Chapter 5 No Way Out
752 Words
I slipped into a long coat with my stomach tied in knots and climbed into Milo's car. The route we took today felt wrong the second we pulled away from the curb.
"Is Eldon not waiting for me at the villa?"
"No, Ms. Mendez," Milo answered without turning his head. "Mr. Haywood is at Blue Angel tonight."
"Blue Angel?"
My palms went slick with sweat, and my heart actually skipped a beat.
I had been to that place with Eldon a few times before. The men and women inside played games that went way beyond ordinary.
My phone suddenly buzzed. It was Hazel Jensen, Rosina's boss at the club. The uneasy feeling in my chest grew heavier at once.
I had met Hazel a couple of times through Rosina. She had always been fond of me and liked to joke that if Eldon ever got tired of me, I should come straight to her.
"Hello, Hazel?"
"Alisson, what on earth happened between you and Mr. Haywood? He actually asked for Clare tonight."
Clare was the same girl who had set Rosina up the night before. She worked under Brenda Bates, and everyone knew Brenda and Hazel had never gotten along.
The fact that Eldon picked her felt like a deliberate slap across my face.
"Last night... one of Rosina's guests followed her back to my place. Eldon walked in on it, and things got ugly."
"That makes this a little messy. You are almost here, right? I will be waiting at the entrance."
Hazel hung up before I could say anything else.
The moment we stopped in front of Blue Angel, Hazel stepped out of the shadows and pulled me close, whispering right against my ear. "Mr. Haywood is in room 608. His mood is terrible. Be sweet, be attentive. You two have been together for years. Maybe there is still something real there."
I could not even picture Eldon having real feelings for me anymore.
I gave her a bitter smile. "Hazel, he is engaged now."
The news of Eldon's engagement had spread through all of Veridian City. Hazel still tried to comfort me. "Engaged does not always mean he loves her. People like him usually do these things for business."
Business marriages happened all the time, but I knew in my gut that Eldon and Hattie Fletcher were different. I could never forget the gentle way he looked at her that day, the way he had taken care of every little detail for her, or the cold warning he had given me.
Hazel noticed my expression and quickly changed the subject. "Forget all that for now. You are not one of my girls, but I really do care about you. A patron as powerful as Mr. Haywood slipping into someone else's hands would leave you regret."
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a delicate little perfume bottle. With a quick spritz, she misted the cool scent across my collarbone and both wrists.
I frowned, suddenly suspicious. It did not smell like ordinary perfume. "What is this?"
She gave me a playful wink and leaned in close. "Something good. You will thank me later, trust me."
Milo left me at the door of the private room and disappeared down the hallway. I took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
The first thing I saw was Clare on her knees in almost nothing, an ice cube melting between her lips as she dragged them slowly across Eldon's bare, muscular chest. He leaned back with pure pleasure written all over his face.
I stood rooted to the spot, my whole body locked in ice. My feet refused to move. It felt like a thousand invisible blades were slicing straight through my heart.
In all the years I had been with him, I had never once seen Eldon this intimate with another woman.
"What are you waiting for?" Eldon slowly opened his heavy-lidded eyes and fixed them on me. "Come here."
I forced myself to walk toward him, but every step felt like my shoes were filled with lead. That short distance stretched out like a century. I had never felt so far away from him in my life.
"You take over down there," he ordered in a cold, flat voice.
I stared at him in complete disbelief. I could not possibly have heard him right. My eyes and cheeks burned red in an instant, and my body started shaking no matter how hard I tried to hold it still.
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