That was twice now he’d said my name. It was a new record. “I need a minute. I…I don’t know what to do, and I have to think. My mind…it doesn’t want to work at the moment.”
“Does it work at other times?” He shook his head.
That was it. My father had been done with me, and I was officially done with this conversation. What had I done to Zeke to deserve this? I’d not even asked him to come and rescue me from the cab. Had I hit his dog with my car and didn’t remember? Injured him in some way that earned me his disdain?
“What is your problem?” He didn’t want me to yell, but that was what I was doing now. “I’m sorry you were inconvenienced. I realize this whole morning has probably been a lot of boring for you, but my life is falling apart, and I would appreciate it, given that you are a family friend, if you could try to be a little less rude.”
My lower lip trembled. It was a telltale sign I was going to lose it. Full on sobs were on their way if I didn’t suck this back in. I hated crying. Not that anyone ever liked it. But it wasn’t like I had a whole lot of experience with anyone taking care of me when I cried. I was mostly told to knock it off.
“Do you want me to pat your head and tell you it’s all going to be okay? You ran out on your wedding and pissed off your father, little girl. What did you think was going to happen?”
I boiled over. He’d done me the favor of igniting my temper. It at least made the tears vanish. “I’m not a little girl. I am obviously a grown up, and I don’t want you to pat me on the head. All I asked you to do was to give me a fucking minute to think.”
He shook his head. “You’re a grown up? You could have fooled me. The most immature twenty-two-year-old I’ve ever met. Went from living off your father to being ready to live off your husband. The bravest thing you ever did was run from your wedding, and now here you are, a sniveling toddler. I thought you might finally have grown a backbone when you booked it away from Kit, but here you are, still pathetic. You disgust me, Layla.”
I smacked him, hard. Nothing had ever felt better.
But reality quickly rushed back in. I’d just hit my father’s business partner, and he was the only person who could possibly help me, given my situation.
There was no rule book for what to do here, no articles I’d ever read on how to handle a man I’d just whacked for being rude to me on the worst day of my life. I lifted up my chin. Yes, at some point, I was going to fall apart. No, it wouldn’t be in front of him.
“Apologies.” I nodded. “We can be done with whatever this moment is and never see each other again.”
For his part, Zeke was beautiful in his anger. Men shouldn’t be so completely beautiful to look at. Tall, broad shouldered. He wore his perfectly tailored blue pinstriped suit. It didn’t wear him. He’d been using the same watch for as long as I remembered, and he never took it off, no matter what the rest of his outfit happened to be. When I needed to catalog people, I always did it by starting with their accessories. I’d done it since I was a young child. Small details and then outward.
His face was sculpted like he’d been made to be photographed. These days, he wore a neatly trimmed brown beard and the hair was thick on top of his head, begging to be touched. His eyes were dark, brown, and endless in their depths, even though they were so angry. I couldn’t blame him. One side of his face was bright red from where I’d struck him. I’d not been gentle about it.
“Thank you for saving me with the cab.”
There I’d officially said everything I should say, and now I was going to hightail it out of here and try to find my way back to my hotel, where I presumably had a room until tomorrow and where my stuff was currently stored. Unless my brother had ransacked that, too, although I wasn’t sure how he could in the time we’d been away from each other. Considering traffic, it was amazing my father had gotten to the airport so fast. But then again, he did seem to make the world move to his liking.
Goosebumps broke out on my arms. I could do this. Somehow.
“Layla.” Zeke’s voice was lower this time when he spoke. I’d struck him, and I knew very little about him. Was he going to be the kind of guy who hit me back? I’d never had that happen. But I’d hit him and…
He nodded towards the hotel. “Let’s get you a drink at the bar. And then we’ll go get your stuff from wherever it is.”
I blinked. What had he just said? “A drink?”
“That’s right. You’ve had a long day and it’s only lunchtime. Well, almost lunchtime. It seems like the kind of day that deserves a drink, even as early as this.”
I rubbed my arms. “I just hit you.”
“I’m aware.” He still hadn’t rubbed his cheek. “Come on. Drink.”
I walked toward him. My feet were starting to ache. I had no shoes, and I was pretty sure when I looked at my feet later, they were going to be cut to pieces. Every step shot agony up my legs. The good news was my dress was so long, no one could see I was shoeless. Small wins, I supposed. “Why are you taking me for a drink when I just hit you?”
“Because I deserved it, and I can’t remember the last time someone so perfectly gave me what I deserved.” He walked ahead of me, letting the doorman open the doors for us as we entered. I was getting a lot of looks from bystanders and pedestrians. A wedding dress now covered in dirt and mud with my hair half falling in my face was naturally getting me a lot of second glances. If they happened to know who I was, then it was going to garner me even more attention.
Zeke took my elbow, drawing me to him. “But don’t make a habit of it, Layla. One hit, yes. Two, and I might think you’re telling me you want me to hit you back,” he whispered in my ear. “On your ass.” I almost stumbled, and he stopped me from falling. “Maybe you do.”
I didn’t know what to do with any of this. “I…”
Whatever I would have said, I didn’t manage because I was suddenly struck by the beauty of the hotel I’d just walked into with Zeke. My brother had said it was the hotel of the birds, and that was what it was. Marble representations of doves and some other representations I didn’t recognize were everywhere. It should have been cheesy, but it absolutely was not. It was beautiful. Someone had taken a lot of time to carve and display those birds. They were everywhere, and I couldn’t get enough of looking at them. The details were extraordinary. All-consuming and astoundingly beautiful.
“You like them?” Zeke stopped so I could look around.
“They’re… Yes, I like them. They’re beautiful.”
He smiled at me. The first time I’d ever seen him do that. “I do too. Some people don’t. Some people make fun of the birds, but I feel like there’s nowhere on Earth I could go other than Paris that I could see this.”
The rest of the hotel was equally as striking, or at least the bit I could see on our way to the bar, which was right off the lobby. The lighting changed immediately upon entering the space. It was darker inside, with burgundy walls that had gray panels all around the space. A fireplace wasn’t lit but evident in the corner, with a gold screen that contrasted with the silver everywhere else. A giant mirror showed the other side of the bar, displayed over the fireplace.