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I rush to the elevator and press the call button, fumbling with my shirt buttons as I pace the hallway. My hands shake, making it impossible to slip the tiny white buttons through the small holes.
Fuck this.
Giving up on the shirt, I slam my finger against the call button repeatedly, but it doesn't bring the elevator any faster. All it does is make me more nervous and angrier.
That was fun?
Really?
How could she just walk away after this weekend? Am I fucking crazy to believe there was something more between us, that this could be more?
Every second I wait is agony, and by the time the ding sounds and the doors slide open, I’m practically vibrating in place. I hustle inside and punch the button for the lobby, then lean back against the wall, staring at the spot I worked her over on our first night together.
Christ, that was hot.
She was hot.
And so much more.
I started to lose myself to that woman—a realization that has me scrubbing my hands over my face and issuing a frustrated groan.
What kind of pussy have I suddenly become? Chasing after a damn woman?
It’s illogical. It’s insane. It’s nothing I am. Yet, I’m barefoot, in wrinkled pants, a mis-buttoned shirt, in the elevator of one of the nicest hotels in the city, about to step into that lobby and try to chase down a woman I don’t even know.
The numbers descend so slowly that it feels like an hour before I finally reach the main floor and the doors slide open. A tiny taste of what I gave her that night by making her wait. I rush out, scanning for familiar red hair.
“Sir?” A man approaches with “Austin” on his name tag.
“Did you find her?”
He shakes his head. “I'm sorry, sir. She must have exited the hotel.”
“Shit.” I race toward the front doors, bare feet pounding on expensive marble. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
I probably look like a fucking lunatic right now, and I don't even care.
In the end, it doesn’t matter. I’m leaving in a few hours, and the likelihood of me ever coming back to the Palmer House or ever seeing any of these people again is slim to none. When I land in New Orleans to take my rightful place in the Hawke empire, I’ll worry about appearances. Now, all I can worry about is her.
I push past the bronze Peacock doors and catch a glimpse of the red hair I had wrapped around my hand last night while I took her from behind. She stands at the curb next to the open door of a dark SUV, just outside the main sliding exterior doors of the hotel.
Thank God.
She hasn’t left yet. There’s still time. Time to say whatever the fuck it is I’m going to in order to try to get her to stay, or at least to give me a way to see her again.
Running through the small front foyer toward the sliding doors that lead out to Monroe Street, I keep my eyes locked on her, silently willing her not to move.
Don’t get in that fucking car, Jack!
She slides into the back seat just as the hotel doors open for me. Her car door closes with a deafening slam that reverberates through my chest where I stand only feet away.
Even through the darkly tinted windows, I can feel her eyes on me, igniting every cell of my body, reawakening and rekindling everything I’ve experienced over the weekend. The things I wasn’t sure were real. But she doesn’t roll down the window. Doesn’t open the door. Does nothing to acknowledge the fact that I’m standing right here, waiting for her.
The SUV peels away from the curb, taking her with it on a sharp sound that makes me wince. I stand stunned for a moment, trying to process what’s happening before my body gets with the fucking program, and I take off, running down the cool, dirty sidewalk of Monroe Street, my heart stuck in my throat.
It’s a fruitless effort. Any other time of day, this street would be bustling, full of cars and cabs and buses and people, but with the light traffic this early in the morning, the SUV builds speed and disappears around a corner, taking Jack with it before I ever get within twenty feet of it again.
I jerk to a stop at the corner, chest heaving, breath coming out in hard pants.
What the hell just happened?
She fucking left.
Without a word to me. Without giving me her name. Knowing there will be no way for us to ever see each other again.
The reality hits me harder than any of the guys at the boxing gym back home ever have, squarely in the gut, making me double over and squeeze my eyes closed against the desire to vomit all over the Chicago sidewalk.
She’s gone.
And I have no fucking way to find her.
