Page 62 of Falling for Them

He jabs the elevator button, then has to wait for it to come back up.“You know, it makes sense now, how you were always talking about her.Watching her.”

I clench my jaw.I’m not going to react.

“She sure seemed in a hurry to get the fuck out of here,” he says.“Don’t you think she’s a little young for you?”

He’s not wrong.Ella does seem younger than most of the women I pursue.

“How old is she?”I ask before I can stop myself.

The elevator arrives and Joel steps inside.As the doors are closing, he says, “I don’t know.Twenty-four or twenty-five, I think.”

And then he’s gone.

I want to roar out my anger.Sebastian looks like he wants to hit something.

“How did something so perfect get so fucked up?”he asks.

“I don’t know.”

Lying on the floor at the edge of the wide hallway are Ella’s shoes.“Fuck,” I say, “she’s out there barefoot?”

“Call her,” Sebastian says.

“I don’t have her number.”

“Well, get it from your asshole son.”

I have to go back to the bedroom and hunt for my phone in my discarded tuxedo jacket.I text Joel.Send me Ella’s number.

Can’t, he texts back.Just deleted her contact info.

Fuck.He probably didn’t before, but he’s deleting it now, I bet.I hold the phone up to show Bash, who followed me in here.

Clicking off the text messages, I mutter, “We’ll have to get her number some other way.”

He swears and starts getting dressed.“I’m going out to look for her.”

“Hey,” I say.“She wanted to leave even before Joel arrived.And she has a huge head start—she’s probably already in a car on her way home.Maybe we should let her be for tonight.”

“Something got into her head,” he says.

“We’ll see her at the office.I will, anyway.”

Nodding, he says, “I’ll come in, too.We’ll both talk to her then.”

Sebastian

I wake up in my own bed, painfully aware that a certain baby girl is not in my arms.Last night was fucking amazing, and it kills me that it ended on such a sour note.

It was like performing a perfect set, and then ending on “I’m a Little Teacup” or some shit like that.

My phone buzzes on my dresser across the room.Something about it makes me think it’s been going off for a few minutes now.Someone’s eager to get in touch with me.

Fuck, is it King with news of Ella?Or could it be Ella, somehow?I jump out of bed and grab the phone, only for my hopes to crash into my gut.

If I ignore my agent’s call again, she’ll just keep calling all day.I don’t have the strength to ignore her.I swipe to answer.“Hey, Trina.”

“Bastian, baby,” she coos.“Howareyou?”