Claire: The Forced Virgin Of The Billionaire

5 more minutes. 10 more minutes. No reply to my text and no sign of Azriel.

A man went in and then came out of the bathroom, an older grandfatherly-looking man,

“Excuse me? My I’m wondering if my fiancé is alright. He went in kind of a long time ago and hasn’t come out. He’s quite tall, brown hair, wearing a green t-shirt and dark jean shorts?”

“Bathroom’s empty,” the man said, shrugging.

I’m sure I must’ve looked shocked, “Thank you,” I said. I leaned against the wall and dialed Azriel’s phone number. It just rang.

I looked back at the text message. It was iMessage and it now said the earlier message had been read, just a moment before.

Where are you?

I texted.

It was read immediately.

I waited to see the little dots showing me he was typing. It showed nothing after the read notification.

I looked around me. There were people walking everywhere. I sat there for another few minutes and finally I felt like I had to do something. So I called him again. It rang and rang. Then I called Dario. His was the only other number in my contacts.

“Yeah?” he answered on the first ring.

“Dario, it’s Claire.”

“Hey-ya Claire Tyson!” he answered enthusiastically and it sounded like he was smiling through the phone, which was weird because he’d gone from angry brother to this other person, still pretty intense, but now nice to me.

“Um, Hi, sorry to bug you but I don’t know what to make of this.”

“What’s that?” he sounded like he was in a restaurant or something like that; there was a lot of background noise.

“Um, I can’t find your brother. I went to the ladies room, he went to the men’s room, and I’ve been waiting outside the door for a long time, like almost half an hour. Someone told me the washroom is empty, he’s not there. I don’t know what to do.”

“Where’s security?”

“Azriel let them go have time to themselves.”

“s**t,” Dario said.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Okay, someone said the washroom was empty?”

“Yep.”

“Go in the washroom and check every stall, make sure he’s not passed out or something,” he told me, “Keep me on the line.” Then I heard him shout in the background to someone, “Gimme your phone.”

I walked into the mens’ room and followed his directions. I pushed every door open and there was no one there. I could hear Dario’s voice muffled as he probably had his hand over his phone while, I imagined, calling Nino and James on someone else’s phone, “Claire where are you?”

“The Mandalay, in the shopping part between the hotels. The bathroom’s definitely empty.”

“Go to the concierge’s desk in the Luxor and tell them you need security immediately and then put me on the phone with the concierge. Get out of that f*****g washroom in case someone’s behind this. Now. Keep me on the phone as you make your way to the front. Tell me if anything looks suspicious. The guys are on their way.”

What now? I couldn’t wrap my head around this. Was this life, my life from now on, going to entail one drama after another? Had Azriel been kidnapped or something? I prayed there was a logical explanation for this.

** ** **

The fact that the concierge didn’t even make a weird face when I told him I needed immediate security and then passed my phone to him was beyond wonky to me. I guess in Vegas they are accustomed to weird requests.

My phone got passed back to me and Dario said, “I’ve got people on it. Don’t stress. I’m sending someone to pick you up.”

I thanked him. I was taken to an office and offered refreshments and then I sat there, fidgeting with the water bottle I’d been given, until Azriel walked in. I was shocked and relieved to see him. I jumped up and threw my arms around him, “Thank God. Are you okay? What happened?”

He gave me a little smile and a big squeeze, momentarily lifting me off my feet, “We’ll talk after. Let’s go.”

Azriel’s POV

Flying colors. She’d passed again. The way she’d handled that was just about perfect. She could’ve hocked the engagement ring and the earrings to get out of here, get away from me.

She had at least $250 in her purse, too, as I’d given her pocket money for tips. The jewelry would’ve given her enough money to get gone and possibly even stay gone if she was smart about it.

She could also have handled things the wrong way, called the cops and reported me missing and involved them or something stupid like that.

But she didn’t. I saw her mind working from a security booth; I knew it’d crossed her mind to run. It was almost like I could see the thought bubbles above her head.

I could see it in her body language as she chewed her l*p, chewed her cheek, looked around herself, blew her hair out of her eyes like she was faced with a dilemma. But she did the right thing.

The exact right thing. She called someone she knew I trusted and got advice.

There was only one problem. I needed her to misbehave. I needed her to misbehave so I had a reason to punish her. I was about to crack. Yeah, it was good to see she could handle an emergency but why I probably

really ran this test today was because I knew there would be fall out.

I needed fall out.