Page 38 of Love Me

“You’re in luck, Mr. Townsend. We have five rooms available. Two of them are singles, while one is a—”

“I’ll book them all,” I cut him off to say.

He stutters and looks completely confused before saying, “Excuse me?”

“All of them. Book all of them under my name.”

“Sir, the price on that is—” He breaks off when I flash my black card in his face.

“Book ’em. Make sure you have absolutely no more rooms available in this hotel. Understood?”

He continues to look dumbfounded even as he makes the reservations, but I don’t let up. I’m not giving Monique a chance to back out. A more reasonable man would probably go about it a little differently, but hell, I am who I am.

“What took so long?” Monique asks as I make my way back to the lobby area where she’s been waiting.

“Bad news.” I fake a frown. “They somehow don’t have your room reserved.”

“What? Why?”

I shrug. “They lost it.”

She sighs in frustration. “I can just make another one. I’ll see if they have any other rooms available—”

“I tried that,” I say, taking her arm before she can walk off to the front desk. “It’s a no-go. Nothing’s available.”

“Are you sure?” She glances over at the front desk in desperation.

“Positive.”

“I guess I could catch a car back ho—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence. You’re staying with me.”

Her head begins to shake vigorously. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Her lips part but nothing comes out.

“Is it because you’re afraid we’ll pick up where we left off earlier tonight?” We hadn’t had much alone time at the wedding or the reception. That one stolen moment at the pier and our one dance on the dance floor was it.

I love my family to death but dammit if I didn’t want to get rid of most of them just to be alone with her.

“We shouldn’t.”

“You said that earlier, and for some reason, I’m not believing you. Let’s go.” Without letting her get a chance to respond, I take her bag and put it over my shoulder and then wrap my hand around hers.

The entire walk to the elevator she protests, giving bullshit reasons as to why we shouldn’t spend the night together.

“This is hardly the first time we’re sleeping in the same bed,” I remind her as we get off of the elevator.

“Yes, but those times …” She trails off.

I don’t need her to finish the sentence. Those times weren’t after we kissed like we were the air one another breathes.

“It’s late. We’ve both had a long day and you don’t have a room. It’ll take at least thirty minutes to get back to your place, and I have a huge bed waiting for us. Not to mention there are obviously some things we need to talk about, and I still need to convince you to take this damn money to start your gallery.”

I push the door open to the suite I’ve reserved and pull her inside.

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