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A Sleight of Hand
Tyler
Seattle, Washington
I could stare at this woman for hours. No, days.
Chloe paced my suite’s foyer, watching me tie her birthday balloons around a vase’s neck.
Officially the sexiest woman I’d ever seen, her tight-fitting pink dress was stamping itself in my memory for months to come, and her bow-shaped lips teased me with every soft sigh that left her mouth.
She was talking to her herself, softly muttering, “Do not fuck him, Chloe…You’re single, but do not fuck him,” as if I couldn’t hear her, but I didn’t dare to let her know.
Before she’d burst into my bathroom, I was planning to call it a night, since none of the clubs and bars complied with Dillon’s rules. I’d been so hasty in leaving London that I overlooked the fact that today was a Saturday.
The busiest day of the week.
“Where are we headed first, Chloe?” I asked.
“Dinner at the Space Needle,” she said. “There’s a restaurant at the top called Loupe Lounge. I’ve wanted to try it for years.”
“Is it busy this time of night?”
“No, it’s practically a ghost town, especially since …”
“Since what?”
“Since it costs so much.” She avoided looking at me. “I can put four hundred on the bill, courtesy of my friends.”
“Don’t worry about that.” I walked to the door and held it open, motioning for her to go first.
Her sparkling stilettos clacked against the marble floor, and I envisioned her wrapping them around my waist at the end of the night.
As I locked the suite, I looked down to the spiral staircase, where two of my guards were standing by the lift. Their backs were turned to us, and they looked focused on the nothingness ahead of them.
How did she get past them in the first place?
“There must be someone really important staying on the other side of your floor,” she whispered. “I think those guys have to sit there and guard all day … They were sleeping when I came up.”
“Of course, they were.” I smiled. “Well, hopefully we won’t run into whoever they’re here for. Let’s catch the lift on the next floor so they won’t bother us.”
“Okay.”
I pressed my hand against the small of her back and led her toward the emergency stairwell. We stepped down to the twentieth level—which Dillon had also cleared for me—and quickly stepped into an available car.
“Level P,” the automated voice said as the doors shut. “Private Garage level. Please swipe your room key for access.”
I obliged and stole another glance of Chloe.
A small part of me thought she was still too good to be true, still playing a very well-crafted “I have no idea who you are” game, but another part was relieved that she didn’t seem to know or care about my status in the slightest.
Still, I couldn’t help but ask something that was nagging me.
“Why are you single, Chloe?”
“I’m not. I have a boyfriend, a very serious one.”
“What’s his name?”
