Page 3 of His Curvy Temptation

The horrified look on the receptionist’s face confirms this.

“Oh my goodness,” she says, standing to her feet. “Let me get you a towel!”

“Thank you,” I gasp, leaning the folding table against the wall.

Her heels click against the floor as she crosses the room, handing me a fluffy warm towel that she produced from seemingly nowhere. I pat my face dry first, swiping it beneath my eyes to clean up my makeup, and then wring my dripping wet hair out as best as I can.

“It’s really coming down out there,” the receptionist murmurs. “Unbelievable, after the drought we had.”

I grunt in reply, now patting my clothes to try to mop up some of the water on my scrubs. It’s useless at some point though, because I am thoroughly saturated. The top half of my shirt in particular is so wet that the white fabric clings to my skin, slightly transparent and revealing my white bra underneath.

My humiliation complete, I hand the towel back to the receptionist with a thank you.

“Elevator’s over there, and you’ll need a code to be able to take it to the seventeenth floor,” she says, writing a code down on a sticky note and handing it to me.

“Thanks,” I say, picking up the travel table. “And thanks again for the towel. You’re a lifesaver.”

She smiles.

With my hair out of my face, I can finally look around and take in my surroundings. The lobby is luxurious, outfitted with sleek black marble tile and deep green wallpaper. The elevator doors are bronze and they open with a ding to welcome me inside, the interior mirrored and just as opulent as the reception area behind me.

I find the keypad to the elevator and enter the code with shaky fingers, still shivering slightly from the cold rain. The elevator doors close with another ding and I ascend, going directly to the seventeenth floor without any stops in between.

When the elevator doors open again, I’m let out into an equally luxurious room. Same matching black tile from the reception area below, but now with charcoal gray walls that give the space a foreboding aura — more like a villain’s lair or the Bat-cave than the office of a stuffy businessman.

Great floor to ceiling windows line the wall opposite of the elevator, and in front of the windows sits a massive wooden desk with a black leather chair behind it.

There is no name tag on the desk, no label anywhere announcing my location. But the sheer opulence and grand scale of the room say it all; there’s no doubt that I’m in the right place, the office of the one and only Elijah Stone, a man who I was told is very important andverywealthy.

But..where the hell is he?

“Hello?” I call out as I step into the vast, unoccupied office.

My shoes are still wet, squeaking loudly as I take clumsy, lopsided steps. I’m so tired from the trip over here that I have no idea where I’m going to find the strength to give a ninety minute deep tissue massage. All I want to do is change into some clean dry clothes and curl up in bed.

“Hello?” I say again.

Annoyance pricks at the back of my neck. After going to all of this trouble just to make his precious traveling massage appointment happen, he’s not even here. We could have canceled, and I’d be back at the spa right now instead of in this deserted office, tending to my loyal regulars who were disappointed that I had to move their appointments to another day.

On the wall to the left there’s a brown tufted sofa. I wobble over to it and sit down, letting the traveling massage table rest against my knees.

How long do I stay and wait before leaving?

I text Tricia, but she doesn’t respond. The only other person I could call is Nick…and I’ll be damned if I’m calling my boss to talk about this. I’d probably get yelled at just for bothering him.

I glance at my watch. It’s nearly a quarter past four. At this rate, I’ll probably have to go directly home after this appointment since The Angel Spa locks its doors at six on Wednesdays.

Sighing loudly, I pass the time on my phone for a while, answering an email from my professor and then scrolling mindlessly through social media.

As if I needed any help with my bad mood, a post from Deepti slides into view on my screen. She’s got her arms wrapped around a sullen-looking man with a heavy brow, and she’s grinning from ear to ear. A pair of bedazzled mouse ears is atop her head and she’s tagged her location:Disney World, Orlando, Florida.

Of course.

She’s somewhere warm and sunny taking photos with Mickey Mouse and eating ice cream with her man-of-the-month while I’m here covering her appointment, rain-soaked and freezing to the bone.

Beneath the photo she’s written a caption.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. I love you, Aiden! Thank you for being my partner in crime. #yolo

---