Half Empty (First Wives, #2)(15)

Trina leaned forward. “What about your penthouse suite, or whatever your top floor has to offer? Money isn’t an issue.”

Trina pulled her wallet out of her purse.

Not to be outdone, Wade removed his wallet. “Exactly.”

The clerk typed on his computer again. “The only thing we have is the presidential suite—”

Wade put his credit card down before Trina could. “We’ll take it.”

Trina nudged his card away. “I’ll pay.”

Shaking his head, Wade picked up her card and pushed his forward. “Not this time, little lady. Use this, please.”

The clerk ping-ponged his gaze between them.

“I’m the reason we’re here. I pay for the room,” Trina insisted, grabbing at her credit card.

Wade held it out of her reach.

“I haven’t had a woman pay for my room since I was in diapers.” He turned to the clerk. “On my card.”

The clerk held up his card and hesitated. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Wade turned to Trina.

“I pay for half or I’m going to find another hotel,” Trina insisted.

“Seriously?” What was up with this woman?

She placed her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. “Don’t I look serious?”

“You look like something that fell into a pond.”

Trina rolled her eyes, grabbed her card from his fingertips, and turned as if she was walking away.

“Fine! Half.”

With a smug smile, she handed her card to the clerk without words.

“Presidential suite for one night—”

“Two,” Wade interrupted the clerk. He glanced at Trina. “I’m not getting back on that plane until my liver settles to where God meant it to sit.”

She sighed. “Fine.”



“You take the master,” Trina suggested when the bellhop left them.

“Why? Are you going to argue about that, too?”

He had this pouty look that stretched from his eyes to his lower lip. Trina wondered if he used that look to get his way with all the women.

“I won’t argue. But my guess is the bed in there is a king, and you’re taller than me. It’s the practical choice.” She picked up her suitcase and started toward the master. “But if you insist.” Blowing right past him, Trina passed into the larger bedroom and tossed her case on the footstool by the bed. “Oh, this is nice.”

“Now you’re just teasing,” Wade said from the other room.

Trina laughed to herself.

“I’m going to shower and change,” she told him.

Wade moaned.

She turned around and bit her lips.

“You’re loving this,” he said.

Trina shrugged. “Could be worse.”

“I can’t figure you out, lady.”

“Good.” With that, she stepped back from the door and closed it.

Wade chuckled as he walked away.

Once she kicked off her shoes, she found her half-broken phone in her purse and attempted to access her messages.

The screen had cracked to the point that bright globes followed the shattered glass and distorted the information. She tapped her messages but nothing happened. Instead of fighting it, she tossed it back in her purse and told herself to call her house phone later that night.

It might be nice to live without the distraction of a cell phone for a couple of days.

Shedding her clothes as she went, she made her way into her private bathroom and smiled at the size of the space. How many times had she stayed in hotels on layovers all over the world? None of which had rooms like this.

But this was how she lived now.

Penthouse suites and bathrooms you could throw a party in if you chose to.

She still packed light, even when going to Italy for an extended period of time. She had bought a few things along the way and simply shipped them home instead of dealing with the luggage. A luxury she never would have used in the past.

Her reflection in the mirror looked back. Her long black hair had stopped dripping down her back somewhere between checking in and taking the elevator to the top floor. Through her beige shirt, she saw the outline of her bra. Hardly wet T-shirt contest worthy, but it was close. To give Wade credit, he hadn’t noticed. Or if he did, he didn’t stare.

He seemed like a nice guy—therefore, she wondered what was wrong with him. If there was one thing Trina knew about herself, it was that she trusted them all way too soon. She thought they all said what they meant and meant what they said. She couldn’t read them before her fake marriage to Fedor, and she’d certainly failed with her husband in their brief time together.

Unable to stop her head from going there, she thought about the last time she saw Fedor alive. It was the night before he shot himself. Alice, his mother, had slipped into a coma, and he spent most of his time in the hospital, by her bedside.

Trina had found him in his den. In his hand were two metal balls that he often fiddled with when he was thinking. She wondered, briefly, what had happened to those balls. They were real silver. The only reason she knew that fact was she’d asked him shortly after she moved into his Hamptons home.

Trina closed her eyes and forced the image, and the memory, away.