She clicked off the remote a moment later and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Fine. If he wasn’t going to answer her phone calls, maybe he’d answer when she showed up at his door and explain to her what the hell was going on. Violet slipped on a pair of shoes and tossed a sweater over her T-shirt, then headed down to the lobby.
She approached the front desk and gave the woman there a polite smile. “Could you please tell me which room is Mr. Lyons’s? I’m working with him on a project and can’t seem to connect with him at the moment.”
The girl at the front desk bit her lip.
“What?” Violet asked.
“I can tell you what room is his,” she said quietly, “but he’s not in it.”
Alarm pounded in Violet’s veins. “Where is he, then?”
“The bar.”
The bar? That didn’t sound like Jonathan. He wasn’t much of a drinker except in social situations. That was one of the reasons she’d fallen for him originally; he was a refreshing change from her alcoholic mother. Violet glanced at the clock on the wall. It was ten in the morning. What on earth? “You’re sure?”
The girl nodded. “He’s been there since I started my shift late last night.”
All day? Frowning, Violet thanked her and headed over to the hotel bar. The bar area was dark and atmospheric despite the early hour . . . and deserted. Chairs were flipped over on tables, and someone ran a vacuum over the carpets. Violet scanned the room and paused when she saw a booth in the far back still covered in half-drunk bottles. There was a pile of laundry on one corner of the table.
When the laundry moved, though, Violet realized that it was a person. Jonathan. Pursing her lips, Violet strode forward. She made a mental note of the empty bottles of vodka, the myriad glasses on the table with red stirring straws and residue on the rim, remnants of mixed drinks past. There were several near-empty bottles of Crown Royal, a few other liquors she didn’t recognize, and in this sea of bottles, Jonathan appeared to be asleep, his head resting on the table. His jacket had been pulled over his face as if to hide it from sunlight. Her lip curled in disgust. There was nothing worse than a drunk.
She’d had a lot of experience with sloppy drunks. Her mother had been one, and Violet had spent her childhood making excuses for her mother’s behavior. She hated seeing someone normally so vibrant and intelligent dulled by drink. It filled her with a helpless anger.
She reached over the bottles and snatched the jacket up. “Jonathan?”
He groaned and sat up with a jerk, peering at her. His eyes were red and bloodshot, his face was unshaven, and his hair was a mess. His suit was wrinkled, and it looked suspiciously like the one he was wearing when she’d last seen him. His gaze focused on her, and that stark expression returned to his face. “Ah, f**k. Violet.”
“What’s wrong with you?” she hissed, throwing his jacket at him.
His mouth twisted to the side. “The better question might be to ask, what isn’t wrong with me?”
She ignored that. “Have you been drinking all night?”
“Dunno.” He shrugged his shoulders and reached for one of the bottles with alcohol still in it. “Don’t care.”
“Well, I care.”
He smiled thinly. “We both know that’s a lie, Violet.”
She bit her nails, thinking. “Aren’t we supposed to be going on to Egypt and looking for your stele so we can continue this pointless little scavenger hunt?”
“Like you just said,” he slurred. “It’s pointless.” He raised his glass to her and then chugged it.
She drummed her fingers on her arm. This wasn’t like Jonathan. Getting excited over minor discoveries? Chasing down adventures? That was Jonathan. This miserable drunk in front of her who didn’t care? That wasn’t Jonathan. If anyone could accuse Jonathan Lyons of something, it was that he cared too much and tended to get too wrapped up.
She frowned to herself. Actually, that wasn’t always true either. He’d abandoned her . . . hadn’t he? That wasn’t the action of a man who cared too much. Unless everything she’d thought had been a lie . . .
Either way, she was his partner until they were done, for better or for worse. “Jonathan, please. We need to continue this. Not because I particularly care what little scheme my father has cooked up, but because I have students to get back to, and I can’t until you release me. You’re holding me here.”
“I wish I was holding you,” he said, and there was such bleakness in his tone that it made her suck in a breath.
“Very funny, Jonathan,” she said, hating that her voice shook. “You know what I meant. You have me here until we’re finished with this, so let’s get going.”
But he didn’t move. Instead, he traced a finger around the rim of a dirty glass and then gave her a morose, red-eyed stare. “No, Violet, I don’t think I ever had you.”
“If you’re going to be like this, I’m going back up to my room,” she warned.
He shrugged, poured himself another drink in the dirty glass, and raised it in a toast. “Bottom’s up.”
Violet stormed away, angry and confused. Why was he acting like this? What she’d told him had been no surprise . . . was it? Even if she asked him, could she trust that what he told her was the truth?
All of a sudden, she didn’t know anymore.
—
That night, she called down to the front desk again. “Is he still in the bar?”
“He is,” the front desk clerk assured her. “We can’t get him to leave. The bartender keeps slipping him glasses of water so he doesn’t get alcohol poisoning, but we’re starting to get concerned.”
“I’ll be down in a minute,” Violet said. This had to stop. He was going to drink himself into kidney damage if he wasn’t careful. She hung up the phone and headed down to the lobby, then made a beeline for the bar. Sure enough, Jonathan was still there in his regular spot. The liquor from earlier had been replaced by all new bottles. Now, it seemed, he was drinking tequila. He was upright—barely—a shot glass in one hand. The front of his Superman shirt was stained with alcohol.
He didn’t even look up as she approached, just stared morosely at one of the bottles.
“Jonathan,” Violet said, moving to stand by his table and crossing her arms over her chest. It was her very best Angry Schoolteacher pose and never failed to make her students pay attention. “This has got to stop.” When he didn’t respond, she reached over and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her. “Jonathan!”