Page 27 of Tempt Me
“Rue Di’Castello?” I ask the woman at the front desk.
Her fearful look is curious, but I guess she knows who Rue is at her core. “Top floor,” she gulps.
Nodding, I head for the stairs, not having the time to wait for the elevator. Jogging up them, I hit the top floor a couple of minutes later and burst through the door into a large corridor with the dull gray carpet and drab air of a municipal building. It will be driving Rue nuts. She loves clean and minimal. I know this from seeing her room. This is the exact opposite. Old leaflets are cluttered on a table near the elevators, with worn leather chairs on either side. The walls are a dirty beige that needs a serious repaint. Calmly stalking down the corridor to the double doors at the end, I push them open and spot Luca almost immediately flirting with the receptionist as he leans on the counter with a cup of coffee in front of him.
It makes my blood boil with rage. He isn’t protecting Rue by standing there distracted. He isn’t even in the same vicinity as her.
As I walk up to him, he looks up, and his expression changes from arrogance to malice. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have some investigating to do?”
Reaching out, I snatch his collar and drag him back into the corridor.
“Hey!” he yells, struggling in my grip, but he is shorter and weaker than me. Not surprisingly. I haven’t come across many men who can take me down in a physical fight.
Squaring my shoulders, I shove him into one of the worn chairs and block him in by standing too close.
“Why didn’t you come forward about the guy Giselle spotted last night?”
His face pales, but his arrogance remains intact. “How do you know about that?”
“People talk. Get to it.”
“I looked into it, but I didn’t find anything,” he says.
Letting out a low rumble, I lean forward and grip his shirt tightly. “Try again,” I snarl in his face.
He sneers at my apparent audacity to question him and says arrogantly, “Fuck you, asshole. I don’t answer to you.”
“Yeah, you do, actually. Viktor was quite clear about that to me, so start talking. Rue is in danger, and you know something.”
His eyes flick to the doors as they open. I don’t need to know that Rue is standing there. His expression softens in the way that a man’s does when his gaze falls upon the one he loves.
Fuck’s sake.
The jealousy that rises in me is brutal. He is a good-looking man, younger than me, and clearly has a way with the ladies. Have they slept together in the past, or is this one-sided from him? All these questions swim around my head, distracting me from the task at hand.
“What is this?” Rue asks, crossing over.
“He knows something about the box,” I grit out.
“No!” he says, his eyes on Rue. “I don’t know jack. Giselle came to me saying she saw someone on the outside of the walls as she went to find the cat to bring it in. I investigated and found nothing. I swear.”
Rue purses her lips but looks at me to reply.
Tightening my fist, I haul Luca to his feet, irrationally angry with him for being in love with her.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” I growl.
“There was nothing to tell. Just some lurker. We get them all the time.”
“All the time?” This is going from bad to worse. Why didn’t he have more fucking gumption if this is a regular thing, especially seeing as this time, the perpetrator got in.
“Well, you know, sometimes,” he backtracks. “Misty wasn’t even there; she was with you coming back from the spa.”
It’s almost as if someone hit a slow-motion button as I slide my gaze over toMisty. She has a prim expression on her face as she folds her arms defensively.
Scowling at her, I draw my gaze back to Luca. “Whereabouts at the gates? Security was at the front when we got back.”
“It was round the back gate, near the cliffs.”
