Page 215 of Powerhouse: Boxed Set
“For real,” I said. “Greater priorities.”
“Shit with Trenton?”
I didn’t lie. I never lie. “Other shit that needs sorting.”
He knew me so fucking well. I heard it in his voice as he sighed. “You still caught up with that Constantine girl? Please tell me you’re not caught up with Elaine.”
“Enjoy your night,” I told him again, then hung up.
I didn’t answer when he called back, just put my phone on mute and stared up at that window. I wanted to see her. I wanted to hear her short breaths and feel her fear. Surely she’d leave. Surely she’d head on out somewhere on a Friday evening and allow the cat another tease with his paws, but no. My time was wasted. She didn’t leave her place again that night.
Elliot called me again on Saturday morning, when I’d finally gathered enough sanity to head back to my own apartment for a shower. I tried to keep my tone regular as I answered him.
“Early damn call,” I said. “Calling to give me an update on your pussy exploits?”
“Don’t even try to change the subject,” he barked, and this time his voice was tense as hell.
“What subject?” I asked. “You haven’t even said anything.”
“You know exactly why the fuck I’m calling.”
I laughed. “And you know it’s none of your fucking business,” I said, and he scoffed at me.
“Sure. Call me when you want some sense pushed into that skull of yours.” He hung up.
I doubted I’d be calling him anytime soon.
Elaine didn’t move through Saturday. I kept my eye on her tracker location, but this time it was from my office at Morelli Holdings, fighting back my own sweep of paranoia that she’d headed out without her clutch.
I forced myself to stay away from her, checking up on the business shit with that tracker beeping in the same place like a lodestone.
That evening I had a dinner with my parents. It would be the perfect time to parade some heiress in front of them, to show my father that he would lose.
But I canceled our evening together. One simple text.
Working tonight. Dinner another day.
I didn’t bother checking the replies. I wasn’t interested in what they had to say.
There was only one thing I was interested in. Elaine Constantine’s calendar. I knew what was brewing for her tonight.Tristan.
I knew where the venue was. Spirit Club—another downtown dive and another shitty Blue Hawk gig with Tristan chasing dick, no doubt.
I didn’t use my chauffeur for the journey this time.
My cab pulled up at Spirit Club when the gig was barely started. I’d known what was coming. This time I needed no guest list pass to get past the doormen, but I did need to go through a security sweep for signs of firearms or weapons. It felt damn fucking strange to be patted down by loser doormen, their hands so damn close to my flesh.
I already knew my plan for being there and found myself a position deep in the shadows at the sidelines, safely out of view of my pretty blonde mouse when she arrived.
It was a good thirty minutes later when I first saw her on the opposite side of the dancefloor, hanging off Tristan’s arm with a smile on her face. The big, bright smile of hers was superficial enough to make me smile. She was flinching every time someone brushed up close, spinning to face them with wide open eyes.
She was scared. Really fucking scared.
My stare was firmly on her as the gig started up and her gaze shot up to the stage. It was that jerk up there again, the brute with a roar of a voice that sounded like shit, only it wasn’t his voice that I hated tonight. It was him.
It was the way my sweet little mouse was staring up at him.
Nothing could deny it, even though she was getting drunk on beer, and gin, and whatever the fuck else Tristan was delivering to her. There was no way to avoid seeing the obvious.
