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Slamming my phone down on my desk, I ignored the crack from the screen as it shattered. It was Friday. Four, long, fucking days since I’d been able to talk to or touch Natalie.
She’d been in court on Wednesday but hightailed it out of there with her boss before I could devise a way to get her alone. Stalking her work hadn’t done me any good either. She seemed to be able to slip past me, which both impressed and enraged me.
Calling to inquire about hiring her legal services didn’t do me any good either. It seemed Natalie wasn’t being given any other cases while she was on Warren’s.
I’d just gotten off the phone with our firm’s best PI, telling me once again that he hadn’t come up with any leads as to where she was. How the fuck had she learned to disappear like that?
The door to my office opened and I glanced up, ready to bite the head off of whoever was disturbing me. Isaac stood there, glaring at me.
“Go home,” he snapped. “You’re not doing anything here but endangering our livelihood with your surly attitude. I’ll take the rest of your meetings for the day. Take the weekend, find your woman, and come back when you aren’t going to constantly be a tyrant.”
I started to argue but was cut off when the door to my office flew open and a whirlwind of energy blew in. Eden stopped in front of me, hopping from one foot to the other with a wide smile on her face. “How much do you love me?” she trilled.
Isaac rumbled with a low growl and moved quickly to stand behind her, putting his hands on her hips, possessively. Normally, I would grin, say something sappy to Eden, and give him shit about acting like a caveman. Instead, I grunted in irritation and folded my arms across my chest, brooding as I leaned back in my chair.
Eden huffed and rolled her eyes. “Wow, Isaac was right. You are being a total tyrant.” Then she clapped her hands excitedly. “Well, this should cheer you up! Guess who I just had brunch with?”
I didn’t say anything, fully anticipating she would plow on and cut me off anyway. I was right. After pausing only long enough to take a breath, she squealed, “Natalie!”
“What?” I shouted as I shot up from my chair.
Isaac swiftly stepped in front of Eden and glared at me. “Watch it, Croix. We’ve been friends since childhood, but if you yell at my wife again, I will break your jaw.”
If it were Isaac treating Natalie like that, I would do the same, so I took a step back and nodded apologetically. My temper was flaring, but I tamped it down, tapping into my limited reserves of patience. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I softened my voice and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t tell you we were going to meet up,” Eden said, trying to peek around her husband. She finally succeeded in getting him to move and continued on, gesturing with her hands as she talked, always exuding vitality. “I didn’t promise I wouldn’t spill the beans after though!”
“Did you find out where she’s staying?” I asked, feeling a spark of hope.
Eden grinned. “I didn’t ask because I didn’t want her to ask me not to share the information.”
I visibly deflated, dropping back into my chair. Eden laughed and I glared at her.
“However, I did lift her wallet when I hugged her.”
My brows shot up in surprise. She what?
Isaac groaned, “For the love of . . . you stole”—he stopped and shook his head with exasperation—“Never mind. Get to the point, Nancy Drew.”
“Relax, babe. I put it back when I hugged her again before we left,” she insisted, patting his arm patronizingly. He muttered under his breath and drilled her with a stare, which she ignored, focusing on me once again.
“Anyway, when she went to the bathroom, I looked through it and found a valet ticket for the Four Seasons!”
At first, I was stunned by the fact that a junior associate who lived in a studio apartment was staying at one of the most expensive hotels in Baltimore. But, I set it aside in favor of fury that my PI hadn’t figured this out sooner. How hard was it to call around and check hotel registration? That’s why we paid him an exorbitant fee, to have a large staff at our beck and call.
“Don’t blame Pete,” Eden hurried to say, clearly seeing where my mind had gone. “She isn’t checked in under her real name and when I hacked their system—”
Isaac sighed and started muttering again, earning himself a withering glare from both Eden and me. He turned abruptly and stalked to the wall of windows overlooking the bustling city.
“Anyway,” she continued, scowling over at Isaac. “I hacked into the system and found the room attached to her valet ticket. It’s being paid for with a credit card belonging to a Lawrence Spector”—she shrugged—“I didn’t know who he was—”
“He’s a hotshot lawyer in Chicago,” I snarled. Rage bubbled up inside and I felt near to exploding.
“Right. But he’s—”
“He’s old enough to be Natalie’s fucking father!” I interrupted her again, my wrath on a very short leash. “What the fuck was she doing letting this guy pay for her hotel?”
“If you’d calm the hell down and let me talk, jackass,” she snapped, “I could tell you that he’s her step-father.”
I shot to my feet again, racing around the desk to plant a kiss on Eden’s cheek, only to find myself shoved roughly towards the door. “Go put your lips on your own woman and away from mine.” Isaac’s tone was deadly, but it only made me laugh because I was suddenly one thousand pounds lighter than I had been a minute before.
“We’re even for Andrea,” I quipped with a wink before striding out to get my girl.
9
Natalie
“You’re going to tie me to the bed and not have sex with me?”
The question sounded completely ridiculous, and I could barely believe it was coming out of my mouth. When I’d climbed onto the plush, king-sized mattress, I hadn’t planned on falling asleep. I hadn’t even bothered to take off my clothes since I’d only intended to lay down for a few minutes before ordering room service. It had been a hellish week at work, and I missed Jax like crazy. If it hadn’t been for the amazing service at the hotel, I wasn’t sure I would have been able to make it through the last four days.
When I’d left Jax’s office on Monday, I’d been so damn confused. I knew that if I didn’t find a way to distance myself from him physically, then I was just going to fall back into his arms the next time I saw him. I had zero willpower when it came to that man, and I’d been desperate to buy myself more time to help me figure out how to keep him and my job. So I did something I never thought I’d do—I called my step-dad and told him I needed to stay somewhere other than my apartment for a little while. I was lucky he’d seemed distracted because he didn’t ask any questions before he got his assistant on the line and told her to set me up at the Four Seasons.
The room was booked under his name, which I figured would keep Jax from being able to hunt me down outside of work. It wasn’t like I could afford a place like that on my own, so why would they look for me there? But when I woke up after my unplanned nap, my wrists were handcuffed to the headboard and Jax was sitting on a chair next to the bed. Somehow he’d managed to remove all my clothes while I’d slept through it, only to put me into a silk nightie I’d had in the dresser. When I’d expressed my surprise at what I was wearing, he’d explained that I didn’t need to be naked for what he had in mind.
“Spanking your ass doesn’t seem to be working as an effective form of punishment,” he explained. “It just turns you on. Gets you wet.”
It wasn’t like I could argue with him when just hearing him talk about it was making me slick between my thighs.
“Which means I’ll end up making you come because I’m fucking addicted to the sounds you make when you fly apart for me.”
“Then why am I in handcuffs?” I wiggled my hands for effect, making the metal bang against wood while my skin slid against the fuzzy interior circling my wrists.
“Because every time I let you out of my sight, you take off running,” he growled. “And I’m not going to let you do it again, no matter what I have to do to prevent it.”
