CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Silas’s hotel room was in one of Charlotte’s high-rises, twenty-fourth floor, corner suite. The elegance of the elevator alone had made Peri feel like a homeless woman, still dressed in her traveling black slacks and that woman’s borrowed, no, stolen coat, and a hat that smelled of its previous owner. She knew she wasn’t smelling that great either after sixteen hours on a bus. The couple in the elevator with them hadn’t said a word, with their perfume, cologne, and expensive jewelry. No one could make you feel inferior without your permission, but she was usually the one in the upscale fashions, and the knockoff coat wasn’t doing it for her—not when Silas had the real thing, reminding her of black cars and laughter over sparkling wine.
Getting to his room and finding that it had all the niceties did almost as much to relax her as the shower she’d insisted on taking before letting him near her again. She was still hungry, but at least the caked eyeliner was gone and she didn’t stink. Even better, the steam had gotten most of the wrinkles out of her clothes. A real anchor would have gone downstairs to the boutique and purchased something else for her to wear, but washing her underwear and socks in the sink would do—for now.
Clean and dressed, her feet in hotel-supplied slippers, and her wet hair bumping about her ears, Peri sat in a cushy chair away from the window and tried not to think about the thin sandwich she’d gotten out of a vending machine eight hours ago. She was confident that damp clothes weren’t her usual attire when defragmenting memories, but sitting in a strange man’s hotel room wearing nothing but a robe wasn’t going to happen. The blinds were angled to block most of the light bouncing in off the neighboring tower and her head rested on a pillow smelling of new fabric. Silas’s fingers pushed at her temples with firm, professional strength. Clearly his claim to be an anchor was valid.
His comment yesterday about blind trust bothered her. She’d been a fool, not just for walking away with Allen, but for working with Jack for three years and never suspecting they were doing non-Opti-sanctioned jobs, ignorant of enough that she fell in love with the man. Because even though she couldn’t remember him, there was an ache.
“This would go faster if you unclenched your jaw,” Silas said drily, and Peri forced her shoulders down. His touch on her temples was not invasive, but her mind was too full.
“How long has it been since you’ve done this?” she countered.
“None of your business.”
Peri exhaled in a long, slow sound. That he smelled like leather and his fingers felt like a cool ribbon of water somehow wasn’t helping. “I don’t think you were ever in Opti.”
“I was there,” he growled. “How can I be expected to work when you won’t relax?”
“How can I relax when I’m starving!” she exclaimed.
His fingers pulled away and she opened her eyes to see him stomping across the blind-darkened room to the bed. Shoulders hunched in anger, he picked up the bedside phone. “I swore I wasn’t going to do this,” he said, punching a number with savage ferocity. “I was not going to do this!” he added, glaring at her as he brandished the receiver.
Sitting up, Peri finger-combed her damp hair, more peeved than curious.
“Hi,” he said flatly as someone on the other end picked up. “This is Silas Denier in Twenty-four thirty-five. Can I have two strawberry milkshakes and a plate of fries sent up? If you can get them here in ten minutes, there’s a twenty in it for you.” Setting the phone back in the cradle with a dull crack, he sat on the bed and stared at the wall.
I love milkshakes and fries. Guilt swam up, and she shoved it aside. “Thank you,” she said softly. “I don’t have any money to pay you back.”
Wiping a hand over his chin, he said, “I’ve noticed that about you.”
He was angry about things she had no control over. “I didn’t know I was running until—”
“Until what?”
Until I destroyed half the message I’d left myself? Until I found out Bill was corrupt? That I might be, too? “I didn’t actually plan this, okay?” she said, her damp fingers smelling of hotel shampoo.
Silas turned, his empty expression taking her aback. “I’m not your slave. Got it?”
“Slave!” Her headache returned full force. “Is that what you think anchors are? No wonder you washed out.” Ticked, she put her feet up on the coffee table.
He rose and began to pace, his agitation far more than a plate of fries and two shakes deserved. “I’m not going to make your coffee, wait on you, or rub your feet. As soon as I know what happened in that office, we are done. Understand?”