Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Icouldn’t fucking take it anymore.
All evening, I’d had to watch Halle smile and flirt with other men, and I was at my limit. I wasn’t thinking rationally. I was only thinking of getting to her.
My smile was tight as I crossed the room, my fists clenched.
I tried to bypass the crowd, annoyed every time someone stopped me to wish me congratulations.
I wasn’t sure what they were congratulating me on—becoming CEO or the fact that I’d stood up onstage like a piece of meat and someone had purchased an evening with me.
I just needed to…
Someone blocked my path, and I was two seconds away from losing my shit. The auction was taking an intermission, and if Wyatt Anderson didn’t get his hands off Halle, I was going to explode.
I didn’t care that he was the owner of the Hollywood Hawks, LA’s NHL team. Nor did I care that the Huxley Grand was the official hotel for the team. I saw red, and the word “mine” went screaming through my head.
Finally, I made it over to her, barely acknowledging Wyatt before saying, “Excuse us. Urgent matter.”
I hooked my arm through Halle’s, ushering her through the crowd. There were people everywhere. On the balcony. In the hallway. Fuck!
“Jasper,” Halle hissed. “What on—”
I searched for an escape. There. Down the hall was a stairwell. I pushed open the door, the music and laughter echoing into the concrete chamber. I gestured for Halle to go ahead, the door shutting behind us.
“What is going on?” Halle asked as soon as we were alone. “What’s wrong?”
“I—” Oh shit. I really hadn’t thought this through. I started pacing. All I’d wanted was to get Halle away from Wyatt Anderson and every other man in the room who’d dared to lay eyes on her tonight. I should’ve been more prepared. I should’ve—
“Jasper?” She gripped my arm to pause my movements. “Is it Sloan? The baby? Is everything okay?”
Now I really felt awful. I hadn’t meant to worry Halle. I just… I shook my head, my thoughts a jumbled mess.
“You lost,” I blurted the first thing that came to mind. “You weren’t supposed to lose.”
Her lips were in a flat line. She was unamused, and now that I realized just how close we were, her perfume was fucking distracting. Part of it was the fact that she smelled delicious. The other part was my aggravation that I still couldn’t put my finger on the scent profile.
Roses. Vetivier? Or maybe ylang-ylang. And something else.
I couldn’t focus. This was a problem.
Whatever her scent was, it was intoxicating. I wanted to kiss that spot behind her ear where the scent was strongest. I wanted to draw it in deep and hold it in my lungs to sustain me.
No. No. I smoothed a hand down my shirt, trying to get my head on straight.
I was focused on my goals. I was focused on… Fuck me, she was gorgeous. Like a movie siren from the golden age of Hollywood. Her hair. Her gown. It was maddening.
But even more than all that, it was the way she carried herself. She was a fucking queen, and everyone had been captivated by her tonight. All the while, I’d had to stand across the room and pretend to give a fuck about anything as I watched other men hit on her.
“You dragged me in here, interrupting my conversation—so you could berate me for losing?” She scoffed.
Well, when she put it that way, it did sound pretty ridiculous. But apparently, she wasn’t done.
She planted her hands on her hips. “You asked me to find a way to bid on you. You never said you wanted me to win.”
I groaned, dragging a hand down my face. “Of course I wanted you to win.” Even if she’d been using someone else as her proxy.
Halle crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the wall. “Then you should’ve said so.”
The music thumped through the door, only slightly muted by the thick concrete walls of the stairwell. I’d avoided her for weeks, but I was at my breaking point. And tonight had finally pushed me over the edge.
I threw my hands in the air. “Why else would I have asked you to bid on me?”
“I don’t know. I figured you wanted to make things interesting and start a bidding war. It’d be good for the charity and your vanity, right?”
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Was that truly what she thought? That I was so self-absorbed that I cared how high the bidding went for an evening with me? Jesus.
Apparently, I had some work to do when it came to my image with Halle. Yes, I’d played to the crowd when I’d been onstage. But fuck me, did she really believe that was who I was? It stung…to think she didn’t know me as well as I thought she did.
And then it dawned on me. Her irritation. Her…digs.
I pushed, grinning as I took a step forward. “You’re jealous.”
“Jealous?” she scoffed. “No.” But her chest flushed with color, and victory thrummed through my veins. She was, wasn’t she?
I found myself wanting to push her. Break her. Until she spilled open and admitted the truth—she wanted me. Just like I wanted her.
“You were jealous,” I pushed.
