CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Outside, it’s a balmy night and I see Peter talking on his phone, but no car. I walk up to him and he smiles and disconnects the call.
We turn to the roar of a deep-throated engine. A valet pops out of a screaming yellow Lamborghini. Peter steps ahead of me to open the passenger door and I slide into the low-slung seat.
Truth? The bumblebee color scheme is ridiculous, with yellow leather down the middle of the seats and a yellow glove compartment beneath the dash.
Peter palms a tip to the valet and folds himself into the driver’s seat, giving the engine an extra rev before pulling out of the semicircular driveway. I feel my body pressed back as he drives fast.
I don’t know where we’re going, but I think we’re westbound. Soon I see signs for the Lincoln Tunnel and New Jersey.
“New Jersey?”
“It’s somewhere to drive,” Peter shrugs. “I want you to see something.”
I lean into the yellow seat, content to watch the city lights whiz past, electronica pumping through his car’s stereo loudly enough to discourage conversation. Twenty minutes pass in a blur and I don’t move Peter’s hand off my knee when he rests it there.
We pull up to a high-end hotel and another valet jumps to greet us, pulling open my door and averting his gaze as I attempt to exit the car without flashing him. Peter makes no such pretense, watching me intently and taking my hand. He exchanges his keys with the valet for a key card and takes me inside.
We bypass the lobby reception desk and I follow Peter to the elevators. My gut twists with unease. Peter wasn’t in a talkative mood on the drive here.
He swipes his key card in the elevator panel, punches the top-floor button, and we ascend, my eyes taking in the undone bow tie, his collar open by a button, his neat haircut tapering at his neck.
The effect is an aphrodisiac, and I let him pull me closer, his hand draped around my hip as he steers me to a door that opens with another swipe of his key card.
It’s a suite, but it’s not the striking, modern décor that takes my breath away. The floor-to-ceiling windows give us an impressive view of the New York City skyline.
“Pretty great, huh?”
“That’s not even the word for it.” I’m in awe, feeling the city’s magnetic pull. Peter leads me to a cream leather divan and roots around in the minibar. He pours two glasses of brown liquid without asking and brings one to me.
“How’d you get a key?” I ask, feeling a bit stupid considering how smoothly the exchange with the valet went down.
“A call and a credit card. Easy-peasy.” He smiles at me again but this time I don’t feel the warmth and mischief I experienced when meeting him. This time his eyes are sharper, more calculating. His hand snakes up my spine.
“Are you staying here tonight? You didn’t have any luggage.” I see the answer in his eyes even before the whole question is out of my mouth.
“I thought we might want a little privacy,” he says, and his fingers find the zipper on my dress, pulling it down in one fluid motion. “You weren’t just teasing, were you?”
Alarm bells are clanging in my head but I swallow another sip of liquid courage. Something’s different—I didn’t feel this chilly apprehension when Anthony and I were making out.
I reach to put the glass on a table and knock my clutch onto the floor.
Peter catches my hand before I can reach for my purse, pulling me to him and pressing a hard kiss on my mouth. “I wasn’t teasing,” he says, and his hand is under my skirt, grasping for me.
I flinch, but he doesn’t notice, intent on his mission. I squirm even as I let him keep kissing me, trying to slow his hand’s invasion. He holds me tighter, his hand moving from my thigh to reach between my legs and I twist my face away from his, slamming my knees together.
“Peter. Stop. It’s too much.”
His green eyes harden and his dimples vanish along with my expectation for a harmless make-out session. I want to get out. Now.
I stand up and he yanks my arm back. I land on my ass with an oof and nearly topple over. But Peter catches me, banding me between his arms, his hands sliding up my ribcage, thumbs reaching my breasts.
“Let’s try this again without getting all worked up about it,” he says. His voice is slithery-smooth, his tone comforting, as if I’m a toddler throwing a tantrum.
“No!” I holler, and the warning bells are transformed into a five-alarm fire as I try to twist away from the anchor of his grip. I’m stuck, panicked, and so I move my arm fast toward his face. He ducks, my wrist just clipping his ear.
He grabs for my arm and I remember a lesson from a long-ago self-defense class, throwing a punch to his throat with my other arm. He sputters and chokes, clawing at me as I wrench my body from his grasp. I hear a sickening tear as my dress parts wide past the base of its zipper.
Peter snarls, recovering from my punch that probably surprised him more than hurt him. I flee the room, kick off my heels in the hall and yank open an emergency stairwell door. I take the treads two at a time.
I’m down four flights before I pause to listen for footsteps. Nothing. I keep moving, wondering if he’s taking the elevator to the lobby and if he’ll try to stop me.
I’m trapped, shoeless, with my ass hanging out the back of my torn dress. What the hell was I thinking, going with a complete stranger just because he asked? The truth is that I let his money do the talking.
I reach the lobby level, but instead of opening that door, I go one level deeper, hitting the service entrance, praying it’s unlocked. It is, and I’m in the bowels of this hotel, cheap lighting and dingy paint in stark contrast to the five-star lobby.
The employee locker room is vacant, lined with dozens of sealed lockers. I fish a dirty maid’s uniform out of a laundry basket and put it on, trying not to imagine what the woman who wore it had to touch.
Lulu’s beautiful beaded dress is almost completely split where Peter ripped it, but I can’t bring myself to leave it in the trash. I wad it up and tuck it under my arm.
I prowl to the back of the locker room and find an old pair of sneakers, dingy dark gray with the insides worn away. They’re at least three sizes too large, but I put them on anyway.
I leave the locker room and slink down the hall, away from the stairwell. I’m praying for some back entry point, somewhere I can escape. When I find a door marked exit, I freeze.
My phone. My wallet. My keys.
All of them are still on Peter’s hotel room floor.
I want to cry in frustration, but I’m too emotionally wrung-out. I just have to keep going. I hit the wide bar on the door, exploding into a warm, clear night with New York shining in the distance. I skirt the hotel, cutting diagonally toward the road where I find a lone cab waiting.
I am saved.
I yank open its back door and collapse inside, telling the driver Gavin’s now-familiar address. At least Peter doesn’t know where I live.
I shudder, imagining him snooping through my wallet, finding my Oregon driver’s license with my old address.
I’m glad I’ve password-protected my phone. I originally did it to guard against my mother’s prying eyes, but now she would be a welcome intrusion. I’d tell her anything if I could just end this nightmare.
The taxi pulls up in front of Gavin’s apartment and Charles is there, opening my door without a flicker of curiosity about my ridiculous outfit.
This guy is good.
“Charles, I need some help. My purse is lost—could you please lend me enough for cab fare?”
“It would be my pleasure.”
I stand there awkwardly as Charles forks over a wad of crisp twenties to the driver. As the taxi pulls away, he takes my arm and helps me into the lobby, the extra-extra-large shoes forcing me to shuffle to keep them on my feet. “I know you’re going to ask—”
“Of course not, Beryl. We’re friends. I don’t need to ask, and you don’t need to tell.” He pulls a key ring from his pocket and finds a tiny key to unlock a cabinet behind the reception desk. He takes a key off a hook inside the cabinet and hands it to me.
“This is a spare.”
“Thank you.” My heart thumps hard in gratitude for this man.
“I’m glad you’re home safe and sound, and when you’ve put this far enough behind you to be able to laugh about it, well, then, come tell me the story.”
“I will.”