“Perhaps,” he agreed, nodding. “But you got into my car, so let’s have a little faith in each other.”
Ugh…he wasn’t wrong. I had gotten into his car, and now here we were, at hiscastle.
I jumped when my door opened and looked up to see one of Hez’s goons smiling down at me, waiting for me to climb out. What in the hell had I gotten myself into with these people?
“Are you getting out?” Hez teased as he opened his own door and stepped out into the cold, night air.
I huffed out a breath then heaved myself to my feet, stepping aside so the suit could shut the door again, then followed Hez up the stairs and into the great hall of his home.
And great it was. The ceiling rivaled most of the cathedral’s I’d visited in America. Beautiful painted scenery stretched forty feet overhead, depicted a rich forest scene.
“Are you hungry? Would you like to freshen up? Perhaps take a nap?” Hez offered, ushering me further inside.
“Actually, I really need a computer. I have to call the airline about my luggage, I need to try to get a replacement phone sent to me, I’ve got to cancel my credit cards and I need to get ahold of my sister, who has my extra copies of all my documents.” I forced myself to stop and look up at Hez again. “Thank you. For everything, truly. But I’m sure you can understand my urgency to get some of this nightmare fixed as quickly as possible.”
“Of course I do,” he assured me. “You can use the computer in my office.”
He led me through a massive sitting room, with plush looking sofas, mahogany bookshelves stuffed to the brim with leather bound books lining every shelf, a fireplace merrily crackling along one wall, and a grand piano tucked into a corner with a massive Christmas bouquet set atop it.
“Seriously dude,” I said as Hez led me through all that splendor without sparing it a second glance. “Who the hell are you?”
He didn’t bother responding, just turned down a hallway and pushed open a door before ushering me inside.
“Whoa.” I looked around in absolute shock as I struggled to focus on all that was going on in the room. One wall had about forty televisions mounted and running on mute, showing stock charts, different news stations from around the world, and one had an old episode of The Dick Van Dyke show running with what appeared to be Russian subtitles.
“You may use this computer over here,” Hez said, once again walking past the excess without seeming to notice it was there. “Would you like me to stay with you, or shall I give you some privacy?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I answered with a shrug. “If you have things to do, I can find my way back to the hall.”
“Very well,” he said, pulling out the chair behind his desk for me. “Just yell if you need anything.”
He walked out, leaving me alone to figure out how to work the four monitors he had hooked up to the computer. Good lord…I barely knew how to use my MacBook.
It took me a little while to get just one monitor to do what I needed it to do, but once I did, I started trying to log in to my various sites. Unfortunately, much like phone numbers, I didn’t actually remember any of my passwords. And they all wanted to text security codes to me to reset them.
“Ugh!” I cried in frustration, banging my palms on the desk after three failed attempts to login to my email which then locked me out of my account completely.
“Is everything okay?” Hez asked, a smirk on his face as he stepped back into his office.
“No,” I answered, mortified as my voice wobbled.
“It’s okay,” he said, rushing over and resting a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. Tell me what’s happening.”
So I explained that I had managed to lock myself out of most of my accounts, and he managed not to laugh out loud at me, but I could see the humor lines creasing his face around his mouth and his eyes.
“It’s not funny,” I insisted as tears filled my gaze. “What the hell am I going to do?”
Chapter Four
~Hez~
I felt bad for finding humor in Hannah’s situation, but it was starting to feel like her entire trip was one giant comedy of errors, and it was hard not to see the humor in the situation.
“Right now,” I said, reaching out and turning off the monitor. “You’re going to come to the kitchen with me. We’ll have a nice tea and get to know each other a little better. Then you’ll go upstairs and take a nice hot bath, put on some warm pajamas and get some sleep. Things will look much better in the morning.”
“I don’t have pajamas,” she reminded me as she got to her feet. “I don’t have anything.”
“We’ll take care of all of that,” I assured her, placing my hand on the small of her back and guiding her out of the room. “You’re tired, you’ve had a stressful day, and none of this will be fixed tonight anyway.”