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Thankfully, I keep my eye on him because he doesn’t even look my way before turning from the counter and heading to the elevator. I barely have time to slide my arm through the gap before the damn elevator door closes.
“Very mature,” I hiss when I step inside with him. “Did you get a suite?”
I honestly don’t expect him to have gotten more than just a basic room, but they’re all nice here so it’s really no big deal. I just need about three days’ worth of sleep.
“The Presidential Suite.” There’s laughter in his tone, as if he’s somehow sticking it to me by getting one of the very best rooms they have to offer. He hands me the printed receipt with a wicked grin on his face like I’ll be upset at the price. “The room is booked for the week. Non-refundable. I’ll make sure it all goes on your tab.”
I don’t even bat an eyelash. I’m not so much a diva that I need over twenty-five-hundred square feet in a hotel suite, but I’m not going to turn it down either. His smile has fallen with my lack of response by the time the elevator opens up on the nineteenth floor, but even as irritated as he is, he still unlocks the door, holding it open for me to enter first. Despite his prickly attitude, his mother did raise him right.
I’m surprised he doesn’t kick me in the ass and walk out of the room the second I cross the threshold, but by the way he’s standing just inside makes it very clear he has no intentions of staying. Normally, I’d feel safe looking out onto the Gateway Arch, but it doesn’t bring the same level of security tonight. Not after what happened in Dani’s condo. Not after what happened to my own condo.
“I’ll update you if we get any new information.” Deacon hands me the plastic key to the room before returning to the door. “I suggest staying here until you hear from me.”
My hands are trembling too hard to hold the key before the door clicks closed behind him. Being alone has never been an issue for me. If anything, I prefer silence over being in crowds or around others. I know it doesn’t appear that way to most because I have a very active social life, but those obligations are more because of my parents than anything else.
The tears I thought had dried up in the truck on the way here come back full force, and I rush around the suite turning on every light to try to gain more comfort. It doesn’t come. The fear doesn’t abate when I snap on the light in the media room. It doesn’t fade when I do the same in the study or the bedroom.
The king-sized bed doesn’t look appealing. It looks lonely, like it will swallow me whole if I even get near it. The knocking on the suite door sounds all too familiar to the knocking on my condo door before I bolted out of there to go to Deacon’s office, and after coming home to find my entire condo destroyed, all I can picture is that someone followed me here. What would’ve happened to me if I hadn’t left as quickly as I did? Were the guys knocking on my condo door before I left, the ones wanting to hurt me?
The blood on the EMT’s hands flash in my mind, and it only takes seconds for my brain to register the fear. The suite bedroom closet isn’t exactly tight quarters, but I throw myself in there anyway. At least there’s a door that closes even if there isn’t a single thing in here to use for protection against an intruder.
The knocking stops, but less than ten seconds later, the door to the suite whooshes open. I’m on the verge of a heart attack, whimpering and terrified when a shadow crosses in front of the door. It fades away only to return a few seconds later.
I screech when it’s tugged open, burying my head in my bent knees and trying to prepare myself for the worst. I don’t know shit about survival or how to defend myself. I only attended one of the self-defense classes my dad wanted me to take in college because I ended up with bruises on my legs after that one session. There was no way I was going to walk around campus looking like I had been beaten. I’m regretting that decision now.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
I snap my face in Deacon’s direction, expecting from his tone that he’s going to call me an idiot, but he must see the fear in my eyes because he closes his mouth and stands outside the closet door.
No doubt he’s still pissed, his default for as long as I’ve known him, but there’s a flash of sympathy in his eyes as well. I nearly bristle with the look he’s giving me but bite my tongue instead. I don’t want him to leave again, and I know opening my mouth to tell him he’s an asshole for scaring me would increase that chance.
