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I planted my feet on the cool tiles, maintaining needed distance between us.
“One hour,” he said, reminding me with a firm nod.
“One hour,” I repeated. One hour to unravel it all, every single string.
Turning, he strode to the door.
I watched him go, a lump growing in my throat. This view of him walking away would be my last.
“Last night was amazing.” I rasped out the inadequate words for a fantasy beyond imagining, but in the end, it was only that. “Thank you.”
“It was better than amazing.”
He turned his head slightly, giving me a hot look over his shoulder that promised more than he could deliver. Even so, it zapped me in all the Champion-susceptible places, and then the door was opened and clicked closed.
It was over. He was gone.
Champion
“WHAT DO YOU mean, she checked out?” At the registration desk, I held my temper in check, but only barely.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Valentine.” The clerk scurried backward, cowering behind the chest-high rattan-wrapped counter that separated us. Apparently, it wasn’t adequate protection with a professional football player acting like a dragon, practically breathing fire.
“But surely she left a message for me.” I tapped on the desk, making excuses for why Electra was gone. Maybe she had an emergency.
“No.” The woman shook her head. “She didn’t leave any messages.”
“Give me her address,” I demanded.
“I can’t do that.” The clerk backed up another step.
“Fucking hell.” I let out a snarl, though I’d guessed before I asked that she couldn’t give me the information I wanted.
“But it wasn’t Miss Miller’s credit card that paid for her room.” Her brown eyes got larger when she made that admission, more than one, actually.
I filed away the last name that Electra had withheld from me.
The knot in my gut tightened as I had a terrible thought. “Was it a man who paid her bill?” If Electra had a boyfriend, that would explain why she’d insisted on us being casual. Red descended over my vision at just the thought of another man having a claim to her.
“Is there a problem, Ra’neira?” A large man in a suit emerged from an unmarked door behind the clerk. He frowned at me. Probably, he had been watching the interchange on some sort of surveillance feed.
“There’s no problem,” I said for Ra’neira. But my reply was a total and complete lie. If I were a wooden puppet, my nose would have grown long enough to reach the mainland.
Thinking of the mainland reminded me there was only one way for tourists to come and go from the island besides a boat. Remembering the airport tag on Electra’s luggage, I turned, not wasting time on pleasantries.
Retracing my steps through the open-air lobby, I practically ran. There was a chance Electra had checked into another hotel to avoid me, but I dismissed that idea. There was no doubt in my mind where she had gone.
Jogging down the steps, I was propelled by my anger. There had better not be another man.
Allowing for that possibility, I nearly bent the steering wheel and the key starting the Jeep. But I got control of myself. I had to be controlled to get to her. There was a lot of distance to cover on narrow and highly trafficked roads between Electra’s hotel and the airport.
Carefully, I steered the vehicle out of the resort’s parking lot. My mind circled back to my original concern. The call from Mercedes.
I knew it was no coincidence that it had come before Electra took off. I’d been vague when she’d questioned me. I had to be vague. After Electra, I had no desire to go back to Mercedes. But that was something I needed to tell Mercedes in person. Wasn’t it?
Hell if I knew what the right thing to do was. If I did, wouldn’t I have Electra?
• • •
