Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
HECTOR
Grinding my teeth together, I stormed out of my office at Radiant. I had searched all over Pittsburgh tonight just to find Heather. I had gone to her apartment, made it past the security guard, and banged on her door multiple times. Only for no response.
None.
She was taunting me, and she knew it.
“Where the fuck is she?” I growled underneath my breath, heading for Michelle’s office.
She hadn’t answered any of my calls or texts either.
“Have you seen Heather?” I asked Michelle, walking into her room without a knock.
“Who?” she asked, glancing up from the pile of Plaything Co. sex toys on her desk.
The girl I was with yesterday. Has she returned?
A small smirk crossed her face. “Why? Do you like her?”
“You’re so annoying,” I snapped, storming out of her office and down the hallway toward the coatroom. I didn’t know how Steven put up with her bullshit any of the time because I tried to stay away from her as much as I could.
But running a business together made that hard.
After I shrugged on my coat, I headed straight for the front exit. I wasn’t going to wait around here while Heather did God knew fucking what with God knew fucking who. She had made that comment yesterday that all she wanted to do was lose her virginity to me.
But I wasn’t letting her off that easily. Wasn’t going to let another man fuck her.
Screw that. She was mine.
Bracing myself for the fall chill, I shoved my shoulder into the door and bumped into Heather heading into Radiant. With her arms crossed over her chest and her head down, she muttered an apology and continued through the door.
Before she could get anywhere, I snatched her chin and forced her to look up at me. “Where have you been?—”
Tears.
She stared up at me through glossy eyes, her chin wrinkled, as if she had been just crying or trying to hold herself together. My eyes widened, and I loosened my grip on her chin, gently tilting her face so I could see it better in the light.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Heather.”
After gritting her teeth at me, she shoved my hand away. “I said, nothing happened.”
Who did this to you? I growled, anger rushing through me.
“Nobody did anything, Hector!” she exclaimed. “I’m here to fuck you, then leave.”
Nostrils flaring—because nobody ever wanted to just fuck and most wanted me for the money Steven, Michelle, and I had inherited from our parents—I snapped my hand around her wrist and pulled her inside Radiant to get out of the cold.
Get off me, she growled, shoving me away again.
And while, any other time, I would’ve pinned her to the wall and forced her bratty mouth to apologize, I couldn’t quite get into the headspace. She had been crying and wouldn’t tell me why. She’d straight-up refused that it had even happened.
“You have fucking tears in your eyes,” I said. “What happened?”
While I d loved those tears last night, I was fuming at the thought of them now.
“Maybe someone face-fucked me as hard as you had last night,” she snarled. “Drop it. Why do you even care?”
Why do I care?
“I’m not going to drop it, Heather,” I said, ignoring her question. “And I’m not fucking you again unless you tell me what’s going on.”
She glared up at me through teary eyes, her stare becoming angrier and angrier by the second. And then, all of a sudden, her bottom lip quivered, and she burst out into tears. She slammed the side of her fist against my chest. Why not?
“Because you’re a mess.”
After her eyes widened, the tears spilling out of them, she twirled around and marched back toward the exit. All I wanted was to relax, and you have to be an asshole, she gritted out. I ll be a mess elsewhere with someone else.
Before she could slip out that door, I grabbed her wrist again. Yet instead of letting me pull her into the club, she continued to march right out the door and onto the sidewalk in the middle of the freezing fall breeze.
“Get off me,” she said, but made no move to push me away. “I’m going home.”
“No.”
What do you mean, no? she asked. You don t get to make decisions for me.
“I do when I know that you won’t be able to drive home straight.”
If she left like this and got into a car accident, Jacob would never forgive me.
At least, that was what I told myself that this was all because of my relationship with Heather s father and not because she had done something to me last night. Not because I had always looked forward to business dinners with Jacob s family just so I could see her. Not because I d only really ended up attending Jacob s family s Christmas parties for her.
“Have you eaten dinner yet?” I asked, continuing forward to my car parked on the side.
“No.”
I glanced back at her. “Heather, it’s almost ten.”
Yeah, well I haven t had time.
“What’ve you been doing?”
“Crying. Now, will you get off me so I can go home?”
She dug her heels into the ground, so I released her wrist and turned around to face her.
“You’re coming with me so I can make you dinner. And you’re not going to whine about it.”
The brattiness suddenly stopped, and she furrowed her brows. You re going to make me dinner? she repeated, almost surprised.
“Yes.” I held out my hand for her to take. “Now, come with me.”
I waited and I waited and I waited. And then she finally placed her hand in mine.
“Fine, but only because I’m hungry. Then, I’m going home.”
“Sure.”
But she wasn’t going to leave without telling me who had made her cry.
I would make sure of it.