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Chapter 23
Drake
A grin split my face before I even opened my eyes. No warm body snuggled against mine, so I reached out blindly, needing him close.
The sheets beside me were cold.
I cracked an eyelid open but didn’t see him. “Preston?”
He didn’t answer, and my straining ears didn’t hear the shower either.
Rolling onto my back, I propped onto my elbows. “Preston?” I called a little louder.
Still no answer.
Hairs on my nape tingled, rising to life, and I shoved the blankets from my legs. A sense of foreboding leadened my feet, but I remained steady in my trek to the bathroom.
The door lay open as I’d left it earlier, the lights off.
I spun in a circle, taking in the truth Preston wasn’t in my suite.
He’d wanted to go to his room, shower, and dress. Perhaps he hadn’t been able to sleep and had gone down once I’d slept.
Assuring myself that’s exactly what he’d done, I scurried to throw on some clothes. We’d been so caught up in each other that we hadn’t exchanged cell numbers, or I would have simply texted to find out for sure where he’d went.
My heart beating too fast, I hopped on the elevator and cursed the slowness with which the doors closed. Only three floors rolled past, but they took an eternity to creep downward in blinking red numbers.
I should have gone for the stairs. They would have been faster than the fucking metal cage closing in on me due to my first brush with panic.
People waited on Preston’s floor to enter, and I shuffled sideways through them, not even bothering to excuse myself or apologize for my hasty rush to get past them.
I turned a corner, intent on the room number he’d told me, pulling up at the sight of a cleaning cart beside his open door.
No.
No fucking way.
Heart stalling out, I double-checked the suite number. 1322.
A woman in her fifties exited the bathroom, noticing me standing there frozen in the doorway and fucking dying inside. “Can I help you?”
“The man who stayed here,” I rasped, having to swallow against the sudden dryness in my throat. I opened my mouth but couldn’t find words.
“I received notification they checked out an hour ago, sir.”
An hour ago.
He’d taken off the second I’d fallen asleep.
My chest caved in on itself, and I fought to fill my lungs. Spinning on my heel, I made for the stairwell. The steps disappeared beneath my slapping feet, the echo of my stomps in time with my stuttering heart. Three flights later, I heaved for breath—but not from the exercise.
Preston had abandoned me.
Fucking left me exactly like I’d begged him not to do.
I crammed my shit into my bags without care, my movements hasty to get me the fuck out of there. Minutes later, I tossed my room’s key onto the front desk without waiting to make sure shit was all taken care of.
My thoughts ran a riot in my head, battling it out in open warfare.
