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“Have you seen Kate?” I asked.
“No,” she said, her eyes glassy from the booze. I didn’t think she’d be any help, but then Austin, who had been up her ass the entire night, stepped over and put his hand on my shoulder.
“I saw her go upstairs about five minutes ago.”
“Upstairs?”
Austin shrugged and gave me a sympathetic look. “Yeah.”
I hurried away without even thinking. Those guys we’d been talking to had been my friends in years past, but there was nothing saying that Paul or Jeff hadn’t talked her into going upstairs with them.
She didn’t even know those guys, and from what I remembered, they weren’t the kind of men I wanted to leave her with.
I rushed up the stairs and walked down the hallway, where I spotted an open door and heard giggling.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled. I ran across the hall and pushed the door open with more force than I expected and spotted a couple sitting at a chessboard playing chess.
“Excuse me?” the young man sitting at the table said.
“I’m sorry. I was looking for someone else.” I went back into the hallway and continued down until the end, where I could only go left or into a room on the right with a closed door.
As I stopped and contemplated what to do, I could hear a muffled voice from down the hall.
I continued to the left, and when I came to another stairwell, I spotted Kate standing on a landing with Tony Troy standing with her. His hand was on the wall just over her shoulder, and it seemed as if he had her pinned into the corner.
She looked surprised to see me. “Jake?”
Rage had me seeing red, my heart racing, and anger building. I couldn’t even think straight, but I moved forward, racing down the flight of stairs to the landing, where I grabbed Tony Troy by the collar and threw him against the wall.
“Get your hands off of her!” I shouted, slamming him hard one more time.
“Jake! Stop it!” She pushed me back with her purse and then checked on Tony. “Are you okay?”
“What the hell, man?”
“I could ask you the same, Tony. What the hell are you trying to pull?”
Kate stepped in. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “There is a bit of a misunderstanding.” She made one more apology to Tony, and he walked away, going downstairs until he disappeared behind a door.
Kate spun around and hit my chest with her handbag. “Are you out of your mind? Tony was just showing me his collection of tribal artifacts and masks.”
I was about to tell her how naïve she was when I looked on the wall above us, and sure enough, it was decorated with masks of all shapes and sizes, some plain and some brightly painted.
But still. “You have no idea. Surely, being alone in the wild hasn’t made you lose all sense of what men are like. First, he drags you up here to see his masks. Then the next thing you know, he’s got you in his bedroom, drugged out of your mind and helpless.”
“He’s the producer of the movie, remember? We were talking about the movie and my consulting while you were off mingling with your fans. The next time you want to ditch me, don’t tell me that you’re going to get me a drink. Just tell me that you will see me later.”
“I got held up. I wasn’t trying to ditch you.”
“Well, you did. That Paul asshole hit on me just as soon as you walked away. Thankfully, Tony came to my rescue. So, who is making rash decisions now?”
It didn’t change anything, and I wasn’t sorry. “He put his hands on you. He had you pinned against the wall. It’s unacceptable.”
She took a deep breath, fuming with anger. “I had asked him to get one of the masks down so I could see it better. I was trying to spot him since it was just out of his reach. It was harmless until you came barging in with your jealousy.”
“Jealousy? I wasn’t jealous. I was just trying to help an old friend who is clearly in over her head.”
“Well, maybe we should stick to our original plan and just keep our distance from one another. I’d hate to bother—”
One minute, I was listening to her yell at me, and the next, I was kissing her.
Kate pulled away. I braced myself and prepared for her to slap me silly, but she looked up the stairs and pulled me along with her. She went down the hall, keeping me close, which was no problem. I kissed her neck as she tried the first doorknob, and when we were inside, she turned the lock and tossed her bag to the nearest chair.
Luckily, it was an unoccupied bedroom, and while I had no idea who used it, it appeared to be a guest room with a queen-sized bed with big fluffy pillows and a pretty white quilt.
