36
ISABELLA
Back in the cramped and smelly hotel room, I was relieved not to have to spend another night here. The day had been one disaster after the next, and even I was still reeling over Anna breaking up with Colt and leaving him on their wedding day.
It was horrible, and yet another sign pointing to the fact that I was right to steer clear of all relationships. As I dropped the last of my stuff into my suitcase, I figured I’d better let Parker know that I was heading back to the city tonight since the wedding wasn’t going forward.
The last time I’d seen him, the guys had split up to look for Colt, agreeing to meet each other at the hotel bar once they’d searched their designated areas. Leaving my bags in the room for now, I slipped pumps onto my feet and did up the button on the jeans I’d changed into.
After sliding my arms into my navy jacket, I buttoned it up too and pulled my hair into a neat ponytail. I’d washed the makeup I’d put on for the wedding off my face, and although it wasn’t like me, I decided against applying anything new before I went out.
It was already dark outside, and I very much doubted anyone would even notice that I wasn’t wearing any once I left there. As I walked into the bar, it was hard to miss Parker and the rest of the guys. Colt wasn’t with them, but they were all still wearing their baby blue tuxes and they stood out like sore thumbs.
Gathered around a table near the windows, they were huddled together, all of them looking exhausted. Reese spotted me first, favoring me with a tired smile, and he gave his head a shake. “We haven’t found Colt or Anna. Apparently, she didn’t go to the airport but no one knows where she is. Colt is missing, but I’m pretty sure he’s tying one on in town somewhere. Don’t worry, Isabella. We’ll find him. He’ll be okay.”
“Thanks,” I said, touched at how kind he was to me. They’d all come to accept me as part of their group, which made me feel even worse for what I was about to do. Gently touching Parker’s shoulder, I nodded at the door. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
“Sure.” He got up, cracking his neck and taking my hand in his. “What’s up?”
As we walked away from the table, I withdrew my hand and tried not to read too much into the intense urge I had to keep touching him. “I’m leaving. There’s a flight back to New York in two hours, and I’m going to be on it. I just wanted to let you know.”
“It’s getting late, Bella,” he said, turning to face me once we were in the nearly deserted lobby. The main door into the hotel bar was in the corner of the lobby, and we stuck to the shadows running along the sides once we stopped moving. “How about I find us a nicer hotel for the night and then we fly back together tomorrow?”
“I can’t,” I said, knowing that I was making excuses but not caring. It’d been a long day for both of us already and it was better to get this over with. “I have to prep for our next pitch meeting and I didn’t bring the stuff with me since I didn’t think we’d have time to work much today.”
“Please stay,” he asked again, reaching out to thread the fingers of both hands through mine. His gaze was intent, the tone of his voice honest. “Things have been really hard on both of us recently and the weekend didn’t go as planned. I’d like to spend a little bit of time with you before we go back to the city.”
“If I could stay, I would.” Actually, that probably wasn’t completely true. On the other hand, if I felt like I had any choice and really could stay without anything happening, I was pretty sure I would’ve. “I really should go, though.”
Releasing one of my hands, he reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair that I’d missed when making my ponytail behind my ear. “There’s no need to rush to run right back to work.”
“I’m not running, Parker. I’m busy. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” he asked. “Because with you, I’m not so sure. You’re running, Isabella. I don’t know why, but I do know that you are. There’s no way you’re going to get any work done tonight. It’ll be early morning before you even get home. Stay. We can have breakfast together and then I’ll get us on the first flight out after.”
He was borderline pleading with me, and I knew that begging and pleading weren’t things he did very often. It only made it that much clearer that I should leave now, before the two of us got into this thing between us even deeper.
“This next meeting is too important,” I said. “If I go home now, I can go straight to bed when I get there and start working as soon as I wake up. If I stay here, I won’t get to work until tomorrow afternoon. That’s a lot of time wasted.”
As was becoming normal for us, we started arguing. Parker was visibly upset with me, his jaw tightening as he let go of me and took a big step back. “You put your job before everything else, don’t you? Is there anything in the entire fucking world that can make you forget it for just one night?”
“You hired me to do this job,” I reminded him. “I’m working this hard foryou. You should be thanking me, not getting pissed off just because you’d rather hang around when there’s nothing happening here anymore.”
“My best friend is around here somewhere,” he whispered furiously, lowering his voice instead of raising it. “He’s heartbroken, he’s missing, and he’s just been left at the altar. You can bet your ass there is still something happening here.”
“Okay, so there is still something for you to do here. There’s nothing left for me to do here, though. I can’t be your date to a wedding that isn’t happening.”
“You know what? You’re right. I hired you to do this job and that means that I should be able to give you the night off. Just stay with me. What do you want me to do to get you to stay?”
“Nothing,” I said honestly. “If you had your way, we’d never work. You’d give me every night off, and before I knew it, I wouldn’t be working anymore at all.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, then shrugged and rammed a hand through his hair. “And? What’s so bad about that? Once I sell the franchise, I’m probably never going to work again. It doesn’t sound like a problem to me.”
“Yeah, but you still need to sell your franchise, and in order to do that, I need to work,” I said. “Besides, it’s great that you’ll be able to retire, but the rest of the world, myself included, still need to work to support ourselves. I can’t let my reputation slide and lose business just because it’s taking me months to get one damn deal through.”
“One night,” he asked again, taking my face in his hands and with his gaze burning into mine, making it feel like my brain was melting into a pile of goo that only wanted to cuddle him.
No matter how tempted I was to say yes, and I really was, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to say no to him if I stayed. I’d end up spending the rest of the night helping them search for Colt and then, with the way he was looking at me right now, spend whatever would be left of the night in his arms.