“Ms. Ames?”
The harping voice of the hotel manager tears my attention away from the gorgeous man still standing in front of me, still holding my wrist in his hand.
“Ms. Ames, the card has been reported stolen, and I’m afraid I need to-”
“You know what, why don’t you just put it on mine. I’m checking out anyways.”
I whirl back to Austin, narrowing my eyes suspiciously at him. “Hang on, no one asked you to do that.”
He smiles quickly at me before looking back at the concierge over my shoulder. “The last name is-”
“Oh, of course Mr. Taylor, right away sir,” the guy at the computer says quickly, tapping away at his keyboard.
How the hell does everyone know this guy?
I peer at him, furrowing my brow and suddenly trying to figure out if I know him from the movies or something.
“Mr. Taylor, you’re all set!” The guy behind the desk is beaming at Austin with stars in his eyes. And I’m about to demand an answer as to what the hell is going on, and where the hell he gets off playing Superman like this, when he immediately takes my arm again and starts to pull me right out the door of the hotel.
“Okay, stop.” Outside at the valet stand, I finally yank my arm out of his grasp, taking a step back and crossing my arms over my chest. “What the hell was that in there?”
He scowls. “The words you’re looking for are actually ‘gee, thanks’.”
“No one asked you to play money-bags in there and buy my damn hotel room.”
“And a good thing they didn’t,” he says with a smirk, that thick Texan accent dripping like honey. “Cause with that fucking attitude, I’d probably have kept my damn mouth shut.”
I glare at him as the valet brings a sleek black sports car of some kind around to the hotel door. “I don’t need your help.”
“Says the girl holding her shoes who - unless I’m confused - was about to get herself arrested for credit card fraud?”
“It’s my fiancé’s card, actually,” I snap. His brow shoots up, and for some reason I feel the need to follow it up. “Well, ex-fiancé, or, whatever.”
He blinks and then shakes his head at me as he brings a hand up to push his fingers through the sexy mop of dark hair on his head.
God, why did I feel the need to think of his hair as sexy?
“Well, that all sounds super interesting, princess, but why don’t you hop in.”
He nods at the black sports car idling next to him, and I give him a look.
“Uh, pass.”
He grins. “Got something better to do?”
I roll my eyes. “Because I don’t even know you?”
Austin smirks at me. “You know me well enough to shove your tongue down my throat.”
My jaw drops. “I did no such thing!”
Suddenly, there’s a commotion from the front doors of the hotel, and I turn to see a cluster of what look like security guards, with the hotel manager pointing wildly in my direction.
“Yes, that’s her! The card owner called back and-”
“Get in the car, princess.”
I glance back at the three men in uniform stalking towards me, looking at me like I’m maybe as crazy as I look in my rumpled cocktail dress, still wet hair, and heels in my hands, before I turn back to the cocky, grinning man leaned against the side of his sports car like temptation on wheels.
“Okay, fine.”
I climb in and he rolls his eyes as he ducks around to the driver’s side and slips behind the wheel. I gasp as the car screeches away from the hotel, tires squealing as I clutch at the arm rest and try and get my seatbelt on.
“Where are we going?”
Austin grins and raises a brow at me. “You like ice-cream?”
“Huh?” I scowl at him, feeling my pulse racing almost as fast as the car at the very experience of letting go like this - of literally letting myself get driven away by a strange and gorgeous man from the scene of a crime.
“Great, I know a good spot.”
“Hang on, where-” I gasp as he yanks the car around the next corner and takes us roaring towards the freeway.
6
Austin
This is a weird fucking morning.
I leave tire marks as I peel the Aston Martin Vanquish out of the hotel turnaround, grinning as she shrieks and clutches at the door-handle before scrambling for her seatbelt. I’ve always been a muscle car guy from when I was growing up, but you try getting a check for forty million bucks and not spending it on the most ludicrous, most cutting edge sports car you can find.
But like I said, it’s been a weird fucking morning. I spent half the night before camped out in my hotel room - the room I got when it was clear I was in no shape to drive home - mulling over the cluster-fuck of media attention, of prying eyes, and of Derek’s new rules that have become my life here in the spotlight. Half the night plowing through half a bottle of whiskey wishing I was as invisible as I’d been before becoming the fucking darling of the media zoo.