mysterious. His lips looked ridiculously kissable, and even in the face of the heart attack I felt like I was in the middle of having, I wanted to wrap my arms around him and sag there against his muscles.
That was bad because where would that get me in the end? Nowhere.
I raced out to where Brooks stood, and frowned after Levi, who bolted up the stairs to the bedroom. My face heated as he pelted inside. The ropes were still on the bed, along with my incriminating wet spot, not that I should give a damn if the snoop saw the results of Brooks fucking me. I still felt a bit bad about it.
“We need to leave,” Brooks said, though there was a distinctly smug note in his words.
“What? Why?”
“Uh….” Brooks shifted toward me, and an interesting flash of emotions crossed his face and settled on a smile that flickered into a frown, then back again. “Actually, no reason, but we’re going. There’s another place not too far away we could head to, or we could go back to New Gothenburg and you could stay with me a few nights. Would you like to see my house?”
“I’ll ask once more, and only once,” I murmured. Bullshit was heavy on the wind. “What did you do?”
Levi came down the steps with luggage in his hands and glared at me, though not as much as he had earlier. He’d sweated through his shirt he was working so hard, or he was that nervous, and I was already keyed up, so I swung back to Brooks.
“Brooks!”
He threw his head back and laughed, and Lemonade made a grumbling doggy sound at him. “I might’ve punched that fucker Eric when he asked me how I was managing to keep you happy. And… maybe a couple of other things. He asked if I was there to pay him to take care of you while I was in the room.”
