Page 102 of Notorious Park Avenue Prince

I should’ve known. I couldn’t remember Zac ever making me drinks before, but King knew his way around a bar, and why wouldn’t he? He had, like, ten on his island resort.

“Did you get in contact with your mom?”

“Unfortunately.” I shook my head and headed back down the hall. After that horrid conversation with my mother, I felt the need to find somewhere more at home for me to call West. Somewhere familiar. Somewhere I did my best thinking.

I passed by several seating areas, some of which hadopenwindows—probably not the smartest place for me to stand right now, with how I was feeling—and kept right on until I found exactly what I was looking for.

A beautiful bedroom with a king-sized bed overlooking the Hudson River beckoned me inside. But it wasn’t the soft duvet and hundreds of pillows calling my name. No, that would be the room connected to it that I knew would be just as high end.

“Do you want to get some sleep?” Zac asked as I made my way inside, taking in the expensive artwork hanging on the walls. I couldn’t help but admire King’s taste. The guy had just spent the week with me and Zac, so of course he had stellar taste. But this showed a whole other side to him.

“Nope. Couldn’t sleep now even if I wanted to.”

“Then what are we…” Zac’s question drifted off as I wandered through a wide-open doorway, and there it was, my very own marble temple. “Oh, you want to take a bath? Okay, let me get out of the— Wait, what are you doing?”

I climbed into the huge soaker tub by an enormous floor-to-ceiling window and leaned back against the end, martini in hand. I closed my eyes, and my mind started to calm as the cool stone soothed my soul.

“Um, East?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re still wearing your clothes.”

I opened one eye and took in the confusion on Zac’s face. “And that’s strange because…?”

“You’re sitting in a bathtub.”

“I know.” I took a long sip of my martini, enjoying the smooth slide of whatever high-end vodka King had put in it. “This is where I do my best thinking.”

“In the bathtub?”

“Yes.”

“But without actually taking a bath?”

“Again, yes. There’s just something so comforting about how the stone feels around me.”

“Like a tomb?”

I snorted, and Zac’s lips twitched. I guess it was a little strange to take comfort this way. But could anyone blame me? It wasn’t as if my mother was the warmest woman in the world. So this was like a maternal hug of sorts.

“I need to call West,” I said, knowing that Zac wouldn’t want to stick around for that, and just as suspected, he went to leave the bathroom. “Zac?”

He stopped in the doorway and turned back to look at me.

“You’re going to stay, right?”

“The night?”

“Just…until whenever.”

A small smile tugged at his lips, and my chest tightened. Jesus, with all this shit going on with my father, was I about to have a heart attack?

“Yeah, I can stay.”

“Good, okay.” I held the phone up, and when he turned and left without another word, I reached for the paper King had given me and entered West’s number. Then at the last second hit the video feature so I could see his ugly mug.

It barely had time to connect before he answered, and when his familiar face came onto the screen, a wave of relief washed over me.

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