Chapter 6
Sawyer
It was a natural instinct for me to wake up early. Even after I had been up fucking and eating pussy and ass for half the night, my eyes popped open before the crack of dawn. The void I felt told me that I was alone, although I was still in Iris’s room.
The first thing I did was roll over and grab my phone from the nightstand.
Chris had called me twice, and I had a missed call from Derrick.
I didn’t have time for either of them at the moment.
As capable as my team was, they had become reliant on having me micromanage their every move.
I admit that it was mostly my fault since I was always on them, but damn, I couldn’t even spend the night getting pussy without them on my line.
I sat up on the side of the bed and noticed the words thank you scribbled on hotel stationery.
Well, I’d be damned. I had been thanked for my services before but never on a notepad from my own business establishment.
I smiled in spite of myself as I picked up the note.
I turned around and pulled the sheets back in search of my boxers.
Once I spotted them, I grabbed them and tugged them on before I plopped down on the bed to unfold the note.
Sawyer, thank you for the perfect night. It meant more than you could ever know. For just a little while, I got to forget about what was waiting for me outside of this place. Thank you for making my last night one of the best I’ve ever had.
Z
Z? The smile on my face disappeared as I tried to decode her cryptic letter.
Who the hell was Z, and what did she mean by her last night?
Instead of beating my head up about what she could possibly have meant, I stood up and finished getting dressed.
I noticed that her overnight bag was still on the couch.
Even her heels were still near the door where she kicked them off last night.
Why leave a note if she was still here? I couldn’t make sense of it, but I had to pee like a bitch.
I was headed out, but I decided to use the bathroom in her room before I headed up to my own suite.
I swung the bathroom door, and my legs almost gave out when I spotted her naked body slumped over in the tub, halfway submerged in water.
“Iris!” I shouted as I rushed over to the side of the tub.
Two orange prescription bottles lay on the floor next to the tub as the words from her letter came flooding back into my mind. Thank you for making my last night the best I’ve ever had.
“No, no, no, baby, what did you do?”
Both the water and her body were still warm as I lifted her out of the tub and laid her body on the floor.
Thank God Nicholas made us take CPR every other year, or else I wouldn’t have known what the hell to do.
Once I had her on the floor, I checked her pulse.
I could barely feel it, but it was there.
Since she was breathing, I started chest compressions, hoping to keep her heart pumping long enough to save her.
“Come on, Iris, baby. Don’t do this to me,” I begged as I continued to press down on her chest.
After a few rounds, I checked her pulse again, and thankfully, it felt stronger.
That made me feel comfortable enough to take my hands off her.
I turned and picked up the pill bottles scattered on the floor.
I recognized one of the names from my own prescriptions.
I’d been taking an antidepressant since I was a teenager.
The other was an opioid. I tore my phone back out of my pocket and called Chris back.
“It’s about time you call me back. What if I—”
“Bring Narcan to room 726.”
“What the fuck, Saw? Do you need me to call 911?”
“Bring your ass to 726 now!” I barked.
I threw my phone, lifted Iris’s head, and shoved my fingers down her throat, hoping to make her throw up.
She gagged weakly, and I rolled her over onto her side, hoping to help facilitate her empty her stomach.
Too many minutes later, I heard pounding on the door.
Reluctantly, I left her side long enough to let Chris in the room.
“What the fuck, Sawyer?” he asked.
I didn’t have time to talk, so I snatched the vial from his hand and rushed back to the bathroom.
“Stay with me, mama. Please don’t do this to me,” I urged, holding her head still. I administered the contents of the container, making sure she inhaled it all. She gasped and coughed hard as her eyes popped open. She looked around the bathroom wildly but didn’t speak.
“What did she take, sir?”
I didn’t notice paramedics coming into the room until they were pulling me away from her and getting on the floor.
“I don’t know. These, I guess. I found these bottles on the floor,” I said, holding up the pill bottles as they crowded around her and went to work.
Suddenly, I was aware of Iris’s nakedness. I snatched a towel down from the rack.
“Cover her the fuck up!” I ordered, shoving the towel between them. I hated to see her lying there helpless and naked in front of a room full of men.
“We got it, sir. Let us make sure she’s stable first.”
“I don’t want to hear that shit. Cover her the fuck up.”
