AISHE

I never snagged a taxi. The lobby mirror at the Bastien on Eighth throws back my disheveled reflection. On impulse, I wipe away a smudge under an eye and approach the front desk.

Troy wouldn’t be back yet—the FNL afterparty is mandatory schmoozing for the guys—but I need to be sure. If he somehow made it here before me, I’ll be hightailing it out immediately. In the morning, I’ll call Waris for help to get my stuff back without having to see him.

“Hi there,” I say, aiming for relaxed and professional with the hotel clerks. “Has Joe Decker returned for the night?”

The closest receptionist is young and blond, eyes lighting him up further at the mention of Troy’s hotel name. “Yes, Ma’am, he sure has. He came a little bit after you— Wait.” His face slackens, and his older colleague jumps in.

“Ma’am,” she says, sending a subtly disgusted glance down my clothing. “How can I help you?”

“He came after me?” I snap to the talkative young desk clerk.

“No, I got that wrong. It was his girlfriend. I’m sorry. You just look like her.”

“Kyle.” His colleague sends him a glare before returning to me. “I’m sorry about that, Ma’am. Are you here to check in?”

“I’m already checked in,” I say. “I’m in twelve fourteen.”

“Ma’am, the patrons in twelve hundred and fourteen are already here. The Bastien on Eighth affords the ultimate privacy to our customers, and if you’d be kind enough to respect that, I won’t have to call security.”

No. This can’t be happening. I glance at the clock above the front desk as my heart speeds up. It’s ticking toward midnight. While I’m trapped here, who knows what Hailey’s cooking up, upstairs?

The power of bruxiante simmers to life in me. In this moment, she holds the power to extinguish us. God, I hope Troy sees that.

I can’t leave now. I won’t be licking my hurt heart somewhere else anymore. Not when the young front-desk clerk tells me, “And his girlfriend asked us to be on the lookout for a lookalike impostor.”

Heart pounding, I eye the elevator.

Troy, don’t let her destroy us forever.

“Whatever. Never mind,” I say. I show my palms to them and stomp out of the lobby. I do it loudly, madly, and wave down the first cab in the rotunda. Once it makes the turn, I walk around it, open the door, and hunch as if I’m about to climb in.

Instead, I take off. In my too-high heels, I prowl the side of the hotel until I’m at the back entrance.

Please, Troy, don’t.

I pray to God that my key card still works. I want to cry with relief when it does. The service stairway is white and utilitarian, and on the third floor, I take my shoes off so I can run faster.

My lungs burn when I reach the twelfth floor. I stumble into the main hallway, and from there, the corridor stretches out, long and carpeted.

Time is ticking; a hundred percent certainty mouths it to me. Tonight! Tonight, the minutes mean everything. Clarity rushes in my blood and in my heart. The love fire roars to me, screaming for my survival.

Moixcho. I can’t if you do this.

“Twelve thousand and fourteen” gleams at me, a golden promise of elegance and sophistication. If she’s in there, those numbers lie.

I’m made of turmoil and bad omens when I swipe the door open and barge in.

TROY

I’m hard beneath her as she rubs herself on me. Her moves are jerky, and it makes me wonder if my girl got tipsy while she waited.

She doesn’t smell like alcohol. Then again, I smell nothing on her besides that new perfume. It overpowers her natural fragrance, the one I’d pick her out of a lineup by. This girl. I love her so much.

She’s stressed out, working rapidly, pulling my briefs off between us and plopping back on top. I want to pull her against me and soothe her from her hurry.

“Shh, take it easy, baby mine,” I whisper. “We have all the time in the world.”

“Yes, but I want you to sleep with me first,” she whispers back.

Wrongness. The alarm clock blaring new numbers, closer and closer to some inevitability I can’t quite grasp.

Eleven fifty-two.

I extract my hands from behind my head. Thrust my hips up to meet her as my arms go around her body. One lift, and I’ll slip inside of her just like she wants in this strange mood she’s in. I can’t blame her for anything; I put my moixcha through too much tonight.

“I want to play, darling,” she whispers. Pries my hands off her while I think how slim she is, how small her boobs are, how wrong her skin is, and—

“Hailey!” I shout. “What the fuck?”

Click. Cold metal around my wrist, then the other. Fucking hand cuffs? The center wrought-iron pole of the headboard is wedged between my hands. I buck against the mattress. She turns the light on. Now, now she wants the light on!

Desperately, she wiggles to get in position on top of me. I buck, roar—jerk against the headboard. I can’t sit up. I need to get some kind of footing!

Hailey squirms on me, puffing, hissing my name against my lips. She finds my cock with her hand, and for a stunned second, I see what she’s doing—she’s steering my rock-hard boner against her, I feel her opening, slick and wanting over the crown of me—

Until the ceiling light floods the room.

“Get the hell off him!” Aishe roars.

I twist my body around, and in one shove, Hailey’s off me and tumbling to the floor with a grunt. I rattle the headboard. “Open the fucking handcuffs!”

Aishe’s stare goes to the alarm clock. In seven minutes it’s midnight. Another minute, and I’d have cheated on her. My infidelity would have joined the rest of our past, and—love be damned—that baggage would’ve been too heavy for us to bear.

“What are you doing here?” Hailey screams. “You can’t just barge in when people are having sex!” She jumps to her feet, fake-bronzed and naked.

“Where’s the key, Hailey?” I roar. “Get. Me. The fuck. Out of the handcuffs!”

Aishe charges toward her, eyes blazing with anger. She tackles her to the ground. Hailey whines, she squirms, but she has nothing on a Gypsy woman who’s on fire.

“This is not happening,” Aishe grinds out. Her hands close around Hailey’s throat, her skirts rushing wildly around her as she straddles her. “I promise you, Hailey, if you don’t tell me where the key to those handcuffs are, you’ll never take another breath.”

“Aishe, let go!” I shout. “Don’t let her turn you into a criminal.”

“I. Promise. You.” Aishe’s dark eyes suddenly gleam yellow.

It must be the lighting. I squint. Shake my head and study her again. I must be seeing things, because in this moment—in the moment Hailey gives up and squeaks out her answer—I see flames lick around my baby’s pupils.

Hailey fought hard. It took us ten minutes to dress her between the two of us. Now, her whole body is shivering. Like a child who can’t sleep, it’s as if she’s trying to lull herself calm. With her arms locked around her knees, she’s rocking on the bed. I’m not sure it’s working.

“Call nine-one-one,” I murmur to Aishe. “We can’t handle this.”

“No. No, no, no, please don’t do that,” Hailey hiccoughs. “I can’t go back there.”

“Back where?”

“Why did you come back, Aishe?” Hailey’s voice is broken. “You were supposed to give up on him! Didn’t you see how he kissed me? It’s me he loves. He just had to see that for himself—all I did was help him along a little. He would’ve seen it too, you know. I’d have made him feel better than you ever did.”

The anger has dissipated from Aishe’s gaze. There’s only sadness and compassion in my woman’s eyes now. “We’ll get you somewhere safe, Hailey,” she says. “Somewhere where they’ll take care of you until you feel better.”

“No! I don’t want to go there,” Hailey whispers. “I haven’t been there in years. I’m not sick. I’m— I’m fine. Troy, all I wanted was to make you happy.”