It made me wait a solid two seconds before it did. I exhaled, shakier than I wanted to admit. I was okay for one more night.
When I walked into the lobby shoeless and misted with rain, the night guard drew his phone away from his ear and winced at the sight. “Long day?”
“You have no idea,” I managed to mutter.
Joe knew I squatted. He never judged me. Never tattled. Especially since he’d been in this situation himself once before. In another life, I liked to think I would have fallen for someone like him.
The nice guy with the tanned skin, evergreen eyes, and megawatt smile. The hot guy with a rough past who never let it faze him. I’d beg him to kiss me, and he’d give it to me without taunting me for wanting him.
Someone like Reed, I reminded myself, dumbfounded when I realized my childhood crush might have existed because he felt like a safety net.
Four years later, I didn’t want safe. I wanted someone who made my heart pound like getting stuck out in the rain, drifting at sea without a home. Someone who gave me the same thrill as being reckless and taking risks.
Dipping my toes past the rules, seeing how far I could fly before I crossed a line.
With Ben.
With Nash.
The unattainables.
“You’re the last one left.” Joe walked me to the elevator, hand on the taser of his belt. A habit of his that almost made my love for quirks smile. “Mr. Prescott left for dinner with Mrs. Lowell and her husband a few minutes ago. They were dressed nice. The three of them probably won’t be back for a while.”
He winked at me, and I wanted to want him, but I didn’t. Relief hit me fast, two scraggly shoulders sloped forward as I jabbed at the elevator button. Scraping my nails against my palms, I considered hugging Joe for the good news but settled for a wave.
He patted my shoulder and left, lips tilted up as if to say, it won’t always be like this.
Compassion.
Such a beautiful, foreign sentiment.
I hoped he wasn’t lying, because I couldn’t take much more before I succumbed to the fact that I wasn’t made of fortitude.
Maybe I was a kitten who hid behind a plucky front, mistaking herself for a tiger.
Swallowing the wave of self-pity, I dipped inside the elevator and considered my options. If everyone had left the hotel, I could sneak into the office and rifle through the master keys for a key to one of the rooms we’d finished for the masquerade party guests.
My pointer finger pressed “5” before I could talk myself out of it. At Cayden’s desk, I ransacked the drawers, making my way through stacks and stacks of paint and fabric samples until I found a lone key. The word Penthouse had been written in cursive with a Bic pen on a sticky note and pressed onto the keycard.
I juggled it between two fingertips, considering.
Could I take it?
Cayden wouldn’t notice. After the long week we had, his normally tidy desk resembled an avalanche, mountains of paper that slid outward each time he piled another sheet of paper on top.
If he did notice it, he wouldn’t say anything for fear of Nash’s wrath. Everyone thought Nash was ruthless for the way he’d treated me. They feared him like hypochondriacs feared Ebola. Paranoid. Irrational. Yet, somehow rational at the same time.
Truthfully, the Nash I used to know only lashed out at people who had wronged others. Virginia for her treatment of his parents; Basil for bullying me; me for, well, I didn’t know how it had begun, but he must have had a reason. He didn’t do things without a reason.
If I had to venture a guess, it’d be for what happened to Hank or siding with Reed in their feud, which was ridiculous, considering I would always side with Reed.
At the reminder of his cruelty, I pocketed the key. If he was gonna treat me like dirt, the least he could do was offer me a shower to wash it off. I pressed the penthouse button in the elevator, my heart pounding with each floor I passed.
By the time the elevator doors opened, I’d assured myself a million different ways that Nash was out to dinner and wouldn’t be back soon. I could sneak in and out in under fifteen minutes. Ten if I didn’t bother to hide the evidence that I’d been there.
I swiped the key to Nash’s penthouse suite, flicking on the light as soon as I entered. It smelled like him. A new scent mixed with old. Intoxicating in a way I hated him for.
The first week at college, I’d stood in front of rows of body soap at Walmart, overwhelmed by the choices.
Some guy shoved past me, nearly knocking me over, but he’d smelled good. Familiar. Something that reminded me of home. So, when he grabbed the bottle of Tiger’s Bane, I’d snatched up the same kind.
Tigers were predators.
Loyal.
Tough.
Resilient.
I wanted to be a tiger.
It wasn’t until Reed mentioned that Nash used the same body wash that I realized why I recognized the scent. But it was too late. I was hooked, even drizzling it into my laundry detergent, so my sheets smelled the same way.
I felt like a thief, stealing his scent as if it were my own. Perhaps I was one, since I squatted in his hotel and stood in the threshold of his penthouse without his permission. I took it in, feeling like a voyeur.
An interloper.
A stranger.
A kitchen bare of cabinet doors and countertops sat at my left. Gray low-pile carpet made up the living room, along with two desks. One sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall panoramic windows. The other rested two feet from the perpendicular wall.
The window lured me in. I pressed a palm against it as if I could touch the storm outside. The life of luxury formed most of my life, but I would never get used to this feeling. Being on top of the world, staring a storm in the eye and feeling like I could win.
Think about winning later, lunatic. It’s time to haul ass.
Doors lined the left and right sides of the penthouse. I took a guess, venturing left, immediately knowing Nash slept in this room when I entered. An Alaskan King-size bed rested against the wall, the one piece of furniture.
My fingers twitched with the need to toss the room for my wallet. I held back. Barely. I dipped into the en suite bathroom, my nipples instantly puckering after I stripped off my clothes. Something about being naked in the place Nash slept felt dangerous. Exposing. Intimate.
Pulling my shower caddy out of the backpack, I plopped it into the standing shower and slung my towel onto the spare towel hook near the door. The shower was made completely of glass on all sides, sitting in the center of the large bathroom.
I felt like a statue in a museum display as I padded barefoot into the shower and stood directly under the built-in rainfall shower head. Shampoo, conditioner, and body wash from the Prescott Hotels skincare line sat in a row on the built-in shelf. His new scent, I realized, after I popped a cap and sniffed.
I flicked on the water switch, groaning the instant the hot liquid lashed my back, pounding onto my head like I was standing beneath a North Carolina thunderstorm.
It was almost—almost—enough to forgive Nash.
I’d managed to avoid him all week, feeling zero-percent guilty about serving him scalding-hot coffee. He’d robbed me of my wallet and the money in it when I needed every dime I owned. Was this how all the Winthrop victims felt? Desperate and penniless, fingers ready to dig under couch cushions for every spare cent?
I twisted another switch, and the water spread across the entire shower ceiling, a torrent of hot rain I could barely breathe through. The onslaught eased my sore muscles, and I relaxed under the spray, my limbs loose and body begging for more.