One of them took the towel and draped it over her naked breasts as they continued to work. Standing to my full height, I put my hands on my head, pacing back and forth as I wondered what the hell was going on right now.
“She’s stable. We have to move her, Mr. Ash,” one of them told me.
“Where are you taking her?” I asked them.
“She needs to go to the hospital.”
“Which hospital? I’m going,” I decided.
“Do you have any information about her? Her next of kin or anything?”
“I looked through her things. Her ID says her name is Iris Bonner. She’s here from Texas,” Chris mentioned as he passed me my phone.
“Texas?” I mumbled.
“OK, let me have that,” one of them said, accepting the ID.
Seconds later, they had her on the stretcher headed for the elevator, with me right behind them.
“Sir, you can’t come on.” One of the paramedics held his hand up to me before I could follow them in.
“The hell if I can’t. This is my fucking hotel.”
“There’s no room. I don’t want it too crowded in case we have to move around.”
“Fine,” I said, taking a step back and reluctantly letting them go down without me.
As I waited on my own elevator, I texted Nicholas to let him know that I was out for the day. I would explain later, not that he wouldn’t already know what happened by the time we talked.
“Chris, I need you to hold it down for a while. Have Derrick help you keep things in check,” I told him as the elevator doors slid closed.
For as long as I could remember, I hated hospitals.
The lights were too bright. It smelled like industrial cleaners.
Everything moved fast, but time didn’t seem to matter to anyone but the sick or the people waiting on news about their loved ones.
Dawn came, bringing daylight creeping through the dingy waiting room windows.
The sitting area filled and emptied, and yet I still waited.
The emergency staff had only spoken with me briefly.
I’d told them that Iris was my fiancée; otherwise, they wouldn’t have told me what little they had.
I couldn’t tell them that we’d just met last night, and I had no idea how to get in contact with her next of kin.
Chris hadn’t even been able to find a cell phone in her room.
Who the hell didn’t carry a cell phone in this day and age?
He hadn’t been able to find any information on her or anyone connected to her.
It didn’t matter who he could find. As far as I was concerned, I was her next of kin.
At least for the time being, she was my responsibility.
I was with her when it happened, and I wouldn’t be able to rest until I found out how she was doing.
Another hour ticked by before I stood to stop the doctor on call as he left from updating another family.
“Can I get an update on Iris Bonner?” I requested.
“She’s still heavily sedated, but it’s a good thing you knew to use that Narcan, or we might be having a different conversation.”
“When can I see her?” I asked him.
“They’re still working on her. Give us a little more time.”
If somebody else said something about time, I was probably going to lose it.
I needed to know that she was good. More than anything, I needed to see where her mental state was.
They might have had all the time in the world, but I didn’t have time.
I’d only gotten one night with her before she decided that she didn’t want to be here anymore.
Iris didn’t want more time, not with me, not with anyone.
That didn’t mean she didn’t deserve it. I just needed her to be OK so I could help convince her that whatever was plaguing her, whatever she thought was too much to live with, wasn’t enough for her to end her life.
I needed to help her. I was used to being able to solve problems. I didn’t like having to wait for someone to tell me when something was taken care of. I hated waiting.
Another hour passed. Missed calls and text messages continued to pile up.
Derrick had called me twice, although I left Chris in charge.
Even he had to call to have me approve a code change for the computer system.
Nicholas called worried about ramifications of someone attempting suicide in the hotel.
Thanks to Nicholas, even Reed reached out to see if he needed to conduct a press release.
I needed the situation to stay under wraps.
I could only imagine how humiliated Iris would be if it got out to the public. Reed promised to make sure there was nothing in the news about it, even if he had to bribe the paramedics that picked her up. We agreed that they were most likely to leak the story.
“Mr. Ash,” one of the nurses said as she walked out to the waiting room holding a clipboard.
I stood immediately and walked over to her.
“Ms. Bonner is awake, but she’s very groggy.
The doctors are considering an involuntary forty-eight hour hold in the psychiatric department, depending on her evaluation, but you can speak with her now.
I ask that you don’t overwhelm or bombard her with a bunch of questions.
She’s been through quite a traumatic experience. ”
“I got it.” I nodded. I didn’t care about any of that. I just needed to know she was OK.