Chapter 5

He was supposed to be in Madrid for a business meeting to close the Carlson deal that had occupied much of his time over the past few months, but instead he stood in the expansive lobby of the Mandarin Oriental, aggravated by his own uncertainty. He felt anxious about his next move, and Chuck Bass was anything but unsure of himself. Everything he did was purposeful and precise, yet suddenly he felt like he was walking into a battle without a weapon. His private investigator hadn't been able to uncover much about Blair's secret rendezvous, so here he was, feeling nervous about what he may discover and guilty for not trusting Blair enough just to ask her.

After a moment, he willed his feet to move toward the desk, consciously working to assume the cool, confident demeanor that he was known for. He felt anything but calm, but he was well aware that his characteristic unaffected nonchalance would work in his favor with the young receptionist typing away on her computer, her long lacquered nails clicking incessantly against the keyboard. The manner in which she chewed her gum and tilted her head toward the screen like a curious puppy reminded him of the sorority girls he used to seduce in his younger years when he had mastered the craft of getting ditzy blondes to drop their underwear within the first five minutes of their encounter. His presence was so commanding that her head snapped up to attention before he'd fully reached the desk. He had one hand stuffed into his pants pocket, sauntering slowly, like a predator approaching his prey. Her blue eyes widened slightly and her mouth fell agape before she corrected herself and forced her expression into a more professional countenance. She straightened her shoulders and pulled her blazer tautly across her chest in a move meant to tidy her appearance, but she didn't attempt to cover the subtle cleavage the adjustment created. She licked her lips slowly, her eyelashes fluttering softly against her rouged cheeks, and greeted, "Hello, Monsieur, how may I help you today?"

He offered her his signature smirk that never failed to help him accomplish his goal, "I was hoping you could help me with a reservation."

She blushed a deep shade of crimson when his raspy voice hit her ears, "I would be happy to help you check in -"

"Oh, I'm not looking to check in," he allowed his gaze to wander her body and rest briefly on her cleavage. It had been some time since he flirted so blatantly with a woman other than his wife, but he figured in this situation, it was necessary to gain access to the information he desperately needed. "I already have a room upstairs."

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the counter, "I hope that you are finding your stay satisfactory."

"Ah, Vivienne," he murmured seductively, reading her name tag on her lapel, "My stay has been most enjoyable, but I have a little problem, you see."

She hung on his every word, captivated by the way his tongue carefully enunciated the syllables of her name, "And what's that, Monsieur?"

"I missed an important meeting last week on August 5th, but I have sadly lost my associate's contact information," he kept the details to a minimum, baiting her slowly into his twisted web of deceit.

She stiffened her shoulders and dropped her flirtatious grin as skepticism overrode her features. She stuttered, "I'm not sure how I can help -"

"This particular meeting was of utmost importance to my company, and I really need his information. You have no idea how much I would appreciate your help, Vivienne," he drawled.

"I -" she floundered for a moment, weighing the benefits and risks of helping the handsome stranger, "I'm sorry, but guests' personal information is private and confidential." She looked regretful to add, "I'm afraid I cannot help you."

"I understand," he nodded softly, his lips drawing into an intentionally pitiful frown, "It was worth a try, I suppose." He shrugged his shoulders in mock defeat, and asked, "Could you at least make me a new copy of my keycard. I've locked myself out of my room."

"Of course," she smiled, hoping that this one small act would at least serve as a consolation for her refusal to provide the information he sought, "What is your room number?"

"Room 516," Chuck answered a little more quietly than he'd originally spoken to the girl, in case the actual occupant of the room was within hearing distance.

She scanned a new card into the system and looked up at him curiously. "Here you are," she glanced at the screen, "Monsieur Hastings, forgive me for asking, but ten days is a long time to stay in Paris by yourself. Are you here solely for business, or -"

Chuck grinned as the receptionist offered up the exact information he'd been fishing for. "Sadly so, though I wouldn't be opposed to exploring the pleasures that Paris has to offer before I have to return home," he leered at her suggestively and watched the blush rise into her cheeks once again.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" she asked, the hopeful tone of her voice not lost on Chuck.

"Actually, there is one last thing," he pulled out his cell phone and opened his photo gallery. Holding the phone up to her, he asked, "Has this woman been here recently? Do you recognize her?"

"Monsieur, I can't -" she started again.

"I know, and I'm so sorry for asking," he lowered his head and let out a long dramatic sigh, "She's my sister, and she's been missing for some time. Her credit card was last used at the gift shop here, and I just need to know that she's safe. The police haven't found anything, but I've been asking around in case they missed anything."

Vivienne's heart constricted tightly as she watched the pain etch its way into his furrowed brows. She knew that it was against hotel policy to answer such questions, but if she could alleviate any of the hurt that he was feeling with a simple affirmative answer, then surely no one could fault her, right? She leaned forward and whispered, "She was here last week. I remember her because she was soaked through from a sudden thunderstorm, but mostly it was her demeanor that was so strange. She had clearly been crying, but she wasn't in the hotel more than five minutes before she left. She looked at her phone, shook her head, and went straight out the door. I remember thinking she was too beautiful to look so sad."

He lowered his eyes to keep from reacting too suspiciously at the news. Blair was crying; why was she so upset? He felt his chest throb painfully at the thought of her standing in the middle of this massive lobby - cold, wet, and alone. Was she scared or sad? Was she being coerced into something she didn't want to do? Maybe it was just her guilt weighing on her conscience, and she backed out of the meeting.

