Chapter 4 - He Left the Dance Floor After Me
I didn't make it all the way to the suites on the first try. My feet carried me past the marble columns and into the service hallway where the air was cooler, and I stopped with my back against the wall because my legs wouldn't do what I told them to. The music from the ballroom was muffled there, just the bass line thudding through the plaster. I could hear glasses clinking and somebody laughing too loud. My phone buzzed once in my clutch. My driver had answered. Twenty minutes. I slipped it back and pressed my palm low on my belly until the tightness eased.
I wasn't ready to go back out there, but I wasn't ready to disappear either. If I vanished from the table, someone would notice. Mason would notice. I edged back toward the archway that led to the main floor, staying half behind a column where the warm light didn't quite reach me. From there I could see our table. My chair was empty. My water glass was still sweating onto the linen.
On the dance floor, the song was ending. Couples slowed and stepped apart. I found Mason right away because I'd spent years finding him in rooms like that. Dark tux, hand still resting lightly at the back of a woman in a red dress. She said something up at him and laughed, and he smiled back in that practiced way he had when cameras were around. He didn't look worried. He looked comfortable.
Then the older woman got to him. She moved faster than I'd seen her move all night, cutting straight across the edge of the floor instead of going around like everyone else did. She touched his sleeve. He bent down to hear her, still smiling at first. I couldn't hear the words over the applause for the band, but I saw the change happen. His smile flattened. He glanced toward our table, then scanned the room. When he saw my empty chair, his jaw set.
I should have moved then. I should have turned and walked straight down to the suites and locked the door while I had the head start. But I stayed watching because I needed to know what version of him would come looking for me.
She kept her hand on his arm. He shook his head at something she said and tried to step around her toward the bar, like maybe he thought I'd just gone for air. She stepped with him. That was when her voice carried just enough for me to catch it. "Please," she said. "She's upset." He said something short back that I couldn't make out, and the woman in red touched his shoulder, confused at being left mid-conversation. He lifted his hand off her back like he was just now remembering where it was.
He looked past his mother toward the hallway where I'd gone. The band started a new song, something slower, and a few couples moved back together. Nobody else was watching them. To everyone else it just looked like a family chat at the edge of the floor. He nodded once, tight, and handed his drink to her without looking. Then he started walking.
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My heart kicked so hard I felt it in my throat. He wasn't running. He was doing that controlled walk he used when he didn't want to make a scene, shoulders back, chin level. She stayed half a step behind him, still talking low and fast. He didn't slow for her.
I pushed off the column and turned before they reached the archway. My gown caught on the corner and I had to yank it free. The hallway stretched long in front of me with those little gold suite numbers I hadn't paid attention to when we arrived. I didn't look back to see if he'd seen me. I could hear the change in the sound as they left the music behind and their shoes hit the marble out here. He was coming. She was following. And I still had maybe thirty seconds to get behind a door.
