“I am sorry for the inconvenience, but the order was a little over a thousand dollars. I could have tried to push through the sale if it was under that. But?—”
“It’s okay,” I assure her, my voice re-found and my wish for revenge surging. “You need to view my card in person, right?”
“Uh-huh.” Now she’s worried. “I could send someone to your room?—”
“No!” I shout a little too loudly, startling Tempy. “My husband is showering, and I don’t want you to…”
I’ve got nothing. Roy has the very definition of a dad bod, just minus the kids required for the title. My arms wobbled when I waved him goodbye this morning, but their flaps were barely noticeable when his turkey gobbler got stuck in a wind funnel.
Remembrance of the way he breezed out of our home this morning catapults my anger.
Did he know then that he was serving me divorce papers this evening?
When my head screams a resounding yes, I veer down the slippery slope of revenge instead of taking the high road.
“I’ll be right down. Just give me a few minutes to get dressed. We barely made it into the suite before we started tearing our clothes off each other.”
Her gag is audible. It is all the proof I need that she hasn’t mixed up my husband’s reservation with another man. “Wonderful. I’ll see you soon.”
I farewell her before opening my recently called list and copying and pasting her number into the Safari app. It shows the details of a hotel built in the last twelve months.
It is fancy but not as expensive as its counterparts since it is miles from the strip, which is odd since its advertisement continually states it is “discreet forallguests.”
As my eyes bounce between the hotel’s no-pet policy and Tempy, I try to think of a solution. Tempy loves our home as much as I do, but I don’t trust Roy enough not to wonder if this is a ploy for him to dognap my beloved baby.
I’d hand over everything I own without a single gripe if he granted me full custody of Tempy.
Roy knows this, so I can’t leave myself vulnerable to attack.
A smirk tilts my top lip when a brilliant idea smacks into me. “Do you want to go see Nanny?”
Mrs. Gessler loves Tempy. She spoils her rotten with homemade dog biscuits and often buys her bones bigger than her tiny frame. She’s offered to babysit Tempy numerous times in the past six years, so I’m sure she’d love to babysit Tempy for an hour or two this evening.
When Tempy barks before spinning in a circle, I collect her leash from the coat rack, stuff my feet into the only heels in the coat room, and then race through the frosted glass door of my home like the bottom half of my outfit isn’t impersonating dental floss.
2
MIRANDA
Tempy is with Mrs. Gessler. Roy’s outstanding bill was paid with the debit card he failed to tell me about when we merged assets, and I’m so burned up with adrenaline that no matter how large I make the gap in my coat, I feel seconds from death by dehydration.
It’s winter! Did Vegas not get the memo?
When the elevator arrives on the floor of the honeymoon suite, I dip my chin in farewell to the man who entered with me in the lobby before I slowly exit.
Air whistles from his nose when he takes a final gawk of my six-inch-high stilettoes. The shoes I haven’t worn since Valentine’s Day three years ago have him convinced I am a paid escort.
No, I’m not hypothesizing.
He asked me my hourly rate before stumbling out that he’d double the fee the guest I was about to visit paidandpurchase him a replacement escort so there’d be no hard feelings.
“Though I doubt I’ll ever find him someone as tempting as you,” he said while trying to woo me with both money and a confidence boost. “Perhaps I should send him a handful of the women who liaise with the guests here every evening?”
That’s when it dawned on me why this hotel is so exclusive.
Not every room is booked out at a nightly rate.
Some are reserved per hour.
