Like hell. I slam my head backward connecting with her face and hear a crunch that I'm hoping is her nose, and swing my elbow back as hard as I can. It also connects but I don't wait to see how much damage or even what my assailant looks like.
I just run for the door, almost knocking over two girls who look at most 20 who were just coming into the restroom. I push my way through the crowd of dancers with getting away the only thing on my mind, not even thinking to look for Gabe, until I run into a hard male chest and look up.
Max.
His arms steady me.
"The restroom," I say, the words coming out in a gasp. "Someone - a woman - she had a knife. I think it was a knife." I'm breathing hard, and panic is starting to set in after the fact.
Max looks over m shoulder and I turn in time to see Gabe heading back toward the restroom. He must have been right behind me after I bolted out.
"Come on," Max says, taking my arm and building me back to the plush banquette where everyone else is sitting now. I slide into my seat and Max moves in beside me. He signals someone for water, but I pick up my mostly untouched glass of champagne and down it in one long gulp. I no longer care whether I get drunk or not.
"What the hell?" Gino asks.
Max glances over. "Apparently someone accosted her in the restroom." He turns back to me.
"Okay, Hadley, take a deep breath and tell us what happened."
But before I can even start to answer, Gabe is back. Max looks up quizzically, but he shakes his head.
"By the time I got there whoever it was was long gone. The only thing I saw was some blood splattered on the floor."
Max yanks me around to face him. "Are you hurt?" His gaze moves over me.
"No. I think I broker her nose, though."
"You think you broke her nose," he repeats and I nod.
"Yeah, I took this self defense class and one of the techniques if someone tries to grab you from being is to through you head back and try to break their nose. Then jab with your elbow. If you're lucky, that combination is enough to loosen their grip and you can maybe get away."
Gino gives a low laugh. "Hell, Max, make sure you never try to grab your woman from behind."
Max almost smiles. "I think my woman can take care of herself."
I get a gooey feeling inside when her calls me his woman, then remind myself immediately that this is only for Gino's benefit, and I am not, in fact, Max's woman or his anything else, by my own choice. But right now - in the moment - it feels comforting just hearing him say it.
"Tell me exactly what happened, Hadley. Start at the beginning."
So I do. When I'm finished, Max looks over at first Gino and then Joey D. "Any ideas?"
Gino shakes his head. "It's always possible someone trying to move in on my territory followed her from my table, figuring she was important if she was sitting there and trying to send a message. But nothing like that's happened before."
Joey D shrugs. "Maybe some trouble followed you from Miami."
I look Gino square in the eyes. Max may not want me to say this, but right now it's been a hell of a day and I'm pretty much beyond caring. I've been walking a tightrope all evening being so careful what I do and say, and I still ended up in the bathroom of a nightclub with someone poking a knife in my side and threatening to cut me.
"Gino, were you having me followed in Miami?"
He looks at me with a face that registers both surprise and bafflement, and if he's faking it he's a really good actor.
"Why would I do that, girl? Hell no, I'm not having you followed. What made you think that? Has someone been following you?"
Now it's my turn to shrug. I decide not to tell him the details about what happened in Florida. "I just have had a feeling lately like someone's been watching me. And then you make the comment at dinner about how I've been working long hours at the law firm later, so I just wondered."
Now he's outright laughing so hard he can't answer. Malcolm does it for him.
"I looked you up on the Florida Bar website, Hadley. Saw the firm you were working for, and did a little research there as well. They have a reputation for being excellent lawyer. Excellent lawyer who work long hours."
Gino shakes his head a few times, regains his composure. "I make it a point to know who I'm dealing with. That's the reason I brought it up at dinner." His face takes on a serious expression. "I make sure I know who I'm dealing with before they know anything about my business, ever lay eyes on any part of a deal."
He gestures toward Max. "If he'd told me he was brining you to Vegas I'd have checked you out before you ever got there. As it is, I took it on trust based on Max's word."
"But you still checked me out."
"Trust, but verify," Malcolm says. "We've had people try to close on false pretenses in the past." He pauses. "It didn't end well for them."
And I'm reminded again that the people I'm dealing with are actual gangsters. That the former manager of the club I'm sitting in right now may very well by lying at the bottom of the East River. I give a little involuntary shiver, and someone hands me another glass of champagne.
Max, however, takes it as his cue that it's time for us to leave. He stands up.
"I think Hadley's had enough today. I'd like to get her back to the hotel."
Gino nods. I'll text the limo to take you three back. Malcolm and I have some unrelated business to conduct tonight with Joey D, and Vincenzo is going to speak with some of the employees and see if anyone has any information about the woman who tried to grab you." His face hardens. "Vincenzo is very good at helping people remember things."
I bet he is. But I just nod, and drink more champagne. It's helping to numb the feelings of panic that keep threatening to come back. It's always that way. I'm great in an emergency, but afterwards I tend to fall apart. And I'd prefer not to do that here in front of Gino and Joey D and everyone.
