Her.
Ella. A vision in a silver-blue gown with hair and eyes like midnight. A smile cracks across my dry lips, and despite my headache, I roll over and feel the bed beside me, anxious to grab onto her and pull her into me for another round. For another hundred rounds. I’m here through the weekend, and there’s nothing I’d like more than to spend it in this bed with her.
Except she’s not there, and the place where her body was when I fell asleep is empty. Cold. My eyes pinch closed, and I release a breath. Did she run out on me? Maybe she’s in the bathroom? But even as I twist my head in that direction,I don’t have to see the open door or note that the room is dark to know she’s not in there. It’s too quiet in the suite.
She’s not here.
Fuck.
I scrub my hands up and down my face and push away from the bed with my elbows until I’m sitting, my feet on the floor and my head in my hands. I feel like shit. But it’s got nothing on waking up alone after the night we had. She gave me her virginity. A piece of her no one else will ever get, and she’s gone. The sex was incredible. But so was she, and I’m extremely disappointed she fled without a word.
I chuckle humorlessly. My pride is also more than a little wounded.
I suppose I deserve it after all the women I screwed around with and walked away from without a backward glance. But that was before, and this is now, and…shit. I wanted more of her. It was just sex, but I felt a connection with her. I did. More than taking her virginity. From the moment I saw her, I wanted her. And when she opened her smart mouth, she had me.
Clearly it wasn’t the same for her.
“Motherfucker,” I grind out, more than a little bitter. Definitely angry.
Who was she?
Pushing myself out of bed, I head for the bathroom when a sharp pain slices up the bottom of my foot and something hard presses into the soft flesh. I step back and glance down, squinting at the object nestled into the threads of the thick carpet. Bending, I pick up an earring. Heavy for its size, the diamonds are substantial. I rest the twisted teardrops in my palm. The facets pick up the sunlight, casting tiny rainbows about.
I close my eyes and try to remember the details of her face that aren’t coming in all that clear. I drank too much, and it bothers me now that I did.
Setting the diamond on the nightstand, I chug a bottle of water and get in the shower. The hot water helps to clear my head but not that much. I never got her last name. Never knew where she came from. She spoke in French, and I assumed she was the daughter of a member of parliament or some French dignitary. We danced and teased each other, and she wasn’t all that interested in doing either with me at first, but she still came back to my room.
She must have snuck out sometime after midnight, leaving me with her earring and no last name, like a modern-day Cinderella. I laugh. I’m going to catch such shit for this.
I get out of the shower, wrapping a towel around my waist when the clock on the nightstand catches my eye: 10:08. Damn. I was supposed to be at the post-wedding brunch over half an hour ago.
I dress on autopilot in dark slacks and a gray shirt, but just before I fly out the door, I snatch the diamond up and tuck it in my pocket, unwilling to leave it behind.
The chalet's corridors are quiet, as is the elevator ride down. Likely everyone is already back in the ballroom, eating off their hangovers and gossiping about whatever nonsense they can. A staff member nods as I pass, and from here, I can hear the tinkling sound of silverware against china and fake laughter.
An attendant opens the door for me, and I search around the room. Not for my brother or Bellamy or even the children, but for her. In the sea of over three hundred people, there is no one who comes even remotely close to matching my muddled memory of her.
But I do spot the event coordinator with her iPad in hand and march myself over to her.
“Your Highness,” she greets me with a deep curtsy and a small blush on her cheeks. “How may I be of service?”
“I’m trying to locate one of the guests from last night. A woman by the name of Ella.”
She pulls up her iPad and taps through until she has the guestlist at hand. “Do you have a last name for her, sir?”
And this is where I look like an asshole. “No. Just Ella. She was wearing a silver-blue dress. I didn’t see who she came in with.”
The woman presses her lips together, her expression switching from business mode to apologetic as she scrolls through the list. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t see anyone with the name Ella on the official list, nor do I see anyone who was checked in by that name.” She keeps going through the list. “We have three Elizabeths, an Eleanor, and an Ellen, but no Ella.”
My stomach tightens. “What about staff? Could she have been working the event?” Maybe she was security or someone placed by security to blend in as a guest.
“All staff were in uniform, sir. Black-and-white dress clothes with name badges. You can certainly speak to your head of security, but all staff on the event side were dressed as I mentioned.”
“Thank you,” I say with my patented smile when what I really want to do is pick up her iPad and chuck it. Instead, I walk away from what is becoming an awkward conversation. Mostly from my foul mood. That’s what happens when the woman you had no business wanting to stay runs out on you in the middle of the night. Unease slithers through me. Who was she?
I didn’t make her up. I wasn’t that drunk, and I have her earring.
Javier is along the far wall talking with his wife, Emily, as they stand, eating from plates in their hands instead of sitting amongst the guests. It’s tactical, and I know this because Sebastian, Bellamy, and the children are two tables over from them.
