Some Like It Hotter (Sweet Life in Seattle #3) (21 page)

She rolls over, her thighs aching a little, but discovers he’s not there beside her. The bed is empty. Lindsay listens to the quiet of the hotel room. There’s nothing. She jerks into a sitting position, her eyes scanning for any sign of him. A sick feeling swims through her gut because she already knows the truth.

He’s done it to her again. Abandoned her in another hotel.

“Son of a bitch!” She throws the duvet off and gets out of bed naked.

She strides over to check the bathroom and, of course, all his stuff is gone. She jerks open the wardrobe then slams it shut. Empty. No sign of his travel bag or clothes. He’s left nothing behind. Not a single thing.

“That sneaky motherfucker!”

She can’t believe he actually did it. Not after last night, not after everything that happened. She glances over at the digital clock, and that’s when she sees something on the desk. It’s a note along with both a credit card and the room’s key card. Picking it up, she sees his handwriting, a messy right-angled scrawl:

Lyndsey,

I didn’t want to wake you. I’m setting things in motion for our marriage. Use the credit card for whatever expenses you require. The room is paid for three more nights.

G.

She looks down at the credit card.
That bastard
. Her eyes sting and her throat closes up. She takes a deep breath and pushes away any thought of crying, annoyed at her own weakness.

This one is on me. I should have known better. My reward for being stupid and believing him.

Anger grips her as she studies the Visa card with ‘Giovanni Novello’ typed in raised letters. She wonders what his credit limit is and decides her first purchase will be a mink coat and a diamond ring from the KaDeWe, both of which she’ll give to charity. Better yet, she’ll just make a hefty donation directly to her favorite kid’s charity.

There’s a telephone number scrawled beneath his ‘G’ signature. She walks over and picks up the receiver from the hotel phone on the nightstand, punching in the number.

It rings, and to her surprise, Giovanni answers right away with an officious sounding,
“Pronto.”

A peculiar longing washes over her at the sound of his voice, which pisses her off even more. She’s still holding the note in her hand. “You spelled my name wrong, asshole.”

“What? Who is this?”

“It’s Lindsay! Who else would it be?”

“Of course.” She hears the phone jostling. “There’s too much noise here. I was expecting my cousin.”

“Where the fuck are you?”

“I’m at the airport. My flight to
Roma
leaves soon.”

Lindsay takes this in with amazement. “You’re flying to Rome today and you didn’t think to mention it to me? I woke up alone in this fucking hotel room, with your fucking credit card to keep me company!”

“Calm down. You were sleeping so hard I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down you uppity McFuck! What is the one thing I asked of you? Do you fucking remember?”

“Stop swearing so much.”

Despite the reprimand in his voice, Lindsay can tell he’s in great spirits. And why shouldn’t he be? He got laid fantastically last night.
I should be in great spirits too, and I would be if he hadn’t abandoned me.
“I’m pissed off at you, so I’ll fucking swear as much as I fucking want. Got it?”

She hears what sounds like Giovanni chuckling.

“Donkey dick, motherfucker,” she mutters.

There’s a choking noise before he bursts out laughing.

“You think this is funny, asshole?”

He’s still laughing.

“Fuck you!”

“God.” He chuckles some more, but then quiets down and sighs. “I think I already miss you, Lindsay.”

She feels herself soften a little. “Why the hell did you leave without saying good-bye, then? I told you I didn’t want to wake up alone.”

He doesn’t reply for a few seconds. “I had a plane to catch.”

“You’re lying.” Her bullshit detector swings to the red zone. “Don’t lie to me. At least tell me the truth.”

She hears hesitation on his end, and then, “I am telling you the truth.”

“No, you’re not. You think I can’t tell when someone is bullshitting me? You didn’t even have a flight planned today.”

“Look, I just—” Giovanni’s voice cuts out. “—such a big deal about it.”

“What? I can’t hear you.” There’s some kind of background speaker announcement, but then the line breaks up again. “Are you still there?”

“I have to . . . flight boarding now. I’ll talk to you later.”

The line goes silent and Lindsay grits her teeth. A strong desire to rip the hotel phone out of the wall and throw it across the room comes over her.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and it’ll break something, and they’ll have to charge Giovanni for the repairs.

Instead, she puts the receiver back and goes to grab the clean laundry she spies by the front door. The maid must have brought it this morning while she was still asleep.

She pulls out some clean clothes then takes a long, hot shower. Her whole body aches, but in a good way. The kind of ache that comes from a long night of kick-ass sex. She tries not to think about it, but can’t stop the images and sensations flooding over her. The way his hands felt. The way he hated breaking visual and physical contact with her. She saw how he struggled with it, and it moved her beyond words.

And then that strange conversation later. He’d been in love with someone who died? Is that what’s at the heart of all his issues?

But then she thinks about how he abandoned her and decides—who cares? Fuck Giovanni. Would it have been so difficult to wake her and tell her he was leaving? That he had decided to fly to Rome today?

Not to mention the way he left that credit card.

Payment for services rendered
.

She knows it isn’t like that, and she wanted him just as much as he wanted her, but it stings nevertheless. She may be accepting that twenty grand, but she needs that money for tuition. It’s not for anything else.

I’m nobody’s whore
.

