was more to it than that, and the revelation pretty much freaked me out.
So for the next twenty-four hours, I did my best to avoid Weston. And I was successful, too. Until I came out of the office supply store a few blocks away from the hotel at close to eight o’clock at night, and I happened to see Weston up ahead on the opposite side of the street. Since he was walking the direction I had to go, I kept him in my line of sight for the next two blocks. I figured he was on his way back to the hotel, like I was, but when he turned right instead of left at the next corner, I realized that wasn’t the case.
Standing at an intersection, I looked left and could see The Countess one block over. To my right, I watched Weston continue to walk. Conflicted, my head swung back and forth a few times before I finally sighed and decided a little extra walk tonight would do me some good.
I let more distance gap between us as I followed him from the opposite side of the street. Whereas before we’d both been heading toward the hotel, and if I got caught behind him, I had a legitimate excuse, now I was just a plain old stalker. I tailed him for a solid ten minutes, turning left and right with no idea where the hell we were going. Eventually, he turned in to an office building. I caught up and watched from across the street as he walked through the glass doors and headed straight for the elevator. With the show over, I probably should’ve turned around and weaved my way back to The Countess. But curiosity got the best of me.
Looking both ways, I jay-walked across the busy street toward the building. My heart sped up as I made my way to the glass doors. Weston had disappeared into the elevator, and I had no idea what the hell I was looking for. Yet for some stupid reason, I was willing to get caught to see if I could figure out where he was going.
In the lobby, I studied the building directory. It read like a typical Manhattan skyscraper, with dozens of doctors, lawyers, and corporate offices. Weston hadn’t stopped to check the directory, so he’d clearly been here before, or at least knew where he was going. Disappointed—though I had no idea why I’d followed him to begin with—I turned to leave. The last thing I wanted was to get caught when my snooping hadn’t even produced any good information. As I returned to the front door of the building, my cell buzzed. So I dug it out of my purse while I kept walking.
But my feet froze as I read the text that had come in.
If you wanted to know where I was going, all you had to do was ask.
Oh God. I felt nauseous.
But it couldn’t be from Weston. He didn’t have my cell phone number, as far as I knew. I racked my brain trying to figure out who else could have sent me such a text. Everyone I knew was in my contacts, and this message had come from an unknown number. It had to be Weston. Nothing else made sense. Though, I was so freaked out that I hung on to hope.
My hands were shaky as I hit reply.
Who is this?
I held my breath as the little circles jumped around, waiting for the reply to come through. When it did, my mouth went dry.
You know who it is. Meet me in my room in one hour.
I practically ran back to the hotel. All I wanted to do was hide. In my suite, I looked down at my phone and realized fifteen minutes had passed since the text came in, yet I didn’t remember any of the walk back.
Sitting down on my bed, I read Weston’s text over and over again.
Meet me in my room in one hour.
Was he crazy? I was not going to his room. What was the point? To make it easy for him to torture me about being caught? And how did he even know I was following him? Even if he’d seen me somehow, I could’ve had an appointment in the same building. The entire thing could be a complete coincidence. For all he knew, I’d been walking to an appointment and never even noticed him up ahead on the other side of the street. His damn