Claim Me (Stark Trilogy 2)

“James?” I tap harder, but there’s still no answer. I take hold of the knob and turn, trying to both look and not look, just in case she finally let the guy she dragged home stay for the entire night.

But the room is both dark and empty. I tell myself not to worry. Jamie probably just had somewhere to be this morning. Or else she crashed somewhere after a night of partying. Except I don’t really believe either of those explanations. Jamie’s not an early riser, and she rarely stays overnight anywhere. She’s not the kind to crash on a couch—she likes the comforts of home too much.

I hope I’m overreacting, but I pull out my phone and tap out a text. Where r u? Do I need to send out a search party?

I wait, staring at the screen, but my phone stays silent.

Well, shit.

I call, but the phone rolls over to voice mail.

Now my stomach really is in knots. I can’t call the police—I may not watch much television, but I’ve watched enough to know that they won’t do a thing unless it’s been twenty-four hours. I almost dial Damien, but my finger hesitates over his name. There might be nothing that he can do, but if I’m worried, I’m almost positive that he’ll cut his meeting short and come to me no matter how much I protest. He may be firmly perched on a white steed in my mind, but I am most definitely not a damsel in distress, and really don’t want to be.

Fine. Okay. No problem. Jamie’s probably just in the shower, which is where I need to be. I’ll shower and change, and if she hasn’t called me back by the time I’m ready to head downtown, I’ll call and text her again. And if she still doesn’t answer, I’ll call Ollie. I don’t know what he could do, but as my other best friend, I’m allowed to call him in a crisis. And with Ollie, my odds of interrupting a billion-dollar summit are significantly lessened.

Most important though—and as much as I hate to admit it—there’s a possibility that they’re together. They slept together one time that I know of. And though Jamie swears it was a singular event—and though Ollie has assured me that he’s been otherwise faithful to his fiancée—I’m not certain that I really believe either one of them.

My doubts weigh on me, because Jamie and Ollie are my two best friends, and I don’t like the way their tryst has clouded up things among the three of us.

I’m frustrated as I head into my own bedroom and toss the phone onto my bed, barely missing Lady Meow-Meow, who has blended in so well with my white duvet I don’t see her. She lifts her head in sleepy protest, stares at me until I apologize, and then promptly goes back to sleep.

Apparently our cat doesn’t share my concern about Jamie’s whereabouts.

Partly because I’m running late, and partly because I don’t want to be away from the phone that long, I rush through my shower. I towel-dry my hair until it’s damp, then use some gel to twist a few curls into place. I’ve discovered that it’s much easier to take care of shoulder-length hair than the tresses that used to fall midway down my back. Not that I want to repeat my meltdown, but on this small point, I think it worked out okay.

I wrap a towel around me, then open the door to our tiny bathroom. A cloud of steam escapes ahead of me, and I follow it out, then jump about a foot when I hear the sharp crash of ceramic shattering against the tile kitchen floor.

For an instant, I’m terrified, imagining intruders and boogey-men and God knows what. But what would have been a scream breaks into a relieved burst of laughter when I hear Jamie’s voice cutting sharply through the apartment. “Oh, fuck a duck! Nikki! I just killed your favorite coffee mug!”

“I’m right here,” I call, hurrying down the two stairs, my back to our tiny dining area as I face Jamie in the kitchen.

She looks at me oddly, probably because I’m still laughing. She holds up the handle of my Dallas Cowboys mug. The rest of the shattered blue ceramic is scattered on the tile at her feet. “Sorry,” she says.

“It’s okay.” I’m still laughing. I don’t know why. Relief, I guess.

“It was a ridiculous favorite, anyway,” she says, as if I’m giving her grief about the mug. “You don’t even like football.”

“It was big,” I said. “It could hold hot chocolate and marshmallows without the chocolate dribbling over the side when you stick a spoon in.”

“Yeah, but what’s the point of drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows if you’re going to be all prissy about it?”

I can’t argue with that, so I don’t. Instead I shove my feet into a pair of flip-flops that are by the stairs, then step gingerly into the kitchen to get the small broom and dustpan I put under the sink after I moved in.

“Thanks,” she says, then rolls her eyes when I hand the broom to her. “Okay.” She sighs. “Fine.”

As she squats down, much better dressed for the job in jeans than I am in my towel, I ask where she’s been. “I was worried,” I admit. “Did you sleep somewhere else?”

“Shit no.” She brushes the last of the mug splinters into the dustpan, then tilts her head to aim a cat-ate-the-canary grin up at me. “I may have stayed out all night, but I didn’t sleep.” Her dreamy grin fades and she peers hard at me. “And you? Because it seems to me your bed’s not getting all that much action lately. Pretty soon you’re going to have to sign the poor thing up for therapy. Loneliness can lead to depression, you know.”

“I’ll get right on that,” I say dryly. “And as a matter of fact, no. I wasn’t here, either.”

“Uh-huh.”

I hold my hands up in surrender. “I didn’t say a word,” I point out. “But if I were going to say something, it would only be that when I stay out all night it’s with the same guy. You have so many different men you should start a Facebook page just to keep track of them.”

“Not a bad plan, actually. Except that I think this guy might be something special.”

I gape. “Seriously?”

“Totally. He’s not as fuckalicious as Damien-king-of-the-world-Stark, but I wouldn’t run screaming from a repeat performance. Or even a triple play, for that matter.”

This is as close as I’ve ever heard Jamie get to discussing a relationship. To say I’m bowled over would be an understatement. “You can’t just drop a bomb like that on me when I’m running late. So come on. We can talk while I get dressed.”