I walked to the bathroom.
Opening the door to the ladies’ room, I ignored the screams from the two women applying their lipstick and gossiping by the mirror, and checked the stalls.
Empty.
I could feel my chest pinching a bit in worry as I walked out of the bathroom and pulled out my cell phone.
Leo picked up on the first ring.
“Where the fuck is she?” I demanded. “If something happened to her, I’m gonna cut your fucking dick off.”
“She's in the ladies’ dressing room,” Leo said unemotionally, as if I hadn’t threatened him.
What the hell was she doing there?
I hung up the phone without saying anything and headed in that direction. Even before I reached the room, I could hear giggling. I made my feet move faster. I could see Leo standing guard outside, which only made me feel marginally better, and I looked in.
What I saw had my eyes widening in surprise.
“What the fuck?”
More than several pairs of eyes turned my way, but I paid attention to only one pair of brown ones. I ignored the way the other women flinched as I walked further into the room. The only thing that mattered was that she didn’t flinch from me.
Her eyes, currently shrouded in heavy eye makeup, widened a bit as she watched me. Then her lips painted crimson red, curved in a small smile at the sight of me. I hated to be the one to take that smile away, but what the actual fuck?
“Princess, what is all that on your face?”
Her eyes widened, and she coiled back a little, frowning at me. Her full bottom lip jutted out in the form of a pout, and fuck me, I could feel my heart pinching at the sight.
Fuck.
I was the kind of man to be affected merely because someone pouted at me.
What the fuck had she done to me?
I was not soft.
I fucking wasn’t.
Yet I knew I had softened my voice when I said, “Time to go, princess. Say … say goodbye to your … friends.”
The words seemed to be wrenched from me.
Bianca, our server, stood up. She handed a small piece of paper to Catalina, and I caught sight of a line of digits before Catalina shoved it in her tiny purse.
I held out my hand.
Hesitantly, she placed her much smaller one in mine.
Any slower, I would have put her over my shoulder and carried her out.
I led her out the door, but the thought of going back out there with Catalina looking like this made me want to ram my fist into something—specifically, any fucker’s face who even looked at her a second too long.
I didn’t want anyone to see her.
I took out my phone and texted everyone, telling them I was taking Catalina home, and shoved my phone back in my pocket. I ignored any of the replies from the other two.
“Don’t you like how I look?” she asked, her voice small and unsure.