Page 44 of Burn

“Okay, well, come by then.”

Closing my laptop, I stand from my chair and follow Izzy out of my office. She’s quick to take a left and head toward the spa entrance at the end of the hall, and I watch her walk away. She reminds me of a librarian with the way she dresses—if librarians shaved the side of their head and had a nose ring and a tattoo from their hip all the way to the side of their neck.

Smiling, I sigh and limp toward the elevators in the east wing. I’m starving and need to find food. I also need to find Scarlet and kick her ass for telling on me.

I head downstairs to the employee breakroom, assuming that’s where I’ll find her. She’s usually in there lying on the couch when she doesn’t have rooms to clean. Or should I say when she doesn’t feel like cleaning rooms.

WHENEVER I WALK around the hotel, people watch me. Being the owner’s daughter, most of them are terrified of me and think if they look at me wrong, I’m going to fire them.

Then you have managers like Heather and Larry who hate me and don’t care if I can get them fired or not. Their mission in life is to get me out of the hotel.

It’s the same when I walk inside the employee breakroom on the lower level. About half the employees kiss my ass, the others stare at me like I’m an alien misplaced on the wrong planet.

With my second coffee of the day in hand, I find Scarlet is in fact on the couch eating a bag of pretzels and talking to Tom.

When she notices me walk in, Scarlet hits Tom in the stomach.

He coughs, hunching over on the couch next to her. “Why’d you do that?”

“Give that to Judah, from Mila.” She’s panicking, and sadly Tom is usually the one who gets the short stick on Scarlet’s odd behavior.

He blinks a few times, looks at me and then Scarlet like he can’t believe she just did that. “I’m not Judah.”

“You’re the closest thing to him.”

Rolling up the sleeves of his gray shirt, he shakes his head at her and moves away about a foot. “Whatever.”

I slap Scarlet on the shoulder. “Why’d you tell Izzy about the other night?”

Scarlet’s eyes widen. “I forgot it was a secret.”

“Damn it, Scar. You know I’m scared of Izzy, and now she’s lecturing me on what I should and shouldn’t do.”

Tossing her pretzel bag in the garbage beside the couch, she shrugs. “Well stop confiding in her, and she won’t feel the need to counsel you.”

Scarlet does have a point. Before Izzy wanted to be a massage therapist, she went to school for psychology. If you ask me, the two go together perfectly because the things people tell their massage therapist should be confidential and most of the time border on the need for a self-help session. Or maybe that’s just me. The moment those hands touch my back, I spill everything to Izzy, including how awful my boyfriends is, or was.

Sighing, I reach into my pocket for my ringing phone. It never stops during the day. “Just don’t tell her anything.” I peek down at the number to see it’s Larry. I send it to voice mail. “If I want her to know, I will.”

Scarlet reaches for her apron on the back of the couch, smacking Tom with it as she pulls the ties around her waist. “Fine, I won’t.” And then she grins, giving me a head nod. “What time does Shade check in tomorrow?”

“No idea. He never gives a time.” I don’t think Shade Sawyer even knows how to tell time. If it wasn’t for his assistant telling him where to be and when, he’d walk around lost. Let’s just hope for his sake Willa, his assistant, doesn’t get tired of his ass and find a new job because I’m almost certain he pays her a million dollars a year to put up with his shit. If not, he should.

Scarlet leaves and Tom watches her and cranes his neck forward to get my attention. “What’s with this Shade Sawyer guy everyone’s freaking out about?”

“He’s a VIP.”

“VIP of what though?”

I have to laugh. Tom thinks he’s a VIP of a company, not a VIP guest. I also have to laugh because Tom’s met Shade like fifteen times in the four years he’s been staying at our hotel. Tom can’t remember yesterday though, so I don’t hold this against his pretty face. “No, Tom, he’s famous. VIP guest of the hotel. He races motocross and does freestyle stunt stuff. He’s won like the X-Games or something a few times.”

He seems impressed, which is hard to do with Tom. He doesn’t show much emotion unless he’s confused. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

Tom nods to the door Scarlet just left out of. “That’s the guy Scar’s in love with, right?”

“You mean obsessed with?”

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