I catch up with her in a single step, grab her hand, and take her into the suite.
I still don’t know exactly what I want from her. And that might be the worst part about this whole thing. I wasn’t raised to talk about my feelings. I was raised to push feelings aside.
I close the door behind me and look at her. I’m not sure what to say or do, but she looks fucking gorgeous standing here in my bedroom. My dick twitches. I want to fuck her, but I know I’ll get a knee in the nuts with the way she is feeling. Beside, we have things we need to discuss. Like her great idea of letting that douchebag buy her a drink and put his arm around her.
I feel myself getting angry all over again, just from thinking about her sitting there with him. The image of him touching her enters my mind, and it drives me crazy. I want to punch his face all over again. So much for being turned on. I cross my arms.
“What the fuck was that about, Luke?” she yells before I can interrogate her.
Her face is dark with anger. I’ve never seen her this way. She looks like she wants to punch someone, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that someone is me. I deserve it after everything that’s happened.
“You were drinking with him. He had his fucking octopus arm around you.”
She gasps with astonishment. “I was having a civilized drink with him. He’s the only friend I have in this country. He was comforting me.”
“Comforting? Pull the other one. I wasn’t born yesterday. You think I don’t know what was on his mind. He was plying you with alcohol…” I stop, my eyes narrowing. Her chest is heaving and her cheeks are flushed. She’s drunk! “How many have you had?”
“None of your fucking business.”
“Everything about you is my fucking business.”
“Let me get this right,” she states sarcastically. “You get to be possessive over me, but I don’t get to object if you fuck other women.”
I scowl at her. “What the hell are you talking about now?”
“I’m talking about you having sex here in our suite with a fucking hooker!” She’s so murderously angry she shaking.
Chapter 22
Luke
I can see her fighting back the urge to break down. I stare at her in astonishment. How would she even know about that? Was she in her room all day? Spying on me? Not that I have a problem with that. It tells me that she really was thinking about me. I guess the woman had been dressed fairly whorish. It wouldn’t take a detective to figure out what she was. Usually, this sort of misunderstanding would be funny, but right now, it’s not because Jade looks like she’s about to burst a gut.
“How do you know about her?” I ask.
“I ran into her when she was sneaking out, or whatever the hell she was doing. That’s why I was down there drinking in the first place. Carl came out of nowhere, and he was being nice. He wasn’t hitting on me.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” I explain.
“I’ve got what wrong, Luke?” Suddenly, she sounds exhausted.
“I didn’t sleep with her. You remember Mr. Hatanaka from the other night?”
“Ugh,” she groans. “Was he in here, too?”
“No, thank God,” I say, shaking my head. “I ran into him this morning at breakfast. He sat down with me. Your pitch worked. You sold him. His company is signing up with us. And he told me he had a present for me, and he specifically reminded me that rejecting a gift was rude.”
“Yeah,” she says. “But what does this have to do with your whore?”
“That whore was his gift to me. But I didn’t do anything with her.”
She scoffs. “Funny thing about your story.”
“What’s that?”
“She told me you did fuck her.”
I laugh. “I paid her two hundred dollars to pretend that we did. I wanted her to tell anyone who asked that I had a great time. I didn’t want Hatanaka to be insulted that I turned down his gift, as fucked up as it was. I had no idea you were going to have a chat with her. Otherwise, I would have told her to tell the truth if a beautiful woman named Jade asked what happened.”
Jade narrows her eyes at me, but says nothing.
I sigh and shake my head. “Jade, I know I have a reputation for getting with a lot of women in the past, but none of them have been prostitutes. You know me. I don’t do that. I’ve never done that. I don’t need to pay for it.” I look into her eyes. I need her to believe me because honest to God, I didn’t sleep with Hatanaka’s gift.
She hesitates and I see the doubt in her eyes. She doesn’t believe me and that doesn’t sit well with me.