Page 24 of Beauty & Chaos

I scramble to the end of the bed, apologize to Luna, who glares at me for her second interruption of the morning, and reach out to get the card. Then, I climb back under the covers, and Luna snuggles up.

Staring once more at the black card with just his name and the mysteriousA.I wonder what it means.

I’m an investigative journalist, so maybe I need to do what I do best and start looking. Of course he doesn’t know that, but there’s no way I’m going to call him without digging into who he is.

I open my phone and in thirty minutes learn that Travis Warner was analmostpro golfer and owns three of the top golf courses in America.

Well, that explains the Rolex.

TheAon the back of the card? Aside from the name of the golf courses being called The Golf Alliance of America, I have a feeling there’s something else.

Call it journalistic intuition.

It takes another hour and a half of very deep digging. But I find it: The Alliance Club.

“Wow.” I lift my face and stare at the wall.

The asshole gave me a business card for his adults-only club. Afuckingsex club.

“Unbelievable.” I drop my phone on my lap and shake my head.

I guess Travis wasn’t lying when he said he wasn’t going to ask me to marry him, or anything in between. I know I shouldn’t be offended...but I am.

I promise to treat you like a queen, then fuck you like a naughty wench.

I sit chewing one of my gel nails wishing I could show up at the club and surprise him. Tell him that I don’t particularly think much of hiscastle.If my ankle weren’t injured and I could afford the insane membership cost, I would.

But it is, and I can’t.

I toss back the covers and hobble to the bathroom to take a shower, and Luna follows. She sits on the shower mat looking sleepy while I turn the water on, then does one of those huge cat yawns, like she has an exhausting life and I’m just another thing she has to deal with.

My ankle isn’t too bad, I note as I step under the stream of deliciously warm water. It almost takes my full weight, so in a few days I’m confident it’ll be fully healed.

Showered and dressed, sitting at my dining room table a few hours later, I’m scrolling through emails on my laptop when my phone rings.

Jasmine.

“Hey,” I answer.

“What the hell happened last night?”

I groan. “I told Tony not to bother you with it.”

“Well”—I hear her crunch down onto something—“when your husband disappears around ten at night to pick up another woman, you ask questions.”

“I’m not another woman, I’m me.”

“Which I know because I asked. Hence my calling.”

I chuckle. “It’s nothing. I hurt my ankle and needed someone to help me upstairs.”

“That’s the entire story?”

I nod. “Yup.”

“No guy kissing your hand and calling you Genevieve?”

Crap. He heard that?