Page 132 of The Playboy

“I talked to her during my interview. I came clean to her. I told her everything I haven’t had the courage to tell you.” Her hand dropped to her chest. “Oh God, I didn’t want you to find out this way.” Her fingers were on the move again, this time wrapping around her stomach, her other arm doing the same. “Macon … I have something to tell you.”

What the hell had she told Jo during her interview?

How had she come clean?

What did this all mean?

Despite my questions, I couldn’t just stand here or allow this much distance between us.

Nor could I let an important conversation, like the one I assumed we were about to have, take place in the fucking bathroom.

So, I moved closer and clasped her waist. “Let’s go sit.”

“No. I have to tell you—”

“Whatever it is that you need to tell me, you can do it while we’re sitting on the bed.” When I tried to lead her toward the bedroom, she didn’t move. “Come with me, Brooklyn.”

She was scanning my eyes, right to left and back.

“Please,” I demanded.

She finally pulled herself off the frame, and as we were walking toward the bedroom, I noticed the door to my room was open. No one was standing in the doorframe, and the housekeeper or hotel employee—whoever had opened it—wasn’t in my room.

“What the fuck?” I roared.

I was pissed that someone would have the audacity to open my suite and keep the door ajar when I was in the shower or in a towel or whenever the fuck it had happened.

The protocol was to knock. That was standard for any hotel.

Where the hell was the knock?

Brooklyn would have heard it; she would have told them not to come in.

I left her side to go close it, but within a step, she was next to me, following me, and within a few paces, she’d gained the lead. She pulled out the wooden block from under the bottom of the door—the wedge that had kept it open—and she set it on something in the hallway.

As I neared the area, I saw what she’d placed it on.

The housekeeping cart.

And when she turned toward me, a feeling hit me.

That there was something really off about this situation.

That the door being open hadn’t been a coincidence.

My brain gradually began connecting the pieces that were lying directly in front of me.

The shock on her face when she had seen me in the shower.

Not because she’d found me beating off … but because she hadn’t expected me to be in the bathroom.

Or the room at all.

Then, there was the outfit she had on.

The way she had set the wooden wedge on the cart and let the door close behind her.

And the way she was looking at me right now.

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