Grounded (Up in the Air #3)(110)

She nodded. "Walking through that ball looking like that is probably the most humiliating thing that princess has ever had to go through, so I'm going to say yeah, she's most likely out of your hair now."

I nodded. "Good deal. That was the point. Enjoying myself was just a bonus."

Blake stifled a laugh.

I was still washing my hands, wanting to get all of the Jules off, when Lana and a frantic James burst through the door. I just raised a brow at them.



       
         
       
        

"Are you okay? What happened?" James asked, so obviously worried.

"We saw Jules tearing through the hallway, her hair wet, and her makeup a mess," Lana added, studying me carefully.

I shrugged. "She stole that video from Jolene, and put it on the internet. She came here to tell me that. I didn't take it well."

James shot Blake a questioning glance, approaching me. "What happened?"

"I dunked her face in the toilet. She left. I don't think she'll bother me again."

He reached me, running a hand over my hair with a soft touch. His brow furrowed for a moment as he processed that. He blinked a few times, then threw his head back and laughed.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Mr. Wretched





James hadn't wanted me to, but just a few days after I'd returned to Vegas, I went back to my old house to collect some things. Most of it would be packed away and moved to the bigger house, but I'd wanted to go through things myself before I let strangers tackle the project.

I shared a car with Stephan and Javier, who were giving Stephan's house similar treatment. Having Stephan nearby for the excursion had gone a long way towards easing Control Freak Cavendish's mind about the whole thing. Not that he could have stopped me, though he didn't have to leave work to escort me once he realized that Stephan was going. I didn't know what he thought that Stephan could do that my escort of armed guards couldn't, but that was just the way it was. The two men had bonded on a fundamental level that even I didn't fully understand. I could only be grateful for it.

I had tags to mark where I wanted my things to be moved to, since much of the household goods would be going into storage, and some to charity. James obviously had all of his properties stocked to the nines.

I only had a few small boxes for packing right away, and they filled slowly with small keepsakes and photographs.

Blake hovered in the house near me, Paterson patrolling directly outside, with Henry patrolling the neighborhood. Williams had a family emergency in California, and so was taking some personal leave. They hadn't been able to find him a replacement with just one day's notice, which was one of the reasons James had been so nervous about letting me come back to the house without him, even in the middle of the day.

Their boss's nervous reaction to this mundane outing seemed to have Blake on edge. I got nervous just looking at her. She kept pacing the house, looking out windows for no reason that I could see.

"Is everything okay?" I finally asked her.

She nodded, but her mouth was tight. "Yeah, just antsy today, I guess. I don't see Paterson out there, but that's normal. It's not even time for him to check in yet. I don't know what my problem is." 

This was the chattiest I'd ever seen her, and it only seemed to make me more nervous, because it was a tell of her own nerves. Whatever strange mood had such an unflappable woman so anxious wasn't good for my peace of mind.

I went back to packing up some old pictures, smiling when I saw some old shots of Stephan and me. There were several shots from my twenty-first birthday party, when we'd run around like fools on the strip. Someone had taken about a dozen shots of Stephan giving me a piggy-back ride through the fountains at Caesar's Palace. We'd been dressed up, and we looked like crazy people, with the bottom of his pants wet, and my heels dragging in the water. I smiled at the picture. It was a fond memory, right around the time when things had really started to look up for us. The smile on Stephan's face warmed my heart, both now and then. He was grinning at the camera, and I was smiling at him, the fact that he was the dearest thing in the world to me clear in every line of my face.

I took the stack of photos to my purse, thinking to myself that I had to give some of the photos to Stephan, and find a place of honor in my new house to put at least one of them.

I was just digging into my purse, still smiling at the memories, when my phone started to ring. I checked the screen.

It was James.

"Hey," I said into the phone, still smiling. "How's work going?"

"It could be going better, but at least it's almost done. My lawyers and Tristan's agent are making some revisions, but that shouldn't take more than thirty minutes or so, and then we'll be done, thank God. Tristan is trying to bankrupt the casino for some two-bit magic tricks." James had gone into work to hash out some details in Tristan's new contract, and I could tell by his tone that the other man must be close by and that he was trying to harass him.