“Then it must beAiden’sex,” Rowe said.
There was a long pause.
“What the hell is going on?” Ace asked with a groan, rubbing one side of his face like he wanted this to be over so he could go to bed.
“There’s a guy… ah, here!” Rowe said, his attention snapping to someone in the distance. He threw a hand over his head and waved it. “Jesse!”
One of the hotel’s staff ran over. He was dressed in the same uniform as the waiters and everyone else I’d seen working here – a white monogrammed dress shirt, a red tie, and black dress trousers. This place tried to look fancier than it really was.
“I just heard from security,” he said. “She was seen trying to go out through the back entrance – I don’t know why – but when security came, she ran back into the hotel and she was gone before they could catch up to her.”
“What’s going on?”
“Keaton,” I said with some relief, turning at the sound of his voice as he came out of the restaurant. Finally, a friendly face. Someone who wouldn’t immediately think the worst of me. “We’ve got to help Aiden and Cade. One of Aiden’s exes is running around the place and she’s threatening to pour paint on them, or something.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Jesse, the hotel guy, said, with a desperate gesture of his hands. “We just can’t track her down for long enough to get her out of here!”
“Who is she?” Ace asked. He frowned. “Wait, wasn’t there someone…?”
I clicked my fingers. “At dinner, last night. Davies, Olly, and Caleb were laughing about someone who followed Aiden around during college.”
“Tara,” Keaton said, his face lighting up with recognition. “Do any of you guys know her?”
I shook my head, but Ace nodded. “I’ve seen a picture of her. I was sitting next to Davies last night, and after he’d told the story, he showed me a bunch of them. I know what she looks like.”
“Olly will know her, too,” Keaton mused, immediately flipping into organizational mode. I saw the change in his face. He was an excellent team leader – one of the reasons why he was such a good director. “And… Jesse, was it?”
Jesse nodded.
“You’ve seen her? You know what she looks like?”
He nodded miserably. “I was supposed to escort her back to her car. I didn’t know she would just get back out and come back in as soon as I was gone!”
“Right,” Keaton said decisively. “We need to find her before anyone else realizes something’s going on. Brody – go and get Olly. Tell him I want him out here, and then explain everything. There are three floors above us, right?”
Jesse nodded frantically, running a hand back through his tightly-curled hair. It all bounced back into place as soon as his hand was gone.
“I’ll take Ace and go to the top floor,” Keaton said decisively. “Brody, tell Olly when you get him out here to help you with the next floor down. That way both of us will be partnered with someone who knows who we’re looking for.”
“We’ll take the floor above us here,” I said, nodding at Jesse. “Rowe, you should go back and sit down. I’ll come and find you when we’re done.”
I turned to go –
And stopped immediately, held back by a firm hand on my arm that wouldn’t let go no matter how hard I tugged.
Rowe
“I don’t think so,” I said calmly. “You’re not shaking me off like that.”
Xavi stared at me. “What? But we need to run all over this damn hotel to find this crazy homewrecker. You need to rest.”
I frowned at him. “What did I say? My number one rule?”
He tilted his head at me, darting his eyes towards the others. Apparently, he thought I wasn’t going to back down because he mouthed something at me that looked suspiciously like “No groping or inappropriate sex talk”.
“No,” I said, rolling my eyes. “The rule was don’t mollycoddle me. You don’t exactly spend a lot of time working out, okay? Let’s not pretend you’re a marathon runner here. Anything you can do, I can do.”
Xavi spluttered at me. Behind him, I heard Ace snort a laugh.
