The Wedding Contract

Chapter 20





I drop my bag and scream at the top of my lungs. “Get back here you son of a bitch!” But there’s no answer. Nick is long gone. I turn, pressing my back to the door and slide down until my butt hits the carpet. Clawing at my temples, I tug on my hair, wondering how I let him do this to me. It was the dumbest payback ever, but I didn’t see it coming. Who pulls a prank like that? It’s a reprank. Bastard.

I push up and glance around the room, noticing the subtle difference for the first time—no phone. The antique looking brass phone is missing from the desk. I can’t call down for help. The thought makes me lunge for my bag. I didn’t have my cell phone earlier, it’s with my gear. I unfasten the straps and dig through. No phone.

“I’m going to kill him. I am. How did he even get Sophie to agree to let him be at the shoot?” I glance around, not knowing what to do. If I figure out how to bust the door down, the hotel is going to make me pay for it. Not that there’s an ax in here or something.

I sit down hard on the bed and let out a rush of air. Should I stay here and let him have this shoot? What if he’s lying? I mean, Sophie said the shoot was later, not now. She wanted to wait until her hideous cousins were asleep. But if she didn’t want to do the sexy session now, why else would Nick lock me in the room? I think and think, but there’s no answer. Nothing drifts to the top of my mind and it’s so frustrating.

I have to find him. I push off the bed and go to the only way out of the room—the window. I’m on the third floor. A fall from that height won’t kill a person, right? I pull up the window and lean on the sash. There’s no screen. Screens would look unsightly on the hotel fa?ade. Then again, so would a twenty-something white girl hanging out the window. If I hang my legs over the ledge, I can lower myself down to the next floor. The roof of porch is directly below my window. I could knock on the window of the room below me and ask them to let me in.

It’s absurd, but it’s also my only idea. I grab my camera and take only one lens. After attaching it to the body, I swing it around my neck and drape the heavy thing down my back. The contraption is so heavy it feels like it’s going to strangle me. I sit on the window sash and swing one leg over. The pit of my stomach dips when I look out. The ground is so far away, and the gardens are filled with spiky things, like old pointy pieces of iron fence and roses. If I fall, I’ll be impaled and showered in rose petals.


With my heart slamming into my ribs, I swing the other foot over, twist and go for it. Slowly, I lower myself until I’m hanging from the windowsill, my camera dangling from my back. My shoes sweep the air looking for a foothold, but there is none. It’s farther than I’d thought. Damn it. What am I going to do? I try to do a pull-up and go back into the room. As I pull, a grunting noise comes from deep inside my chest, but no matter how hard I try, I just hang there.

“Daddy, look!” a little girl’s voice calls out below. “There’s a lady falling out of a window!”

Shit! I can’t look over my shoulder, but I feel her eyes on me.

A male voice sounds annoyed at first and then panicked. “Danielle, stop making up—oh my God! Go inside and tell them to call the fire department. Go quickly.”