That swayed her more than anything he could have said. Whatever was going on was not just her. Layla felt a deep mystery as he gently released her wrist, beckoning to her chair. She reclaimed it, watching him warily like a bird with a snake. But something about her was having an effect on him too – so perhaps they were two snakes facing off across the table.
“Talk.” Layla took up her wine, downing what was left and pouring again from the bottle. She didn’t refill his glass, eyeballing him with a tense composure. He downed what was left of his own wine and after he’d refilled his glass, drank another big swig before he set it carefully down.
“The Red Letter Hotel,” he began, watching Layla intently, “serves the most elite clientele on earth. Don’t bother researching it on Google or anywhere else. You won’t find anything.”
“The Red Letter Hotel.” Layla pinned him with her gaze. “What’s that? This?” She held up his business card.
“That,” he nodded soberly at the card, “is an exclusive invitation. To become part of one of the most elite organizations on earth. Elon Musk wishes he had our connections. Andthatcard in his fingertips, just as you have now.”
“But you prostitute people.” Layla frowned.
“No.” He tapped the pedestal of his wine glass with one finger, watching her with his searing gaze. “We invite luxury clients to have a one-of-a-kind experience during their stay with us. It can include sex, but not necessarily. We provide an experience that will blow a person’s mind, body, and spirit, and re-configure everything they ever knew about the world. Our guests value us for providing that perspective and pay handsomely for it. I’m invitingyouto come be a part of it.”
“To what?” Layla sassed, eyeballing him. “Start as a low-level hooker on the main floor of the casino? No fucking thank you.”
“No. And we have no gambling at the Hotel.” His eyes were piercing, frank but also hard. “I’d like you to start in Concierge Services, using your formidable talents to navigate tricky political situations with grace, wit, and fire, for the benefit of both yourself and our establishment. You’d be learning on your feet and coming to understand a whole new world by being a part of it. Gaining a thorough understanding of who youreallyare – and how much power and benefit it can bring you. If you’re ready.”
Layla was stone-cold for a long moment. “Who the fuck are you?”
He had opened his lips to respond when something near the door caught his eye. Layla could practically feel him bristle as he came instantly alert, like spines or barbs prickling in the air. She could feel it all over her body, and she shivered as the man’s hand snaked out lightning-fast to a steak knife by his plate, touching it like he might attack someone. He paused, watching the door with a rigid, animalistic fury that made his eyes flash bright gold. The moment stretched, Layla barely able to breathe from the intensity flooding from him. Her breath came in small gasps, and his eyes flicked to her. Worry creased his handsome features, and taking a deep breath, his fingers eased from the knife – that bristling sensation in the air diminishing until Layla could breathe again.
He leaned forward, dropping his voice. “Forgive me. But I can’t tell you my name. Not here, not now. It’s not safe. But please know, Layla Price, that with your International Studies PhD, the seven languages you speak fluently and how easily you pick up more, and with your mother’s heritage out of Marrakesh – that you arepreciselythe person I’ve been looking for. The cuff’s reaction to you tonight confirms it. Consider all that I’ve said. Please. I’m begging you to.”
With that, he rose, snagging Layla’s roommate Arron by the arm as he passed, pressing his black credit card into Arron’s hand. “Anything the lady wants, please see that she is taken care of. I have to leave, but make certain she gets this card before she goes, to take with her and use as she sees fit.”
“Sir.” Arron’s blonde eyebrows climbed his forehead as he nodded. He glanced between them with an incredulous look at Layla, then bustled off to the server’s station with the card.
Gazing down at Layla, a complicated look washed through her mysterious stranger’s eyes. They seemed to change again in the bright light of the restaurant – like an ocean roiling with currents of sea green, royal blue, then gold. Layla’s breath caught, feeling like she was rolled under the Mediterranean – drowning in his desert-spice scent as waves of heat flooded off his skin.
Her breath was fast again as he reached out, touching her fingertips. At his caress, a spear of electricity shot straight through Layla. Blistering heat rolled from him; an answering heat rolled hard through Layla as he held her gaze and lifted her fingers to his lips. At the touch of his lips, so impossibly smooth upon her skin, passion roared through Layla’s marrow. She could suddenly feel those lips kissing her everywhere. Her neck, her nipples, her groin – lust hammered her, then disorientation as if she were seeing him in a hundred different skins.
All of them changing except for the piercing blue of his desert-ocean eyes.
Sliding his free hand into his pocket, he retrieved the hamsa-cuff and set it on the table by Layla’s plate. Guiding her hand from his lips, he set her fingertips to the red coral and white bone of the cuff. “This is yours. Call the number on the card. Become who you were meant to be.”
With that he released her, something like agony flaring in his eyes as he devoured her one last time. And then he was gone, sidling through the restaurant and out into the night so quickly it was like he’d never been.
Stunned, Layla still simmered with annihilation, every nerve on fire. Reaching out, she claimed her wine, downing it. Arron was there quickly, refilling her glass, his big grey eyes deeply alarmed. “Layla? What just happened? Did your date just ditch you?”
“I don’t know.” Layla gave a slow blink as she looked up at him.
“Are you ok?” He spoke again softly, reading her distress. “You look shaken.”
“I don’t know,” she spoke again, still reeling.
Watching her intently, Arron slid to the chair that Layla’s stranger had just vacated. Reaching out, her sweet, tall twink of a housemate took her hand. “You look flushed, honey. Maybe some food? Perhaps your date was an asshat, but he did leave his credit card. We can burn a hole in his plastic; order you all the most expensive things on the menu and give him what-for. I say good riddance. You don’t need another Gavin.”
Layla laughed despite her current shock. She realized it looked like she’d just been walked out on by some high-finance asshat who was trying to pay her off with his little black credit card. Layla looked up, a slow smile curling her lips at last.
“Charge my meal and drinks to his card, Arron. Hell, use it to buy everyone’s dinners tonight and give you and the staff a hundred percent tip for every meal. I don’t want his little black card. He can shove it.”
“Fierce, girl!” Arron grinned, impish with delight, his grey eyes merry. “Mama gonna get hers tonight!”
“And don’t stop with the wine, ok?” Layla swigged back her chardonnay. “Even if I get plastered. I’ll call a Lyft to get back to the house tonight.”
“Or if you get hammered long enough, I’ll drive you back at the end of my shift.” Arron laughed with delight, then whisked a second bottle of chardonnay out of the rack-wall and uncorked it, setting it on the table. “Be right back with our most expensive appetizers!”
Arron whisked away, leaving Layla staring at the door. Watching; waiting. She realized some part of her was hoping her hotel-owning billionaire with his absurd proposal, strange heat, and oceanic eyes would be back. But as she gazed around the restaurant, she noticed she was alone now in her little nook.