I make it to the limo without falling apart, but I can feel my legs shaking as I climb in. I just reacted in the heat of the moment, but now I'm realizing things could have gone way worse.
Max takes one look at my face as he slides into the limo after me, and then just pulls me onto his lap. Gabe gets in after us and the door closes. We are finally on our way back to the hotel.
Max reaches up to stroke my hair, and I lean my head against his shoulder and sigh. I shouldn't be doing this, trying to draw strength from him. My relationship with Max is what has put me in these situations in the first place, not to mention causing me to violate my own moral code. I need to get as much distance from him as possible.
But right now, I let my self accept the comfort he's offering.
Surprisingly, despite the almost-panic attack I just had, the low vibration of the limo, the champagne I drank too quickly, and the steady beat of Max's heart almost lull me to sleep on the ride back to the hotel.
Gabe and Max and I are the only ones in the glass enclosed elevator as it whooshes it up to our floor. I'm leaning against him for support, and when the doors open at the concierge level he just scoops me up in his arms and carries me down the hall to our suite. Gabe heads to his own room after a few quiet words with Max that I don't bother trying to pay attention to.
Then we're in our suite and Max is carrying me through the living area and into the bedroom. The giant bed with its thick comforter looks like a welcome oasis. Max sets me down gently on the side of the bed, then kneels down to slip my high heeled shoes off my feet.
I didn't realize how much my feet were aching until he massages them, pressing his thumbs against my arches and sending sweet relief through my entire body. I think I actually moan, and I fall back onto the bed, lying crosswise.
Max pulls me back up, and lifts me to my now-tingling feet. I lean against him, put my arms around his neck. He reaches around me to unfasten the halter top of my dress, and it slides to the floor. I'm wearing nothing but my lacy black thong - one of the ones is the endless box of lingerie Max gave me - and my nipples are pressing against his dress shirt.
I stop feeling tired and scared and start to feel aroused. Maybe this is exactly what I need. I press my body tighter against him, the friction between my skin and the fabric of his shirt making me desperate to have his hands, his mouth on me.
"Make love to me, Max."
I hear his sharp intake of breath and he pulled me closer for a moment, his hand traveling over my bare back and down to my bottom, then back up again. Then he grips me by my shoulders and holds me slightly away from him. His gaze travels over my body, lingering on my erect nipples straining toward him.
Max dips his head and kisses each nipple softly, sending arrows of fire straight down to my core. Then he kisses my lips, also gently.
"I can't," he says, and the regret in his voice is clear.
"I want you to," I tell him, and he shakes his head then reaches around me to pull down the bedding. The next thing I know I'm in his arms being lifted into the bed and gently laid down. My head sinks into the softness of one of the fat pillows.
He removes his clothes until he's just wearing boxers, and I watch him, wanting him even more as his words refuse to sink in. I want to lose myself in sex with Max tonight. Tomorrow I'll think. Right now I only want to feel.
Max slides into the bed beside me, pulls the covers up over us. I don't know which is more comforting - the warmth of the bed or the heat that's radiating from his body so close to mine.
"Turn over," he tells me, and I do. I wait for him to lean over me, pull me to my knees, close his hand around my breast and take me from behind, hard enough and fast enough to erase the feel of a knife point against my side, make me forget all about dinner with mobsters and strange men trying to force me into a car.
I feel the bed more slightly as he rolls onto his side. But instead of taking me as I imagined, he's massaging my back.
"Go to sleep, Hadley."
"But-"
"I know you think you want this. But you're frightened and more than a little drunk. And you're only here in New York with me because I made you come on this trip."
"You don't want me." I hate that my voice comes out so small. Sounding helpless and needy and all the things I never am.
"Christ, Hadley," Max says, his voice gruff. "I want you almost more than I've ever wanted anything else in my life."
"Then take me."
I feel his hands, kneading my muscles, flex involuntarily at my words and stop for a second. Then he resumes the gentle massage that is already threatening to take me under.
"I would, if you hadn't just broken up with me less than a week ago, for reasons that are becoming even more irrefutable after today."
I sigh, sinking further into the mattress and closer to the oblivion of sleep, disappointment warring with fatigue.
As I drift off to sleep I hear Max speaking softly to me.
"Tomorrow, when you're sober and you've had a chance to think things through, I'll give you everything you think you want tonight, and more. You want me to make love to you then, Hadley, and I'll have you screaming my name every time you come." His hand moves down over my bottom, caressing and massaging, and making me wish he'd just slip his hand between my legs and take me over. But he doesn't.
"Tomorrow," Max says. "Unless you look me in the eyes and tell me that's not really what you want."
He adjusts me so I'm mostly on my side now, facing each other, and one strong hand continues to caress my back lightly as I curl against him and slip into dreams.
I was so ready to make love with him tonight.
How will I feel tomorrow?