“So, they just left the bags downstairs for anyone to help themselves?” I asked again.
Our topics of conversation were running thin.
He cocked his head to the side. “While it’s true that some shady characters might have eyed your luggage, I didn’t let them come near it,” he said. “I was standing right behind you when you wanted to know when breakfast would be ready.”
“Well.” I gave a nervous laugh and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ears, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m starving, and yeah, in general, I’m a hungry person.”
“So am I.” He let out a laugh, exposing teeth. White, pearly, straight teeth. “Saved me the time to ask her.”
“Thanks for doing this,” I said, pointing to the bags. “I feel so stupid.”
“Don’t be. Happened to me before.”
“Really?” I said hopeful that he’d elaborate.
He let out a laugh.
A deep, sexy laugh. “Nope,” he said and shrugged. “But it’s not a big deal. I thought you needed the help and helping you is exactly what I did.” He pointed to the bags. “May I? They’re heavy.”
He didn’t wait for my reply. He just picked them up and walked past me, through the open door.
For a second, my fear that he would attack me flickered to life.
He placed the suitcases behind me and returned to his previous position.
“Great,” I muttered, unsure what to say.
“Have a great day.” He turned and started walking down the corridor.
For a full two seconds I was so stumped I didn’t even realize I hadn’t thanked him.
“Wait,” I shouted after him.
He stopped and turned, his black sunglasses still shielding his eyes. “Yeah?”
“Can I repay you with dinner?” I blurted out, my own boldness shocking myself.
Silence.
What the fuck was I doing?
Of course, he was going to decline. He had to. He knew I didn’t mean it.
“You want to repay me by having dinner with me?” Slowly, he walked back to me, regarding me through those unnerving sunglasses.
“Yes,” I whispered the word, which sounded more like a question than a statement.
He removed the shades, revealing dark brown eyes that matched his dark hair. He really did look a bit like James Franco.
They could even be related for all I knew. His dark hair fell into his eyes, giving him some kind of haunted look.
I had never been into James Franco, but this guy seemed like someone I might want to spend some time with.
“Yeah. Why not?” He smiled. “There’s this tiny restaurant around the corner. See you at seven?”
I took a sharp breath, exhaling slowly. Chase’s face popped into my mind.
Liar.
Mr. Fucking. Liar.
If he could lie, why should I stick to his terms? Why should it matter if I had a date or not? Chase might be married to me, but I was still free to do whatever I wanted, to go wherever I longed to, and date whomever I desired.
It was a vacation. My recovery trip.
And to be honest, this guy—he didn’t look bad.
And then I realized I didn’t even know his name. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Do you need me to know yours?” he asked.
Did he need to know mine?
What kind of question was that? And then it hit me.
The date wouldn’t work out. We would have nothing to talk about because he was as little into this as was I.
Maybe he also needed a rebound.
Maybe he didn’t want to get too close to me, just like I wouldn’t get too close to him.
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m all fine with calling you Bag Man.”
“Good, Miss Hungry.” He smiled, flipping his shades back, and then he turned, calling over his shoulder, “It’s a date, then.”
A date.
Crap.
My plane had landed two hours ago, and I already had a date.
I rolled my eyes inwardly, irritated with myself.
Oh, God.
What had I just done? Hanging out with some random guy in some foreign country wasn’t exactly the thing ranking high on my to-do list. Not when I had yet to find my way around and I barely spoke more than two words of Spanish.
Why did I have to run away from home?
From myself.
From whatever purpose Chase Wright’s lies had served.
But for whatever reason, I also felt excited. Renewed. When Chase deceived me, he took not only my faith. He broke it, and broke it hard. He destroyed every reason, every hope, every desire to be with him. He crushed my soul with one single piece of information.
His lips had consumed me. His touch burned me. His eyes shattered me. Burn and tear and destroy—that was how he broke me in a thousand pieces. Shattered me the only way he knew how—only to rebuild me. To make me someone I didn’t recognize. A worse me. A stronger me. A match for his dark side. Only I had no intention to ever be his again.
