Not that it had helped her to fall asleep—she’d still been too angry at the things Lucien Steele had said to be able to relax enough to sleep.
She dropped down heavily onto the bed now and surveyed what that anger had brought her to. A seedy hotel and a horrible-smelling room that was probably usually let by the hour rather than all night. God, no wonder the night porter had leered at her; he had probably thought she was a hooker, waiting for her next paying customer to arrive.
At the moment she felt like a hooker waiting for her next paying customer to arrive!
How was she even going to get out of this awful hotel when she didn’t even have any suitable clothes to wear?
Thia tensed sharply as a knock sounded on the flimsy door, turning to eye it warily. ‘Yes...?’
‘Miss Hammond?’
She rose slowly, cautiously, to her feet. ‘Dex, is that you...?’ she prompted disbelievingly.
‘Yes, Miss Hammond.’
How on earth had Lucien Steele’s bodyguard even known where to find her...? More to the point, why had he bothered to find her?
At that moment Thia didn’t care how or why Dex was here. She was just relieved to know he was standing outside in the hallway. She hurried across the room to remove the chair from under the door handle, slide the safety chain across, before unlocking the door itself and flinging it open.
‘Oh, thank God, Dex!’ She launched herself into his arms as she allowed the tears to fall hotly down her cheeks.
‘Er—Miss Hammond...?’ he prompted several minutes later, when her tears showed no signs of stopping. His discomfort was obvious in his hesitant tone and the stiffness of his body as he patted her back awkwardly.
Well, of course Dex was uncomfortable, Thia acknowledged as she drew herself up straight before backing off self-consciously. What man wouldn’t be uncomfortable when a deranged woman launched herself into his arms and started crying? Moreover a deranged woman wearing only a threadbare bathtowel that was barely wide enough to cover her naked breasts and backside!
‘I’m so sorry for crying all over you, Dex,’ she choked, on the edge of hysterical laughter now, as she started to see the humour of the situation rather than only the embarrassment. ‘I was just so relieved to see a familiar face!’
‘You—do you think we might go into your room for a moment?’ Dex shifted uncomfortably as a man emerged from a room further down the hallway, eyeing Thia’s nakedness suggestively as he lingered over locking his door.
‘Of course.’ Thia felt the blush in her cheeks as she stepped back into the room. ‘I—is that my suitcase...?’ She looked down at the lime-green suitcase Dex had brought in with him; it was so distinctive in its ugliness that she was sure it must be the same one she had picked up for next to nothing in a sale before coming to New York. The same suitcase that she had intended collecting, along with her clothes, from Jonathan’s apartment later this morning... ‘How did you get it?’ She looked at Dex suspiciously.
He returned that gaze unblinkingly. ‘Mr Steele obtained it from Mr Miller’s apartment this morning.’
‘Mr Steele did...?’ Thia repeated stupidly. ‘Earlier this morning? But it’s only eight-thirty now...’
Dex nodded abruptly. ‘It was an early appointment.’
She doubted that Jonathan would have appreciated that, considering he hadn’t emerged from his bedroom before twelve o’clock on a single morning since her arrival in New York. ‘And Lu—Mr Steele just asked him for my things and Jonathan handed them over?’
Dex’s mouth thinned. ‘Yes.’
Thia looked at him closely. ‘It wasn’t quite as simple as that, was it?’ she guessed heavily.
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I believe there may have been a...a certain reluctance on Mr Miller’s part to co-operate.’
Thia would just bet there had. Jonathan had been so angry with her yesterday evening that she had been expecting him to refuse to hand over her things when she went to his apartment for them later. An unpleasant confrontation that Lucien Steele had circumvented for her by making that visit himself. She could almost feel sorry for Jonathan as she imagined how that particular meeting would have panned out. Almost. She was still too disgusted with Jonathan’s unpleasant behaviour the previous evening to be able to rouse too much sympathy for him.
But she was surprised at Lucien Steele having bothered himself to go to Jonathan’s apartment himself to collect her things; Lucien had let her leave easily enough last night, and he didn’t give the impression he was a man who would inconvenience himself by chasing after a woman who had walked away from him as Thia had.
She drew a shaky breath. ‘No one was hurt, I hope?’
‘I wasn’t there, so I wouldn’t know,’ Dex dismissed evenly.
‘I had the impression you accompanied Mr Steele everywhere?’ Thia frowned her puzzlement.
‘Normally I do.’ His mouth flattened. ‘I spent last night standing guard in the hallway outside this room, Miss Hammond.’ He answered her question before she had even asked it.
Thia took a step back in surprise, only to have to clutch at the front of the meagre towel in order to stop it from falling off completely. Her cheeks blushed a furious red as she tried to hold on to her modesty as well as her dignity. ‘I—I had no idea you were out there...’ Maybe if she had she wouldn’t have spent half the night terrified that someone—that dodgy night porter, for one!—might try to force the flimsy lock on the door and break in.
A suitable punishment, Lucien Steele would no doubt believe, for the way in which she had walked away from him last night! Because there was no way that Dex had spent the night guarding the door to her hotel room without the full knowledge, and instruction of his arrogant employer...
‘I doubt you would have been too happy about it if you had.’ Dex bared his teeth in a knowing smile before reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulling out an expensive-looking cream vellum envelope with her name scrawled boldly across the front of it. ‘Mr Steele had Paul deliver your suitcase here a short time ago, along with this.’
Thia stared at the envelope as if it were a snake about to bite her, knowing that it had to be Lucien Steele’s own bold handwriting on the front of it and dreading reading what he had written inside.
At the same time she felt a warmth, a feeling of being protected, just knowing that Lucien had cared enough to ensure her safety last night in spite of herself...
* * *
‘A Miss Hammond is downstairs in Reception, asking to see you, Mr Steele. She doesn’t have an appointment, of course,’ Ben, his PA, continued lightly, ‘but she seems quite determined. I wasn’t quite sure what I should do about her.’
Lucien looked up to scowl his displeasure at Ben as he stood enquiringly on the other side of the glass-topped desk that dominated this spacious thirtieth-floor office. Lucien wasn’t sure himself what to do about Cynthia Hammond.
She was so damned stubborn, as well as ridiculously proud, that Lucien hadn’t even been able to guess what her reaction might be to his having had her things delivered to her at that disgustingly downbeat hotel in which she had chosen to stay the night rather than accept his offer of a room at Steele Heights. He certainly hadn’t expected that she would actually pay him a visit at his office in Steele Tower.
And he should have done—Cynthia Hammond was nothing if not predictably unpredictable. ‘How determined is she, Ben?’ He sighed wearily, already far too familiar with Cyn’s stubbornness.
‘Very.’