Hotel Indigo (24 page)

I’m failing miserably. In trying to defend myself, I sound like I’m bragging.
 

I’m sorry; this hot woman couldn’t keep her hands off me because I’m so hunky. Poor me; please forgive me for my abject awesomeness.
 

I’ve never felt such performance anxiety. I feel like I’m on the spot and this is my one and only chance to get it right. This is worse than my fear of public singing. I’m sweating, and not just from my sprint across the hotel.
 

“Look, I was about to bolt out of there. I just remembered I didn’t text you back and was trying to do it when she … shit, she
grabbed
me, Lucy. I wasn’t going to let her get away with it.” The scene rushes through my mind while an invisible timer ticks, and I suddenly see the scene the way Lucy must have. Not only was Jill peeking into my shorts — not only was I hard — but she was nude, knees open, pussy probably dripping.
 

If it were me getting this message, and our positions were reversed, I wouldn’t believe it.
Oh, I’m sorry, Marco … I tripped and accidentally impaled myself on his cock!
But there’s nothing I can do about it now.
 

“Please just call me, Lucy. I need to see you. Booth told me that you extended your stay. I’ve been thinking all morning. And I wanted to ask you about—”

I’m interrupted by a beep — Lucy’s voicemail reaching its limit and cutting me off.
 

I think about calling back, but there isn’t any point.
 

I need to see her. Look her in the eye and make her believe me.

I pace the lobby for five minutes, keeping the elevators in sight just in case she decides to come down. She doesn’t. The elevator dings a few times, and each time I look over. But twice it’s other people and once the car arrives empty to taunt me. I prowl, see a few people eye me then move away. I must look like a predator hunting for prey.
 

I need to see her.
 

I spy the front desk. Kendall is arriving behind it, having come from out front.
 

I march over.
 

“Kendall.” My authoritative voice slips a notch as I realize I can’t threaten her into this. She’s good people. If I appeal to her kindly, I’ll have a better chance. So, more softly, I say, “I need you to do me a favor. I need you to unlock the elevator so it’ll go up to the Emperor Suite.”
 

“Okay.” Then, as a purely secondary consideration — more curiosity than suspicion — Kendall says, “Why?”

“I need to see Lucy.” I swallow. “Lucy White.”
 

Kendall’s face becomes unreadable. Her smile fades and turns into something else. Her eyes sort of dodge away, her face cloudy.
 

“What?” I ask.
 

“Lucy White rode away in a limo.” She nods toward the front doors. “Just now … with a guy I’d
swear
I’ve seen somewhere before.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

L
UCY

“I
T
’
S
GOOD
TO
SEE
YOU
,” Hunter says.
 

I try on a smile. Hunter is at his best today, as if he’s putting on a show to please me. The limousine is as nice as Caspian’s, and I’ve heard his private copter is even better. His suit probably cost nearly five figures. There’s no alcohol on his breath, or twitch in his eyes. He’s all charm, his smile wide. It’d be easy, seeing him now, to believe this handsome man from the cover of
Rolling Stone
isn’t the sad, screwed-up mess I know Hunter Altman to be.
 

“You look nice,” he says.
 

“Thanks.”
 

There’s another long silence. If Hunter can’t see that there’s something very wrong inside my head right now, he’s blind. This isn’t a date, even if part of him hopes it might become one. I love Hunter as a person despite his many faults, but I’d never,
ever
go out with him. Too many issues. He’s hung up on some girl from his past whose backstory I’ve never fully heard, and screwing his way through San Francisco’s most gorgeous women in an attempt to forget her. It hurts to see.
 

People think Hunter is an insufferable asshole when not mugging for the cameras, and it’s true. But there are actually three Hunters, and I best know the one at the core of the other two, like the smallest in a set of Russian nesting dolls. The only thing worse than seeing him protect his tender core with sex and drugs is seeing him now, feeling sorry for me.
 

I don’t want Hunter’s pity. I’m not even sure why I’m here. Accepting his invitation seemed like a good idea while crying in my suite, because his call caught me at my weakest moment. He offered an ear, and in those seconds I wanted it. So I unlocked the elevator and took it downstairs to meet him, realizing just in time that Marco would probably be in the lobby waiting. I pressed another button and got off on the second floor instead, then took the fire stairs and left through the side entrance. But I didn’t want the spectacle Hunter brought to the Indigo’s front door. Kendall Sharpe practically held it for me before Hunter’s driver could, and I can only imagine what she’ll tell Marco about the splendor and wealth she saw.

Fuck Marco
.
Fuck what she tells him. You’re not going to do anything with Hunter, but let him assume that you will. Marco got his jollies with that woman in the cabana, didn’t he? So he can choke on them for all I care
.
 

But as the thought rolls by and Hunter stays blessedly silent, I wonder at my ire. Why am I thinking such hateful thoughts? But I understand fine, no matter how much I try to pretend.
 

