She glanced over and saw a small, almost apologetic,grin curl on his much too handsome face. “If it makes you feel better, the suite is comped.”
“Is it?”
He nodded.
Of course, because once people could afford things, why make them pay? So many things were ass backwards in this world and made zero sense to her. Sort of like what she was doing in this vehicle, she couldn’t explain it.
As the luxury SUV rolled up the curved drive, her heart executed a nimble backflip. She’d known, from the moment she looked up at him behind the bar the man beside her wasn’t someone you typically met in the wilds of a bar, like O’Grady’s on a random Thursday unless fate was involved. But this,thiswas the stuff of a Netflix limited romcom series.
Ironically, her first impulse was to text Bree and tell hereverythingthat was happening. To turn on her location so she could track her and take a sneaky selfie so she could do covert ops for her and tell her who the man was James had recognized. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen.
Then again,ifshe could do that, she wouldn’t even be in this situation for that to happen because she never would have been at O’Grady’s. If she’d walked in onanyoneelse in her sex swing, she would have been at Bree’s house crying in a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream and a bag of Skinny Pop popcorn.
The closer they got to the hotel, the faster the winged creatures in Jenna’s stomach flapped. She looked down at her hands vibrating in her lap. She balled them into fists in her lap, then released. Balled, released. It didn’t help. She tried to breathe in through her nose, out through her mouth.
The problem was, she’d never had a one-night stand. Not that that was what this was. All she’d agreed to do wasstay at a man’s suite for the night. A man’s suite that had three rooms. A man whose name she didn’t even know. A man who she’d toldverypersonal information to. A man who she’d mistakenly assumed was a bartender. A man who, like her, had experienced an emotionally taxing day yet still went and worked to cover his friend’s bar because his wife went into pre-term labor. A man whose entire face lit up when he mentioned his little girl.
Had she agreed because of the things her ex had said to her? She wasn’t sure. Maybe. Their sex life had always been bland and unsatisfying. That was the tradeoff she thought she had to make for stability. She’d tried to spice things up, but he always shot her down. For the past four years it had been scarce to non-existent, and now she knew why. She’d blamed herself for being busy because she’d opened a second location of her salon, The Beauty Spot. Actually,heblamed her andthenshe, in turn, blamed herself.
Did she know the exact motivation for agreeing to go back to this man’s hotel room? No. All she knew was that normally shehatedthe way men looked at her, but she didn’t hate it when the man driving looked at her. It was the opposite. Shewantedhis attention.
Holy shit. That was it.Thatwas why she was there. It had nothing to do with the hurtful things James had said. He was clearly trying to manipulate and hurt her. He’d succeeded. That’s what happened when people knew you, they knew your vulnerabilities, your weaknesses. James bringing up her mother, calling her a whore, was exactly the reason she never told him that she was in contact with her again.
The tires of the matte black Mercedes barely made a sound as they crossed the marble pavers past the valet in his gold-braided uniform, who snapped to attention withthe kind of deference usually reserved for visiting royalty or mafia dons, but they continued on to self-parking.
Okay, so maybe not so fancy, she thought.
Except, no, he kept going, silent and sure, passing the regular self-parking lot and winding up a ramp toward a mirrored black security gate labeled RESTRICTED ACCESS. He produced a slim black key card from the center console, and the gate lifted. When they entered, she noticed that there was full concierge service, including car detailing, a personal valet, and a private entrance with a butler.
This wasn’t just fancy, this was fancy on a whole new level.
They barely came to a stop before both their doors were being opened by two separate gentlemen waiting to assist them.
“Ma’am.” The butler nodded his head as he offered her his white-gloved hand to help her down. It all felt veryBridgerton.
“Thank you, Roger.” She read the name tag on his chest.
On the driver’s side, the concierge opened the door with a smile and a tip of his chin. “Good evening Mr.—”
“Martin,” her potential first one night stand interrupted, with just enough warmth to make it sound friendly and just enough edge to make it final. “Good to see you.”
Martin was cut off before he could finish saying Hot-Not-a-Bartender’s name. It was the second time he had done that, the first had been when James had tried to say it. It was clear he didn’t want Jenna to know his name. She wondered why. Was he a prince? Was he a long-lost Kardashian?No. If he were,shewould know who he was, not her ex.
The concierge’s lips twitched, perhaps in recognition or silent agreement. The two were whisked through the private lobby entrance into a marble corridor lined with fresh, white orchids and onto an elevator. The man who she only knew as D because that is what Cillian called him, put his hand on her lower back as they walked. It was the same thing he’d done when he’d come outside and interrupted her fight with James in the parking lot. She’d liked it then, and she liked it even more now. Because now they were on an elevator alone.
He waved the same black card over the sensor, and it began to ascend to the top floor, which was lit up. His hand remained in place, palm radiating heat, and even through the thick cotton of her sweatshirt, she felt tingles spread through her body. Through the reflective surface of the elevator doors, their eyes met and they stared at one another.
They definitely looked like an unlikely duo. She’d woken that morning expecting to spend the day at her mother’s bedside catching up on reading. She was makeup free, except for her signature MAC lipstick in shade Velvet Teddy which she never left the house without, a white V-neck t-shirt, her white Vans tennis shoes, a navy blue zip-up hoodie, and blue jeans.
The man beside her could have walked off the pages of GQ. His white button-down shirt, sleeves rolled up, revealing tattooed forearms, his jacket casually folded over one. Black slacks tailored to his athletic, chiseled measurements. Thick, dark brown hair. A square jaw covered in stubble that made her hands itch to touch it, but it was the eyes for her. His eyes were a deep well of emotion that, her intuition told her, he rarely ever delved into or revealed. Not that she could rely on her intuition these days. Her husband and her best friend had beenhooking up under her nose for years, and she’d been none the wiser.
No, she was not going to spend the night,wastethe night, thinking of them.
Jenna resolved to push those thoughts from her mind and decided to concentrate, for once, on the present. Her mind was usually working a million miles a minute, focused on what she had to do next, planning, plotting, and preparing. Or she was taking inventory of every mistake she’d made in her business and personal life, specifically, her failures as a mom, and reviewing how she could be better.
Itneverstopped. Her brainnevershut off. Tonight, she wished she had a switch so that for a few hours she could just feel and be. She just didn’t want to think.
They arrived upstairs and the doors slid open onto a private landing. She stepped out on shaking legs into a foyer, not a hallway, afoyerwith a Basquiat on the wall and a view of the city lights in every direction. She counted three more art pieces and two sculptures before they arrived at the door.
