“Tia?”
“Mm.”
“You alright?” I leaned over and put my hand on her knee.
She recoiled right against the car door, as far away from me as she could get.
“I’ll just give you a minute, shall I?” I suggested and snickered.
Her eyes were still closed but she was shaking her head slowly and I could see she was working up toward a royal fucking fit.
Tia
“How many more times are you gonna do this?” I finally asked, eyes closed. There was throbbing in my head. I had a tension headache coming on, a whopper of one!
“As many as I feel I need to,” he said softly, his voice laced with warning, “As many as I think I need to put my mind at ease.”
“Put your mind at ease about me not running away?”
“That, and about you being equipped to deal with emergencies. This was probably more about emergencies.”
I guffawed.
“You got a problem with that?” his tone of voice grated on my nerves. I should just open the car door and walk the fuck away from him.
“Was that roughing me up this morning part of the test? Piss me off by being a total prick and then leave me alone to see if I run away?” I finally met his eyes with mine.
“That was just me,” he said softly with a shrug. He looked so arrogant, so unapologetic.
And that was worse because that meant that on top of everything else, every frightened and helpless emotion he’d just put me through, that he really was an abusive asshole.
The car stopped at a red light and then I did what was probably the stupidest thing I’ve done since meeting h
im. I thrust the door open and I got out of the limo and stormed off between other waiting cars and then down the street in the opposite direction.
An instant after I did I caught the view of someone running, from the corner of my eye. It was Nino. He’d gotten out of a small smart car behind our limo and he was on his phone, talking while he was following me. Figured. The whole thing was staged; I was probably never alone at all.
I shot Nino a dirty look over my shoulder and I kept right on walking. My pocket dinged. I kept walking, but faster, more determined Then I was through a revolving door, Nino not ten feet behind me, and inside of a casino, I didn’t know which one, and I was storming down the trippy-looking butt-ugly carpet and because I’d ignored it the first time, my pocket dinged again. I ignored it again. Suddenly I felt fingers grip my arm at my bicep. My heart hit the bottom of my stomach.
“Read your text,” Nino told me. He was not smiling.
I shrugged him off and thrust my hand in my pocket and pulled the phone out to read the text from Tommy,
“Fine, cool off. Nino will keep you safe. Be back at the suite in half an hour. I’ll be waiting.”
I responded to his text without hesitating,
“FUCK YOU!”
The read receipt popped instantly and I turned the phone off and then thrust the phone back in my pocket. My heart sank but that sensation was below the surface of my anger, which was bigger than my fear or my common sense right now, so I resumed walking and Nino followed right along behind me. After a few minutes I was beyond annoyed with him walking right behind me and I needed to lose him. I just needed five damn minutes by myself, totally by myself.
I saw a blonde woman in a skimpy outfit carrying a tray of drinks and I saw a drunk-looking middle-aged Asian guy approaching her so I suddenly took off running past him, sort of bumped him, and he knocked her drinks all over the place. This happened like it was carefully rehearsed choreography, right in front of Nino and I was off…half walking half running hoping casino security wouldn’t think I was suspicious and try to stop me, zig zagging through rows of slot machines and then card tables and roulette wheels. I finally got the nerve to glance back and there was no sign of him.
I found my way out into the lobby of that hotel and left. I went to a café a few doors down and sat and drank an iced cappuccino and took my time about it. The longer I sat there, the angrier I got. How dare he! What the heck was his problem?
Better question: what the heck was my problem? My heart sank. Provoking him like that? I had no idea how pissed he’d be but I was pretty pissed, too, and the way I was feeling I’d have no problem articulating that to him.
After over an hour in the café, I hailed a cab out front. I asked the driver to take me to the hotel. I had no death wish desires so, no, I wasn’t running away right now. I guess I was just teaching him a lesson. How dare he do that to me and then have the audacity to ‘give’ me half an hour to cool down?