BEYOND THE VELVET ROPE

Holly had lost her friend, unfortunately. She had been too busy attending to the guests, she hadn’t paid any mind to her guests. It was past one in the morning and the actual party had already ended the moment the Cortez brothers were present, and the after-party was now in full swing. Which was mostly for the friends of the celebrants.

The place was filled with teenagers and Holly couldn’t believe she used to think she was so grown up at that age.

They all looked like babies. Somehow, most of them were dressed scarily well, and she remembered the embarrassing outfit choices she made when she was eighteen. Their hair was perfectly done, their makeup equally immaculate, and Holly felt a tinge of jealousy. How come she was not that put together at twenty-seven almost twenty-eight -but they can be at eighteen? Both the males and females alike. The last of the Cortez brothers, the celebrant, looked like he wasn’t having any fun, despite the amount of gifts and brand deals he had gotten, enough to make a poor man a millionaire overnight.

Yet, he looked bored, uninterested, like he’d rather be anywhere but there. Holly was filled with the urge to smack him so hard he went flying through space. The party preparation had taken months of brainstorming ideas and weeks of making it a reality. And he didn’t seem even the slightest bit impressed by her beautiful work.

Holly’s feet were starting to throb painfully, but she tried to maintain being in the heels a little longer, just till the party was over and she could go home and soak her feet in lukewarm water and get her boyfriend to rub them with oil.

Speaking of her boyfriend, Peterson, by the bar counter had spread his arms out on sighting her walking in his direction. Holly’s lips squeezed into a pout and she gladly eased her body weight into him, causing him to stagger a few feet back. He squeezed her shoulders and placed relentless kisses all over her face and temples. They were the hotel’s power couple, though Holly was a plus size and Peter a little on the skinny and lanky side, they were still a perfect match for each other.

“You look stressed. What’s wrong?”

“I can’t find Elizabeth anywhere!” Holly moaned dejectedly into her man’s chest, her head pounding with an oncoming headache. He smelled like home. Fresh, comfortable. Like freshly washed clothes and the cologne, she had gotten him the last Christmas holiday. She was indeed stressed and needed as much rest as she could get. She had the rest of the week off because her boss was traveling back to Miami the next day, to attend to some important business. He had given her the week off at the hotel because she had been working overtime. But she would have to return the next week to continue her work.

“I saw when you came in with her. She’d gotten a drink and—”

Holly snorted, not even a little surprised. “Liz was drinking?”

“Yes, she was getting a drink, I don’t know where she went after that.”

Later on, Holly continued sauntering through the hallways of the hotel. She had checked outside the building in hopes of seeing Elizabeth anywhere. She didn’t want to be paranoid, but she even checked the pool to be sure she hadn’t drunk too much, ending up falling in and drowning. Elizabeth had been a chronic drinker during their teenage phase, and a stoner as well. But recently, since she’d turned twenty-seven, had been trying to put a stop to it. Most evenings, when she felt lost and hopeless, she would drink till she got so drunk and was sick for days after.

What did Holly fear? Her eyes widened as the thought crossed her mind, was Elizabeth abducted? Or even worse, killed by the serial killer that had been on the news so often? Her left hand cupped her temple and she felt so bad. The hotel was too damn big to find someone so easy like that. And she needed a drink. Swiftly, she crossed the hallway, heading back in the direction of the ballroom, not quite watching where she was heading. She had bumped into someone, a body which grunted discomfort.

Holly staggered back impulsively. “Oh my God! I’m sorry, I am. Clumsy me, I wasn’t watching where I was headed. I’ve got this terrible ache—” Her hand still cupped her temple. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, it’s fine.”

She finally looked up at the owner of the voice, and her mouth nearly hung open. Gideon—fucking—Cortez?! Her boss's older brother? The one she had never seen in reality. She had reminisced of her, eighteen, in her bedroom, drooling over his picture on magazine and media covers. It had gone from just drooling to masturbating till her legs trembled and shook to some specific scenes of him playing on the television. He had been an actor, and model for big brands when he was way younger than he was now. After their father’s death, he had just gone MIA from the world and there wasn’t much news to follow about him anymore so Holly had just forgotten about his whole existence.

But there he was, standing, live, looking just as good as he was in those movies she’d binge-watch over and over and over again when she was younger. He’d always play the character of the bad guy, the big bad wolf and Holly couldn’t deny she found it so hot and attractive. He had that kind of face that stopped you in your tracks. Holly guessed he must be used to that, the sudden pause in a person’s natural expression when they looked his way followed by overcompensating with a nonchalant gaze and a weak smile. Of course, the blush that followed it was a dead giveaway.

Holly could see now why he had been a very popular and sorted-out model in his early years. He was about in his early forties, forty-two at most, and he still looked so alluring to the sight. A Brad Pitt look-alike. He had an undeniable touch of Brad Pitt around him. His hair was Achilles-gold and coiffed to perfection. His only blemish was that he was beetled-browed and they sometimes knitted in frustration.

The aquiline nose he sported complimented his prominent cheekbones. Handsome was an understatement. Unusually for a model, he had a manly, Samson physique. He was big. He possessed a latent, leonine power and always walked with purpose and authority. He could make any female’s knee weak at fifty paces. He opened his mouth and spoke again, ignoring the struck look Holly had on with a bored expression. He was dressed in a superbly tailored dark suit, his immaculate appearance in stark contract to what he really was and how he always appeared in the movies Holly had seen. His charcoal-colored suit was tailored to highlight his broad shoulders and arms and yet it seemed to not contain his muscles. Underneath, his white t-shirt peeked out, unbuttoned at the top. No tie. Because Holly suspected he wanted to project a rakish, don't-give-a-shit attitude at the party.

As if to tell everyone without using words, he'd showed up at the birthday by chance.

“Have you seen my brother?” His voice could be foghorn loud when he was booming out a guffaw, but at that moment it was mellifluous. “Gregorio?”

Holly continued to stare, mouth wide agape, as if in a hypnotic state.

“I was told you work for him as a personal assistant.”

She nodded comically, still in shock. “Right now, I don’t know.”

Gideon’s face pulled into an amused look, right before he whizzed past her. And God, he smelled, just as good as he looked. As he walked past Holly, she’d caught an extraordinary whiff of his cologne and exhaled deeply in appreciation. She watched him as he disappeared down the hallway, gliding with an athletic grace as if he were on a catwalk.

And when she returned to her senses, she figured she hadn’t seen her boss since he was on a run from the bratty lady.

And also hasn’t seen her friend. Where had she gone off to?

Her face pulled into a look of discomfort. After that last search, she was heading home. She’d continue to ring her best friend’s phone till she got a response.

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