Until You Loved Me (Silver Springs #3)(9)

He didn’t hear any noise, however—nothing to indicate he had company.

Why would she leave so soon? Without even giving him her number or pinning him down on when he might be interested in getting together again?

“Ellie?” he called.

No answer.

He got up and pulled on his boxers before opening the drapes to let in the sun. Then he walked through the whole suite.

As he’d begun to suspect, it was empty. And her clothes and purse weren’t anywhere to be found.

Had she gone out to get them some breakfast?

Hudson would’ve been happy to order room service if she’d told him she was hungry...

If she had stepped out for food, she might’ve left him a note to say she’d be back. He checked the desk, but there was nothing on the pad by the phone.

Returning to the bed, he held the pillow she’d used to his nose. He could smell her perfume. That was the only trace left of her.

His phone started to vibrate again. Disappointed that the woman he’d met and liked had walked out on him without so much as a goodbye—when she knew he still had a day or two in Miami—he picked up his pants and dug his phone out of the front pocket. As he did, he felt a small burst of hope and thought maybe she was calling. Until he remembered that she didn’t know who he was. They hadn’t exchanged numbers; they hadn’t even exchanged last names!

Before she left, she could’ve gotten his phone out of his pants and called herself to capture his number. He’d had other women help themselves. But it would have been locked since he hadn’t used it recently. Besides, she didn’t seem the type. If he was being honest, that was partly why he’d been attracted to her. She wasn’t as aggressive as some of the other women he’d met since launching his career. So he wasn’t surprised to find that his caller was just Teague.

With a sigh, he hit the talk button. “’Lo?”

“There you are!” Teague said. “Jeez, I’ve called you at least ten times. Where the heck have you been?”

“What do you mean, where have I been? I was up late. I’ve been sleeping. Why? What’s the emergency?”

“No emergency. Just checking in. I was afraid you were unhappy when you left last night. I would’ve left with you if you’d told me you were going. I tried texting you, but after that cryptic message you sent me—‘Leaving, see you tomorrow’—I got nothing.”

“I didn’t expect you to leave the club. I was having a good time without you.” The last thing he’d wanted was for Teague to catch up with him and ruin his fun. In addition to his fear of being recognized, that was why he’d made up an excuse to Ellie that they needed to slip out the back and only texted Teague once he was safely away. Otherwise, he knew his agent would have come running.

Crazy thing was, there were a million reasons last night shouldn’t have happened the way it did. And yet everything had worked out.

He’d never forget the moment Ellie pulled him into that cab. It had taken her so long to warm up to him that he hadn’t expected it. He’d spent several hours, both before and after that, with a woman who had no clue he was a professional athlete, let alone the starting quarterback for the Los Angeles Devils. And just as he’d suspected, taking his celebrity out of the mix had made their interaction so much more genuine. For once, he could be confident that the person he was with had no ulterior motives, that she honestly liked him for him.

“You were having fun?” Teague said in surprise. “Sitting in that booth alone? No, we shouldn’t have left you. We knew you weren’t that big on—”

“Teague!” he broke in.

“What?”

“I left with someone, brought her here to the hotel.”

There was a slight pause. “You did? How? I didn’t even see you talk to anyone.”

“Well, you weren’t watching me the whole night.”

“You were in that damn booth every time I checked.”

“There was a woman by the name of Ellie sitting nearby. We hit it off.”

“Just like that?”

“Not quite as fast as it sounds, but yeah.”

“She a football fan?”

“Don’t know. She didn’t recognize me. That’s what made it so enjoyable.”

Teague grunted as if he was struggling to process that. “You didn’t tell her who you were?”

“No.”

“And she couldn’t figure it out for herself?”

Hudson could hear the skepticism. He remembered feeling the same disbelief at first—waiting for her to put two and two together. “Guess not. She doesn’t watch sports. Which isn’t too big a shock, I suppose. She’s a scientist.”

“Interesting. I feel a lot better, then. Glad you had a great time.”

He did have a great time, and then he’d slept like a baby, something he’d been unable to do for months. He’d been too worried about Aaron Stapleton, one of the boys he mentored at New Horizons Boys Ranch, the behavior-focused boarding school he’d attended himself from his sophomore to senior year. The kid had been diagnosed with bladder cancer six months ago and was going through a second round of chemo, which made him deathly ill, and he didn’t have any parental support. Hudson was terrified that the treatments wouldn’t be as effective as they needed to be, that he’d lose the one person he’d felt he could trust with a big piece of his heart.