22 - Jocelyn
~ 22 ~
JOCELYN
I screamed, but my scream died against a big, meaty palm. Struggling was an impossibility. My attacker had me pinned tightly and helplessly against his hard body, in the sort of hold only a professional killer or martial artist might know.
Or maybe someone in the military…
“Shhhhh!” a voice hissed hotly, next to my ear. “It’s only me. Andre.”
My abject fear turned to confusion, then relief. I recognized his scent, his feel, the tattoos on the back of the hand still clamped over my mouth. That hand relaxed a little, and so did I.
“I’m going to let go of you now,” he whispered hurriedly, “but you need to keep quiet. Understand?”
“But—”
“I’m serious,” he hissed again. “Just keep quiet, and I’ll explain everything.”
I paused, nodded, and he released me. The second he did, I whirled on him.
“Andre! What the fuck?”
In the shadows of the hallway, I saw him flinch. My voice might’ve been just above a whisper, but there was no way in hell I was keeping silent.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he bemoaned, looking quickly over both shoulders. His hand closed over my wrist as he dragged me deeper into the hallway. “You’re supposed to be—”
“On a plane, eating peanuts, watching some shitty movie?” I seethed, adding a shrug. “Take it up with the weather gods.”
His gaze drifted momentarily. “The storm?”
“Bingo.”
“Fuck.”
I didn’t like the way he said fuck. It was so unlike the hundred other times I’d heard him say it.
“Look, if you guys wanted to have girls over…”
“No!” Andre hissed. “It’s not like that!”
An annoying feminine chuckle floated down the hall, right on cue. Glancing in the direction of the kitchen, I wrinkled my nose in disgust.
“Now I know why the three of you rushed me out of here this morning,” I said, shaking my head. “God, what was I thinking? I was so stupid to come back here. I should’ve stayed at the airport, or—”
“You’re not stupid,” Andre cut me off. “It’s just… we’re working now.”
I laughed bitterly. “Oh, I just saw Kayden ‘working’. He’s working hard.”
“You don’t even know what you saw,” Andre said awkwardly. “You have no idea—”
Footsteps drifted in, but this time the noise came from somewhere behind us. Almost instantly, Andre stepped in to shield me.
“The people we work for are here,” he said quickly. “And they’re dangerous, Jocelyn. Very dangerous.”
“Really?” I challenged. “The brunette in the kitchen didn’t look that dangerous. She looked pretty friendly to me, especially with her tongue jammed down Kayden’s throat.”
I was angry. Jealous. Angry that I was jealous! But the grave look on Andre’s face told me this wasn’t the time for jokes.
“You have no idea what’s about to happen over the next few days,” he said in a hushed tone. “If you did—”
“Mr. Bowman?”
It happened fast, before either of us could react. One moment we were talking, and in the next a man had materialized, seemingly from out of the shadows.
“Who’s this? ”
The man was regarding me with a mixture of alarm and disgust. He was tall and dark-looking, with a sharply-angled chin and eyes that looked through me rather than at me. And he was unfathomably dangerous. I knew this without knowing him; it was in his body language, his voice, the way he carried himself. I knew it before I even noticed the incredibly expensive outfit he wore, or the gun, holstered across his chest.
“This is Emily,” Andre said without missing a beat. “I was just going over the menu with her, actually.”
“The menu?”
“Of course,” Andre shrugged. “She’s one of the servers.”
The man’s eyes were much too small for his face. They narrowed as they focused harder, piercing me even more deeply as he pulled out a small tablet and began punching it with his stylus.
“She’s not supposed to be here until tomorrow,” the man snapped, looking up.
Andre sighed in mock exasperation. “I know.”
“Then why would she—”
“That part’s my fault,” Andre interjected quickly. “I screwed up. Turns out I gave her the wrong date.”
The man stood up a little straighter, until he was looking right down his nose at me. His presence, his aura, the way his face conveyed such grim disappointment — the whole thing gave me the chills.
“I—I’m sorry,” I apologized, playing along. “If you want me to leave, and come back—”
“Leave?” the man scoffed. “Look outside. Do you want to go back through that? ”
He pointed down the hall, at the nearest rain-soaked window. The trees at the edge of the property were swaying so hard they looked bent over.
“No,” I shrugged, trying to look miserable. “I… I just—”
“It’s a miracle you even made it here, but you may as well make yourself useful. The head chef is in the kitchen. Talk to him, see if he needs anything. In the meantime…”
The man reached into an inner pocket, and pulled out a keycard.
“Go to your room and change.”
I froze up, wholly confused, but only for a moment. When I could finally will my arms to move again, I plucked the keycard from between his long, gaunt-looking fingers. The man frowned.
“Not you,” he admonished me. “Him!”
Andre took the keycard back from me, without a word. The way he did it made me feel unnecessarily foolish.
“I’ll need to know her schedule,” the man said sternly, addressing Andre again. It was obvious by now he’d completely dismissed me. “Everywhere she goes. Everything she does.”
“It’ll all be in the itinerary,” Andre assured him. “Trust me.”
“Oh, I don’t trust you,” the man laughed, and his laughter was like nails on a chalkboard. Casually, he slipped the tablet back into his jacket pocket. “I don’t trust anyone, actually. But that’s okay. That’s how I got where I am.”
With that, he leveled a long finger at Andre’s face. I half-hoped, half-expected my lover would snap it right off.
“This isn’t okay, you know,” the man snarled. “The guests haven’t arrived, and you’ve already broken the rules!”
“I know,” said Andre. “I—I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t believe it! Even if this man was his employer, the way he was talking down to Andre was absolutely sickening. I wanted to tell him to fuck off. Very badly, I wanted to defend the man I’d just spent the most wonderful week of my life with.
But some self-preserving part of me told me to shut up.
“Just do things by the book,” the man growled. “No surprises. No more mistakes.”
Andre nodded, guiltily.
The man turned away, and in doing so looked down at my bare feet and frowned. By now, I was standing in a puddle of rainwater.
“And for fuck’s sake, get this mess cleaned up,” he grunted, before storming off.