“See this?” I asked, holding up my hand.
A little whistle escaped Carl. “That’s quite a ring.”
“I gave it back to him this morning,” I told him. “He gave it back to me again when we ran into each other at a restaurant.”
Carl sucked in a deep breath, likely coming to the same conclusion I did. That if he was worried about the money, why would he leave me with an expensive ring?
“Well, let’s just hope that’s a payoff,” Carl said, shrugging and pulling his chair forward. “I’m just going to have a few questions for the paperwork, and we can get it printed out and out the door with you.”
“Thank God,” I said, sighing.
“Now, for the issue of payment…”
I reached into my chip bag and dropped a handful on the surface of his desk.
And, hey, I will say this for Carl Center: he wasn’t a crook. He grabbed the handful he needed and passed the rest back to me.
I answered my questions, refilled my coffee while I waited, then had a folder in my hand when I made my way out of his office.
I didn’t know if it was the food, the caffeine, or the paperwork itself, but I was feeling a lot more human when I made my way back to our hotel.
“Hi!” I greeted the same man I’d talked to about my phone earlier. “So, I lost my keycard to my room,” I told him, rattling off my room number and my name. “What?” I asked, dread filling my system at the confused look on his face.
“It looks like you checked out, Miss… Mrs. Valentine.”
“Clearly, I didn’t. Everything I brought with me to Vegas is still in that room.” Including a hell of a lot of money in chips. “What did you do with all my things if you checked me out?”
At this time of day, that meant someone would have already cleaned that room so they could turn it over.
“Right. There is a note here. You requested to have your things packed up and moved to—”
I didn’t wait for him to finish that sentence.
That son of a bitch.
I mean, what the hell was his problem?
And how was he one step ahead of me all damn day?
Because he wasn’t hungover.
Had he even been drunk?
I did remember him having a drink in his hand, our glasses clinking together, and the scent of whiskey came back to me in a wave so strong it made me nauseated all over again.
Hehadbeen drinking.
Just not as much as me.
So he was refreshed enough to get me clothes for the day, get ahead of me to the fast food place, get to the chapel around the same time as me, and empty my room while I went to the lawyer.
A grumble escaped me as I made my way into the elevator, trying to ignore the memory that rushed back to me. Of Harrison following me into the elevator, of the wall at my back, himpressed tightly against me, his lips on mine, sparking a million little fires.
The chime of the doors stopping at the penthouse had me jolting.
I rolled my shoulders and charged toward the door, slamming my fist into it hard enough to make it rattle in the jamb.
“Darling,” Harrison greeted me as he pulled the door open. His stupid, charming smile was in place. His jacket was off, his sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms. Was there anything sluttier a man could do than roll up his sleeves like that?