I would take what he taught me and carve my own path in life. A path that wouldn’t cross his.
A path that was all mine.
Chapter 4
The moment the door closed I grabbed the phone from the nightstand and dialed the one number I knew I could call day and night.
“You’ve no idea what I’m going to do today.” I sighed into the phone as I let myself fall backward onto the bed, my head sinking into the soft pillow.
“What?” Jude’s voice echoed down the line.
“Come on. Have a guess. It’s not like there are a million possibilities.”
“You got the letters and now you’re reading them?”
“No.” My laughter died in my throat as my mood plummeted to a new low. “I don’t have them yet.”
Did she have to mention the letters?
Suddenly I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her.
Jude might be my best friend, but did I want her to meddle with my affairs when my life was already turned upside down?
Hell, no.
Knowing her, she’d probably try to sort out my life for me the moment she found out that Chase and I had broken up, in which case all chaos would break loose. But if I kept my personal problems from her, she’d hold it against me forever, and it might cost me our friendship. Did I really want to lose her?
“Laurie, you’d better tell me,” Jude said, her tone leaving no room for discussion. “Do you have any idea how worried I am? Chase has been calling me all day with some bullshit about you disappearing on him. He wants to know where you are, and I’ve no idea what to tell him.”
“He wants to know, doesn’t he?”
The fucking bastard!
I felt like punching the wall. I had to tread carefully before Chase turned Jude against me like an old, gossipy lady eager to cause trouble and destroy our long friendship. Suddenly, I had the vision of being alone, with nobody to talk to at two a.m. Who was going to be my next two a.m. best friend?
“Yeah,” Jude continued. “He had to convince me not to call the cops. Imagine how that made me worry, but he wouldn’t tell me what happened.”
“He’s such a concerned friend, our Chase, isn’t he?” I said, dryly.
“Wait, are you being sarcastic?”
I grimaced. Nothing ever escaped Jude. “Maybe.”
There was a short silence.
When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “What’s going on?”
My throat constricted, and unshed tears gathered in my eyes. The knowledge that I had let myself develop feelings for him made me angry. I jumped up from the bed and reached the minibar in a few hasty strides. I didn’t care if I owed money for the rest of my life. I needed something. Anything to numb down the anger bubbling below the surface.
My eyes fell on the small bottles of alcohol—just what I needed. I unscrewed a bottle of Tequila and lifted it to my lips. The smell was strong, unpleasant, but it didn’t matter.
I wanted to get drunk. Better drunk than a sobbing mess. I took a few gulps of the burning liquid, wincing at the burning aftertaste it left in my throat. My stomach growled in protest, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten in a whole day. I eyed the four chips packets, sure that each one would cost me more than my usual weekly shopping.
Then again, for once I didn’t care.
I grabbed one, then slumped down on the floor, my back pressed against the minibar, and tore it open.
“I’m going broke. Real broke, that’s what’s happening,” I mumbled and stuffed a few chips into my mouth, savoring the taste.
“No, what happened between you and Chase?” Jude said.
Hearing his name made me cringe. In fact, every fiber of my body was so tense, I could barely stifle the urge to run for the most secluded place I could find so I’d never have to hear it again. “We…we broke it off,” I said.
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Jude?” I asked, warily. Was she still on? Had she mentally quit our friendship? Because as much as I liked Jude, I had to admit that she had kind of seemed a little too invested in my fake relationship with Chase. At times she had even reminded me of a mother hen watching over her young, or an eighteenth century matriarch trying to marry off her elder duckling of a daughter.
“You did what?” Jude asked carefully, as if she wasn’t sure she had heard me right.
The sudden iciness in her voice didn’t escape me.
Think matriarch and all.
“Chase and I broke it off,” I said with more confidence than I felt. I wasn’t afraid of Jude per se; she just had this irritating ability to make me feel bad for things I shouldn’t have felt bad about…not least because usually they were none of her business.