After her shower, Lindsay gets dressed and packs her suitcase with all the clean clothes, grateful Werner’s rat germs have been exterminated. She wishes she could find that slimy thief and get her money back. By now, he’s probably left the city for real.

I’ll be leaving soon too.

It’s less than a week before she flies back to the States. She has to admit she’ll miss Berlin. Her stay has certainly been memorable. Dagmar is planning a good-bye dinner party for her on Saturday, her last one.

Lindsay finishes putting on makeup then stuffs her toiletries into her suitcase. She’s tempted to take a cab back to her studio and charge it to Giovanni’s credit card, but has decided not to use it at all—except for that hefty charitable donation, of course.

Instead, she pulls her rolling suitcase behind her, wrestling it onto the S-Bahn.

When she finally makes it back to her studio, she’s surprised to discover the lock on her door has already been replaced. Her landlord must have had a fire lit beneath him.

After retrieving her new key, she spends the rest of the day cleaning up the mess from the robbery, her heart weighing heavy the whole time. It was a lousy way to leave a city that’s become like a second home to her. She’s even grateful Giovanni forced her to go sightseeing with him.

If he’d stayed longer, she could have shown him her version of Berlin—the art galleries, both ancient and modern. The nightclubs where the parties don’t start until dawn. The fantastic restaurants, the amazing boutiques. Dagmar has shown her a lot, but she’s made plenty of discoveries on her own too. She can think of lots of places he would enjoy.

But then she stops that train of thought because after what he just did, she knows she can’t sleep with him again.

It’s like playing out a lousy hand of cards you have no chance of winning. Better to fold early.

When her studio is finally back in shape, she sits on the bed with her computer and sends out e-mails. She contacts her art agent, Emily, to let her know what happened with the robbery, and how there will be two fewer masks to send out to galleries for now. She checks Facebook and her website, then updates her blog to announce she’ll back in the States soon.

Lindsay wonders if she should mention her upcoming nuptials with Giovanni. It’s probably the smart thing to do, to make the whole thing look more real. She doesn’t have the heart to act excited about something so fake, though, so all she mentions is that she has ‘news’ and will share it with everyone soon.

There’s a sudden noise out in the hallway and Lindsay startles. She holds her breath for a second before realizing it’s only one of her neighbors moving stuff. She’s been on edge the whole time she’s been back here and wonders how she’s going to get any sleep tonight.

She could always call Dagmar and stay with her, but knows they’d only argue more about Werner.

After going pee while holding her breath the whole time, she makes a decision. It’s the thought of a stink-free bathroom that finally sways her. Giovanni’s note said there were three more nights on his hotel room so she might as well use them.

And it’s not like I’m taking any money from him since the room is already paid whether I’m in it or not.

It’s nearly nightfall when Lindsay makes it to Giovanni’s hotel. She wonders whether she’s going to hear back from him, but so far nothing.

By the time she’s lounging in bed in her pajamas, drinking a glass of wine, and flipping through German television channels, things aren’t looking too bad.

When her cell phone rings, she grabs it and sees it’s her sister, Natalie.

“Sorry,” Lindsay says. “I completely forgot about our Skype session tonight. Let me get my computer set up and I’ll call you back, okay?”

“I’m here, but I have to go to work soon, so don’t wait too long.”

She turns on her computer and searches around for info that describes how to use the wireless. In the top drawer of the nightstand, she’s surprised to discover a small stack of comic books.

What’s this?

She pulls the stack out. There’s
Spiderman
,
Superman
, a couple issues of
Wonder Woman
, plus a few others she’s not familiar with.

Do these belong to Giovanni?

Eventually, she finds a card for the Wi-Fi, and a few minutes later she and Natalie are connected.

Her sister’s face comes on-screen, her long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. She’s clearly dressed and ready to leave for work soon. “What’s going on?” Natalie asks. “Is everything okay?”

“Not really.” Lindsay doesn’t even know where to start. Finally, she sighs. “I’m all right, but something happened yesterday.”

Natalie’s expression turns to concern. “What do you mean?”

“I got robbed.” She explains how her studio was torn apart and her masks were broken. She doesn’t mention the amount of money stolen because then she’d have to explain about the poker.

“That’s terrible! Are you really okay?” Natalie centers herself on-screen. “Is there anything I can do? Do you need more money?”

“No, I’m okay for now. I’ll be back soon anyway. I’m going to try and finish this last mask before I leave.”

“Who would do something like that?”

She shrugs noncommittally. With a sick feeling, she realizes her poker secret has grown larger than she ever intended. Her sister is the one person in this world she completely trusts, and yet she’s not telling her the whole story.

She’ll say I’m just like dad, but I’m not
.

There’s some movement behind Natalie and Lindsay sees Anthony. He bends down to kiss her sister then turns to the screen. “Hey, Lindsay.”

She listens as Natalie relays the news about the robbery to him. He looms in front of the computer, his face worried as he asks her all the same questions Natalie did a moment ago.

“I’m okay, really. I appreciate the concern.”

In truth, she can’t stop staring at Anthony as she thinks about Giovanni. The brothers do have a familial resemblance, but beyond that, they don’t look much alike. Anthony, with his dark hair and eyes, looks like a classic Italian.