The doors slide open, and he drags me out to a hallway that reminds me of the corridor in the Overlook hotel where the little twin girls stand at the end of it and invite little Danny Torrance to go play with them. We walk up to a suite with double doors a little ways down the hall, and the room number is 6969.
I gape at him.
“Don’t look at me. I didn’t number the rooms. Get your mind out of the gutter, Ms. Lee. I was looking forward to having sexual relations with that lovely young lady tonight. Given that’s no longer on the table, I’ve decided you, and I are going to hang out in this suite, order room service, and maybe watch a dirty movie on one of the premium channels. You can watch me have a wank. Let’s make it a team-building activity.”
My mouth drops open.
He rolls his eyes. “You have no sense of humor. Why would I need a dirty movie if I can just order you to dance for me, Ms. Lee?”
“This is sexual harassment. I’m reporting you to HR first thing tomorrow.”
He scoffs and taps the tip of my nose. “Silly ducky, you can’t report your own husband for sexual harassment.” He pushes open the doors to the luxury suite. “Relax. Take a load off. Seriously. I’ll call room service for champagne and food. What do you feel like eating?”
I edge toward the doors. “Sir, I really ought to get going. I have an incontinent dog at home, and she gets really vindictive when I don’t get in on time to feed her and take her out.”
He shrugs before taking off his suit jacket. “Send me the cleaning bill. Ms. Lee, how hard is it to understand that you owe me because you humiliated me in front of a whole restaurant and drove away my one chance to get laid tonight?”
“Oh, please. Like it would be such a hardship for you to find a replacement. Just go back to the restaurant and flash those emerald greens at anyone you like and I’m sure whoever it is can provide you with much better company than I can.”
He pokes my hip with his finger. “You think I’m that irresistible, eh? All I have to do is flash my pretty green eyes at anyone I choose, and they’ll jump into my arms?”
“I mean…” I shrug, suddenly unable to think of a more appropriate response. “You’re rich, good-looking, and you have a stupid British accent. Chicks dig that.”
The smirk that curls his lips makes my stomach flip-flop. “Do you dig it?”
“Why would you care about my opinion? I’m just your boring old secretary. Look, boss, I’m sorry I freaked out a little down there, but….”
Those intense emerald greens focus on my boring browns and render me speechless. “Please don’t give me that crap again about seeing Rebecca Kane on America’s Deadliest Women. Do you think I’m an idiot? I’m more likely to accept that you saw me with another woman, got jealous, and snapped.”
I sigh, seeing no way out. Even if I tell him the truth, he’s unlikely to believe me. It is pretty wacky and sounds like something from a bad spy film. “Fine. I was in the can, all right? Your Rebecca Kane walks in, goes into a stall, starts talking to someone on the phone. Pretty gross, right? Who does that? Anyway–”
He points at me. “Keep talking. I’m just going to call room service and order food and drinks.” I follow him with my eyes, and he gives me a wave while picking up the house phone. “Go on, I’m listening.”
I sit in a chair that looks like it was once owned by Marie Antoinette because it has that vintage, ostentatious, antique vibe with its overstuffed cushion and throne-like back support. “So, she’s on the phone, and she’s speaking Russian….”
In the middle of ordering food and drinks, he stops and looks up at me. “Russian? You understand Russian?”
“Da, nemnozhko. What, you don’t? Some Oxford scholar you’ve turned out to be.”
He holds up his finger again and finishes his phone conversation before striding across the room to a writing desk. His large hand takes the Queen Anne chair from underneath it and spins it around in one swift movement, allowing him to straddle it, resting his arms along the top of the back. “What did you hear her say in Russian?”
All traces of amusement have disappeared from his face, and he is once again the impassive, emotionless bastard I have to deal with every morning. I scratch the back of my neck, a nervous habit I’ve never been able to shake off. “Uh… u menya yest' tsel'. I’ve got my target. Moya tsel' budet mertva k kontsu nochi. My target will be dead by the end of the night.”
He doesn’t respond for a moment and just stares at me, like he’s got a lie detector or something in his optic nerve. “How do you know how to speak Russian?”
Whenever I’m unsure how to answer, I get defensive and sarcastic. I don’t know if I’ve always been this way. There’s a big part of my brain that has a lot of black lines over it and looks like the final redacted version of the 9/11 Report. “Well, I don’t know how to speak Korean, so I figured I’d learn other languages. I can speak Spanish, French, Russian, and a little bit of Japanese. Don’t ask me about English, though. I’m still working on it.”
His face might as well have been carved out of granite. The asshole doesn’t even crack a smile. “Interesting. How did you know it was Rebecca Kane who was on the phone and not some other person?”
I roll my eyes. “Because she and I were the only people in the restroom, and when she was finished, I saw her through a gap in the stall door. You’d be pleased to know she washed her hands.” I clear my throat when he only continues to stare at me.
“Dude, that’s the truth, okay? You can choose to believe me or not. I was in the restroom, minding my own business, when your hot Russian assassin date walked in and started talking on the phone to someone about killing your Italian ass. But hey, what do I know? I’ve been drinking. In fact, I’m pretty sure the bartender gave me a shot of Windex before I went off to the restroom.”
He has the restless energy of a tiger in a cage, pacing back and forth, unable to stretch or move around too much because there isn’t enough room. But then a dumb little mouse sneaks into its cage and gets trapped there after the tiger pounces on it. Now the tiger is batting the mouse back and forth between his paws, trying to decide if he should eat it or just pick it apart until he gets bored.
“You’re a good, trustworthy employee, Ms. Lee, and hardly ever fuck up, except today. But I understand I may have contributed to your anxiety when I thoughtlessly sent you out in the rain to fetch me breakfast. You were cold, had to have some tea, and accidentally spilled it on some important documents.” He spreads his palms open before him. “These things happen. I have no reason to believe you’re lying about this incident, as crazy as it may sound.”
“Um… but aren’t you worried that there are people out there trying to kill you?”