Figurewhatout?
“Where were you when it happened?”
Whenwhathappened, dammit?
“Julian,no. Don’t do anything nuts, all right? Justwait. I’m here for you.”
What’s he doing that’s “nuts”? Dammit, I should just storm in and demand answers…
“Okay, but I’ve gotta go. Sage is gonna be back soon.”
I hear a rustling sound and I’m pretty sure she’s headed for the living room. I dash to the front door and slip out into the hallway, shutting the door silently behind me.
What the hell are they hiding?
Jules must be in some kind of trouble, and on a certain level it feels bad that he’s telling her and not me. But that’s stupid,right? Why would I expect he’d tell meanything? Pri is the rescuer, the nurturer. I’m the hothead who punched him on the arm rather than having a serious conversation with him when I caught him with the pills.
I kind of hate myself right now…
I wish I could stress-eat the sloppiest mile-high hamburger ever. Stacked with a greasy layer of onion rings. Enough melting cheese to constipate a flock of geese. A slab of chocolate cake on the side. And two fingers of bourbon, neat.
Fuck it.
I head for the elevators and go down to the lounge to break some rules.
The lounge’s dress code sayscasualwhen I check the website, but the place is all dark paneling and luxurious upholstery and gilded tables and thick rugs. It looks like where rich Edwardian dandies would go to smoke their pipes and talk about… I don’t know, shooting big game and colonizing someplace?
I take a chair. It’s so swanky here that “casual” or not, my DamnedMACHINE GUN ETIQUETTET-shirt feels out of place. My blue hair is freshly dyed and pulled into a sweaty topknot. A guy in his fifties at a nearby table gives me that look recognizable as a combination ofWhat’s wrong with youngsters nowadays?andYeah, I would, eyeing my neck tattoo and holding his lips in a way that’s both prim and lascivious.Ew.
I flash a sarcastic toothy smile before turning to put in my order on Emerald’s team account. I ask for a slider and a side of onion rings, chocolate cake, and a bourbon.
While waiting, I swipe open my phone and compose then delete texts to Priya.
Me:Sooooo… is there anything you’d like to tell me?
Me:Every time you lie, Priya Ramachandran, a hummingbird collides with a windmill and DIES
I growl in frustration and smack my phone face down on the table, too hard.
Self-conscious, I look up to see if anyone caught my little tantrum. My gaze lands across the room where there’s a hot guy watching me, his hands paused over the keyboard of an open laptop. There’s an Irish coffee mug beside it, half empty.
What the hell…?
Alexander raises his eyebrows, then closes his laptop and slides it into a leather messenger bag before shouldering it, standing, and plucking up his coffee. I study his approach. Cream-colored linen trousers and a matching vest, wine-red dress shirt beneath, rolled to the elbows. Gold necktie pulled loose, top two buttons undone, displaying that peek of chest.
He sinks into the wing chair opposite me.
“Why are you here?” I ask. “You have your own hotel.”
“You mean that delightful accommodation where the sink water was half rust, and I woke this morning to find a spider the size of a steak-and-ale pie on my pillow? For some inexplicable reason, I gave it up and moved to a suite here. For which I’m paying.”
“This place is booked during race week.”
“I have my methods.” He checks his Patek Philippe wristwatch, then slides the laptop out of his bag and opens it. After perusing something, brow stern, he snaps it shut again.
A flutter of paranoia goes through me, considering the miserable qualifying session I had. “What are you writing?” I fold my arms. “Is it about me?”
“It isn’t, you vain girl,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “But why the hostility? You’ve liked the things I’ve written this week for the social media posts. I thought I was crawling back into your good graces, no?”
