Page 9 of Ella Gets the D
Discarded clothes and shoes form a trail to the front door. I got dressed an hour ago but grab my blazer and loafers. With onelast sweep of the room and a pat to my pocket to check for my key card, I leave Tilly and Chloe sound asleep in the four-poster bed and step into an empty hall encrusted in every eighteenth-century decorative accent.
Hugh is in the lobby, reading the paper. His bushy brows peek over the top at me, the only other person wide awake at his hour. “Late night?”
“Early morning.”
He nods and flips a page. “I’ll have a car ready for your guests by ten.” Blue-gray eyes flick to me. “Make that eleven.”
“Thank you, Hugh. Please charge their breakfast and rides home to my account.”
“Always do,” he says without another look.
The number of “guests” has dwindled over the years, but the routine hasn’t. I pay enough to this hotel for its discretion whenever I have company—that’s in addition to the rate for the suite that’s become my second home. It’s a bitch to come down to the lobby, but it’s the only way to access the car for the private floors and guarantee no one follows you up.
I like my space without strings.
It’s three in the morning by the time I wash up and my head hits the pillow. Sleep is more of a nap these days. I need more—rest, obviously, but also something else. The usual vices no longer satisfy me. Not that they ever did.
My eyes finally flutter closed, then my phone rings. I hit ignore, but it rings two more times.
“Yeah?” I huff with a forearm over my face.
“Can I come up?” The familiar voice is faint and unsteady.
Only a few people can bypass my currently occupied guest room suite. It’s a bad idea, a decision I would regret in the morning if morning wasn’t already here.
Yet…
“I’ll meet you in two.”
Chapter 4
Ella
“You think you can do this to me?” Charles slams his fist into the mahogany conference table and leans over it. He has at least two more feet before he reaches my personal space, but that doesn’t stop his man-child performance. His eyes darken, and his muscles coil like he’ll snap any minute. If he wasn’t foaming at the mouth because I moved out two weeks ago, I’d wonder if he had rabies.
I turn from the demon in front of me to the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows and the view of the waterfront park. DC is gorgeous in April. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom. The sun is out. People have hit the streets for a stroll in the spring air, void of their winter coats.
“Ella.” My name seeps through Charles’s lips like a vile curse.
Him again.
My eyes drift back to meet his. Sitting across from my soon-to-be ex and his attorney is not at the top of my list of fun things to do on a Friday afternoon. Haile and Jackson are with his parents until tomorrow. This is my first kid-free night in the city for as long as I can remember. Charles might kill vibes andmarriages, but seeing him turn a deep shade of crimson I didn’t know was humanly possible makes this meeting—onehecalled—worth every second.
Turn out his unfaithfulness is my ticket to pass go and collect two hundred dollars. Did you know the State of Virginia doesn’t require a waiting period to file for divorce if your spouse commits adultery? I didn’t, but Grier did.
The day after I met her mother, she pushed a coffee in my hand, gave me a hug, and said, “Nice to meet you in person. Let’s talk options.”
I planned to call her on Monday, but she beat me to it after she got out of church and has been moving at warp speed ever since. One of her employees made the trip to Charles’s office within the week, much to his disgust. Granted, she could’ve saved the trip by calling, but that’s not Grier’s style.
She shoots from her wide hips and decided that an in-person visit—on Good Friday, no less—was more appropriate. Is it her associate’s fault that Charles works around the clock, which required her to leave a message with his executive assistant saying his wife is filing for divorce after his affair, or that his colleagues happened to be in earshot?
Oh, to see the smoke that erupted from his ears! I’m sure his face contorted like he was holding in gas.
Kind of like how he looks now.
Grier stands and puts a hand on her hip. Her eyes lock on Charles in a silent dare for him to keep up his tantrum. “Mr. Richardson,” she says to his lawyer, her gaze still fixed on the doofus of the hour. “Would you please advise your client against his attempts to intimidate Ms. Greene? You are in my office as a courtesy, so we can come to an agreement and dissolve this marriage as swiftly as possible.” She sits in her teal-on-teal power suit and steeples her hands. “I take threats very seriously and will recommend my client seek a protection order.”
“Mrs. Hudson. Her name is Mrs. Fucking Hudson,” Charles says through gritted teeth. He tries to level Grier with a stare and gets a smirk. I need to ask her who makes that cranberry lip stain. It’s a good look.