Her cheeks pinkened—anger or desire, I couldn’t be quite sure. Her chest was heaving, her tits nearly spilling over the top of her gown. Jesus. I knew I shouldn’t look, but I also couldn’t look away.
“Enough.” She briefly dropped her head to her chest. “Enough. I can’t keep doing this with you. First Dimitri and now Wyatt? You have to stop, Jasper. Please.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and it was the “please” that nearly broke me.
She was right. God, she was right.
I was doing the exact opposite of what I’d promised—to myself, to Halle. And I’d been trying, damn it. For weeks now, I’d been doing my best to treat her just like I would any other employee.
“I’m sorry.” I ran a hand over my head as I took a step back. “You’re right.” I wasn’t being fair. I wasn’t respecting her boundaries. But it was damn near impossible when I knew we belonged together. I just needed her to see that too.
“I should go.” She hesitated a moment then sighed, her shoulders dropping as some of the fight went out of her.
She turned and reached for the door handle. But when she pushed down on it, nothing happened. She cursed under her breath then tried again, jerking on the handle a few times.
“Need some help?” I offered, only slightly amused by her predicament. The other part was hurt that she couldn’t seem to get away from me fast enough yet again.
She tried one more time before stepping aside with a heavy sigh. I pushed on the handle, only to discover it was locked. I tried a second time, thinking it must be some mistake. But it wasn’t. And the handle didn’t budge.
I held up my phone to the security panel, hoping my room key would unlock it. Nothing happened. The sensor stayed red. The lock remained engaged.
I squeezed my eyes shut briefly. “The door’s locked.”
She stepped forward, nudging me aside. “It can’t be.” She jiggled the handle, but nothing happened. She kept trying anyway, as if by sheer force of will, she would be able to free us.
I checked my phone. No service. Shit.
“Fine,” she huffed, blowing some of her hair out of her face. “We’ll just…”
“Call someone?” I held up my phone and shook my head. “I don’t have any reception. The walls must be too thick.”
She removed her phone from a pocket hidden in the folds of her dress, her movements frantic. She peered down at her screen and cringed. “Okay, so, we’ll just bang on the door until someone hears us.”
I leaned back against the concrete wall and crossed my arms over my chest. “Good luck with that.”
“You’re not even going to try? We can’t just…sit here and do nothing.”
“The music’s too loud for anyone to hear us. All it will do is wear us out.” I surveyed up and down the stairwell. “I’ll try the other doors.” There had to be ten floors. Fuck me.
“Okay,” Halle said. “I’ll stay here and see if I can do anything about the lock.”
I removed my jacket and draped it over the railing. And then I started my descent. I tried the first door with no success; I had a feeling they’d all be locked.
“Any luck?” Halle called down to me, her voice echoing off the concrete.
I leaned over the railing. “Not yet.”
“Keep trying,” she gritted out.
I went to another level and another. When I finally reached the ground floor, I pushed on the crash bar, expecting it to open. It gave a little squeak of protest, but it barely budged. The door remained firmly shut.
“The fuck.” I pushed at it again, ultimately deciding to kick it.
“Jasper?” Halle called down. “Are you okay?”
I moved so that I could peer up at her. She seemed so far away. “I’m fine. Just trying to kick the door open.”
“Be careful,” she said.
I attempted a few more times, finally admitting defeat and sinking down on the step. Fuck.
I was ten flights down and still no closer to getting us out of this mess. By this point, I’d shed my bow tie, loosened the top buttons of my shirt, and rolled up my sleeves. I took a deep breath and stood. I climbed the stairs until I was sweating, only to end up back where I’d started.
Halle was sitting on the steps, her shoes on the floor beside her. She perked up when she saw me. “Any luck?”
I shook my head. “The ground floor should be unlocked. This is a fire escape, and it should allow us to exit to the outside.”
She grimaced. “It should be, but it isn’t?”
I nodded. “I’ll definitely be demanding answers as soon as we get out of here. And I’m going to have Jackson ask the security team to run checks at all our other locations. This can’t happen again.”
“I bet Jackson would know how to get out of here.” She glared at the door as if her gaze alone would burn a hole through it and allow us to escape. “Apparently it’s more difficult to pick a lock than TV shows and movies would have you believe.”
I laughed despite the absurdity of the situation, or perhaps because of it. “Yeah. I’m surprised the old credit card trick didn’t work,” I joked.
I didn’t mention that Jackson would probably shoot the lock with his gun.