I’ve fallen for Marco. That wasn’t our deal, but I did it all the same.
 

“Lucy,” Hunter says, “are you okay?”
 

“I’m fine.”
 

“Something’s wrong. I could tell on the phone.”
 

“It’s nothing, Hunter.” And because I truly don’t want him to drag it out of me, I force a smile, taking pains to spoof something that feels genuine before turning from the view to face him. It’s impossible, but I do my best. Something in me very much wants to wallow. To discuss this. To talk about all the ways that I’m right and Marco was wrong.

I give Hunter the best look I can manage. Then, wondering more than ever why I allowed him to pick me up (if he’s not a substitute for Anna’s consolation, what is he?), I say, “Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about you. You said you wanted to see me.”
 

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “I was in town anyway.”
 

“Okay,” I say.
 

“I’ve got a meeting Saturday in Austin with Nathan Turner — the founder of Learn.It? Do you know him?”
 

I shake my head.
 

“Nathan’s been bothering me for weeks about getting together. Has something important he wants to discuss. He talked to Caspian about it already, but I guess I’m about to get my own briefing. Daniel Rice, too. Anyway, Nathan’s in Las Orillas, so Inferno was an easy side trip.”
 

I don’t comment. I’ve been riding on the wings of rich people since GameStorming blew up, but I’m only well-off myself. For me, a trip like Las Orillas to Inferno Falls isn’t a jaunt barely worth mention. For li’l old Lucy White, something like that still requires buying a plane ticket. I won’t let Caspian send me hither and yon in his jet like he wants to.
 

“It’s a nice place,” Hunter says. “Inferno Falls.”

“Hunter …” And I give him a look that says,
Inferno Falls is hip these days, but nobody skips down here from Las Orillas to smell the flowers in Old Town’s square. You came for a reason. So whatever’s on your mind, stop stalling and spit it out.

“You know I’ve always respected your opinion.” It’s only half a statement, so I wait through a long pause while he gathers himself enough to say the rest. “I guess I just …” Another sigh. “Wanted to talk.”

He’s not telling me the whole truth, or preparing not to. I can see it in his shuffling, distracted manner. It reminds me of how he’s been on the phone while drunk or high, when he dials me and does the medicated version of what he’s not quite doing right now. This is the edge of that thing from his past again, I can feel it. Something he’s been wrestling with the entire time I’ve known him.
 

“About what, Hunter?”

“Do you have any regrets?”
 

“Of course I do. Everyone does.”

“Do you ever consider turning around to fix the things you’re most sorry about?”
 

A lot of my regrets involve my father, who’s dead now. So the truest answer is no. But because this isn’t the counsel Hunter is wanting, I nod — more to indicate understanding than a
Yes
. “Is this about Angela?”
 

Hunter’s head snaps toward me. Obviously the answer is
yes
, but he seems shocked that I’ve guessed it.
 

The limo pulls to a stop before he can answer. We’ve arrived, right at the Hilton’s front door. But what’s outside isn’t quite right — not like the way normal people arrive at normal hotels. There’s a party waiting to greet us, like I imagine house staff lining up to welcome a returning lord to his mansion.
 

“Who is she, Hunter?”
 

“A girl.”
 

“Obviously. But you’ve never had problems with women that I’ve seen.” This is both an understatement and an outright lie. Hunter always has girls hanging all over him, and the tabloids say they’re always running into bathrooms and closets to perform various sloppy deeds. But despite the number of willing females hanging off Hunter’s crotch, to say he’s “never had problems” is so false as to be laughable. He treats them all like garbage, and the ones with spines treat him horribly back. More than once, Hunter’s nearly been arrested for a domestic disturbance someone mistook for a fight, when it was only angry and extremely acrobatic sex.
 

“This was different,” he says.
 

The driver’s outside my door, but turned to shoo someone trying to approach the limo. I barely see it. I’m too focused on Hunter’s haunting use of the past tense: “This
was
different.” Why don’t I know Hunter’s past? Caspian’s only told me that he was dirt poor, and even more of an asshole and fighter. But that isn’t the behavior I see in Hunter now. It’s something else.
 

And it makes me think — it makes me
know
, somehow — that if I tell him what happened with Marco, he’d listen without judgment and would even try to help. Because as impossible as it is to believe, Hunter Altman has a soft side. It’s been covered in scabs and armor, but this unfolding story about the mysterious One Who Got Away tells me so much.
 

I want to know more. “Tell me.”
 

Hunter looks at the people around us. They’ve grown in number while the limo’s been sitting under the hotel’s entrance. “I’ll tell you if we can get up to my room unscathed. And, of course, if you’ll tell me.”
 

“I don’t have anything to tell,” I say.

My phone rings. When I take it out, Hunter sees that the call is from someone named Marco, he sees how quickly I decline the call, and he must see how my face looks afterward.

“Liar,” Hunter says as the press arrives, and cameras flash outside.