Page 47 of Room Service
DORIEN
“You two need to fuck off,” I bark, looking at Gabriel and Chantel as they smile at me like I’m having some kind of revelation about life. I mean, I might be when it comes to Elise, but other than that, I’m still just me, plain old Dorien who likes to be in charge.
“Can we really not stay and meet her?” Chantel asks, for what feels like the millionth time.
“No,” I reiterate, having already made my feelings on them staying here perfectly clear. “And don’t forget your key card for your room.”
“Yes, yes, we’ve got it,” Gabriel chimes in, placing his hands on Chantel’s shoulders and steering her towards the door.
“You know we’ll have to meet her soon though, right?” she says as they reach the door and Gabriel opens it, guiding her through and giving me a smirk as he shuts the door behind them. I blow out a relieved breath and run my hands through my hair, but that relief is short lived when my phone starts to ring and I pull it from my pocket to see Elise’s name flashing on the screen.
“Elise,” I answer, wondering why she’s calling me when she should be here in the next few minutes. She better not be calling to cancel, because despite what she might think, I really do want to talk to her, as well as fuck her.
“Dorien,” she breathes down the line, and my face pulls into a frown.
“What’s wrong?” My body immediately goes on high alert from the tone in her voice and the way she spoke so breathlessly.
“I need you… help…” She lets out a groan as if she’s in pain, and I’m instantly tearing towards the door and ripping it open, my heart suddenly kicking up a notch at my urgency to get to her.
“Where are you?” I bark as I march to the lifts and press the call button.
“Out back… staff entrance… please, hurry…” Another groan has me cursing the fucking lift for not being here and opting to use the stairwell instead. I march forwards and try to tell myself that I would get this worked up over another employee being involved in whatever the hell has gone on, but really, I’m just kidding myself. Sure, I’d be pissed, because employees are the ones who make everything run like clockwork, and I look after my staff, just ask any one of them that works for me at any of my hotels and they will tell you that I am a decent fucking boss. But Elise… I strain my ears as I continue to listen to her on the other end of the phone, her breathing raspy, as I haul open the door for the stairs and I charge down them like a raging bull—and to be fair, I probably look like one right now.
As my feet fly down the ridiculous amount of stairs it takes to get to her, my heart pounds that much harder. If she’s badly hurt, I don’t know what I’ll fucking do. It’s like I’m having an out of body experience. I never do this. Or I never used to do this. She’s come into my life and flipped everything I thought I ever knew on its head, and when I finally reach the bottom of the stairs and yank the door open to enter the corridor where the staff entrance is located, I see her, hunched over on the floor, the bottom of her back resting against the wall and a look of agony on her face…
Her face… I see blood trickling down her chin, and I dart like a bat out of hell to get to her.
That dread multiplies inside of me, and I quicken my pace as her head turns in my direction, her eyes puffy and red-rimmed as she lets the phone drop to the floor. I cut the call and drop my phone beside me as I crouch down and take her face in my hands.
“Fuck… Elise, what happened?” I question, concern taking over the rage for a moment. I inspect every part of her, but with clothes on, it’s hard to tell if there’s anything else I should be looking for. And then my eyes land on her neck. There are angry red marks on her skin that make my blood boil.
She gathers her breath and inhales deeply before telling me, “Attacked, out back,” as she lifts her arm and points to the door. I can see she looks exhausted, the top part of her uniform splattered in blood from her nose and a split lip.
“We need to get you cleaned up. Are you okay to move?” I ask her, because my urgency to see the resulting damage from whatever attack she’s talking about is rising. And so is my need to find the fucker that did this to her.
“I can move,” she rasps, and I pocket both of our phones before helping her to her feet, only for her to sway from side to side. I don’t waste any time as I take her in my arms and carry her, letting her head rest against my chest as we go. Her hand clutches my shirt too, fisting gently in the material.
I’m focused as I take the stairwell back up to the penthouse, Elise’s body shaking as I do. I hold her closer, a little tighter without hurting her, and I gulp down a lump that has suddenly appeared in my throat.
By the time we get to the penthouse, she’s shaking a little less, but that does nothing to ease my state of mind. I’m worried, raging, fucking furious, and just plain frustrated that I don’t have all of the answers and that someone has done this to her.
I open the door and kick it shut behind me, carrying her straight into the bathroom and sitting her down on the sink unit. The first thing I do is start running some warm water, so the blood can be washed away. She sits quietly, her head bowed and tears running silently down her cheeks. Tears that have soaked into my shirt, and that I wish she’d never had to cry.
I grab a fresh cloth from a cabinet to the right of the sink unit, and I let my fingers fall under the water as it runs, making sure it’s the right temperature. I move in silence as I put my hand under her chin and tilt her head up, my eyes seeing the pain in hers and fucking hating that it’s there.
I gently use the fresh cloth and wipe away the blood, clenching my jaw as I do, needing to know what happened.
“I know that you won’t want to relive this, but I need to know what happened,” I say gently, keeping my eyes on her face to make sure I clean all of the blood off of her.
Her eyes flutter closed for a second before she opens them again, her voice thick with emotion when she says, “Derrick did this.”
I pause my movements. Her husband did this to her?
I resume my movements as she continues to speak. “I’ve never seen him like that before. He was so out of it, like he’d lost complete control. I don’t even know where he came from, he just appeared, and then…” She stops for a second and takes a few breaths before carrying on. “He wanted me to go back, but I refused, and then he just lost control. He grabbed me by the arm, and I shrugged him off, but that made him shove me against the wall as he got in my face and said that if I couldn’t be his then I would be no one’s.
“I fought him as best as I could, but his hands squeezed my neck… and then he punched me.” Her voice trembles, and I hate that she has to tell me this. Hate that someone who was meant to love her hurt her. Hate that she wasn’t mine first, because then this would never have happened.
I find myself leaning forward and placing a kiss on her forehead, my hand going to the back of her head as she nuzzles against my chest and her hands wrap around me. I feel protective of her, a primal instinct being awoken by this incredible woman.