"She is beautiful, isn't she?" He looked back up after a moment and offered the receptionist a small smile of gratitude, "Vivienne, I'm fully prepared to sing your praises to your manager because you have been incredibly helpful this evening. I have one final request, and then I will leave you alone. Would you please print an itemized list of all of my room charges for my stay so far. I need to get them to my accountant immediately, so he can reconcile our accounts. I'm sure you understand."

"Of course," she immediately clicked her mousepad several times, and the printer behind her began whirring. She stapled the papers together and handed them across the counter to Chuck.

He headed toward the elevator bank that ascended to the fifth floor, and glanced over the receipts as soon as he was confined in the privacy of the empty elevator. He found the name easily at the top and slumped against the wall. Who the fuck was Elijah Hastings and what business did he have with Blair?

Chuck found 516 and knocked on the door, unsure if he actually wanted the occupant or answer or not. After a few moments of silence, he knocked again. Still, no one answered, and he didn't hear any movements within. He quickly and stealthily used the keycard that he had procured from Vivienne and let himself into the suite, locking the deadbolt behind him.

The suite was spacious and tidy to the point that it almost appeared unoccupied. An oversized white sofa with coral and navy cushions sat adjacent to a picturesque window overlooking the property's gardens. Chuck ventured further into the suite to find the bedroom in the back. It was furnished similarly to the living room, with mostly white linens accented with varying shades of orange and blue. The expansive king sized bed was freshly made, and Chuck shuddered as his mind cruelly considered what Mr. Hastings may have had planned for his wife.

Chuck sat on the bed and drew a deep breath; he had to get ahold of himself. He had no proof that Blair had done anything wrong or that she even planned to. She'd never been anything but staunchly loyal to him, and he had to draw on that truth. It was the only anchor for his sanity. He laughed sardonically into the quiet of the room, his voice echoing off the walls, mirroring the hollow feeling in his chest. He could hardly believe that he was in another country, snooping on his wife like some paranoid, insecure little boy. He was Chuck Bass; he was surely above this type of behavior. Blair had once described him as the most powerful and persuasive man she had ever met; his actions were shameful. On some level, he realized that he didn't completely trust her now. Or, he realized, perhaps it was that he didn't trust himself? Ten years later, maybe he still worried subconsciously that he wasn't good enough. Why else was he acting this way? He cursed himself and stood to his feet, resolved to leave and trust that Blair would explain when she was ready. He lowered the keycard to the nightstand, and the notepad resting next to the telephone caught his attention. He found scribbled across the paper: Blair Waldorf 646-532-5642.

Waldorf? Not Bass or Waldorf-Bass, just Waldorf. It could just be a coincidence because Blair often went by her maiden name professionally because her hyphenated name was cumbersome for foreign clients, but the absence of his surname felt like a punch to the gut. Again, his mind asked the same endless questions that had plagued him on the flight across the ocean. Why would she meet an acquaintance or a business associate so late at night? Why did she lie about visiting the hotel? Why did she still have the keycard?

The voicemail light blinked furiously on the phone behind the notepad, and in an act of frustration and desperation, Chuck hit the button to play the message. Time seemed to move slowly as he heard her voice cross the receiver. Ice formed in his veins, and he gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. He pressed the playback button again, half way convinced that his exhausted mind had concocted the entire thing out of stress, but there was no mistaking his wife's soft, feminine voice as she said, "I'm sorry about Friday night. Can you come to New York? Chuck will be out of town next weekend."

He wanted to smash the phone against the wall. The rage that he felt coursing through his body was uncontrollable, and angry tears stung his eyes. Of all of the betrayal that he had experienced in his life - his uncle and his mother stealing his hotel, his father faking his death and then trying to kill him - none of it came close to the pain that he felt as he realized that Blair wasn't the person he thought she was. She'd lied and schemed her entire life; he knew this much about her, but she lied to him. She deceived him.

He flashed back to her first year at NYU when she was so desperate to give the freshman toast. It was the first time that he'd genuinely felt betrayed by her, all for her to selfishly advance her social agenda with no regard for him. It had hurt, and it had been harder to forgive her than he'd expected. He knew that he made mistakes far worse, but when she'd broken his trust in that one moment, she never completely earned it back until years later when she finally chose him for good - not Louis Grimaldi, not Dan Humphrey, not her ambition - him. Through his heartache, he'd explained to her: "The people you manipulate, I know how little respect you have for them." In their early years, respect and the balance of power in their relationship had been one of their biggest points of contention. Neither one really knew how to compromise on their own lofty ambition for the sake of the other one, and it ended in both of them losing tremendously. It consumed them so wholly that they had nearly lost one another and their future together.

For the majority of his life, Chuck struggled to trust the people in it, even those closest to him - even Blair. She'd worked hard to earn his trust, to get him to open up to her, and in the years since his father's death, he'd been nothing but raw and honest with her. He'd let her see every part of him - the darkness, the anxiety, the insecurity, the fear. She knew him on a level that no other human had ever gotten close to, and it was all because he trusted her so completely. He was vulnerable with her. It had taken years for them to get to this point, and he could already feel the strong bond of those cords of trust fraying.

The baby.

Elijah Hastings.

What else was she hiding?

The only thing that kept him from destroying the room or hunting down Elijah Hasting and tearing him limb from limb was the tiny logical part of his brain that reasoned that he still didn't know the whole story, and he needed more information before he could react irrationally. He used his phone to take a picture of the notepad with Blair's phone number and recorded the audio of the voicemail message.

He was startled by the familiar chiming of his phone indicating that he had an incoming call. He glanced at his hand clenching the phone so tightly that his knuckles were white. Blair's name flashed across the screen, and he quickly hit 'Ignore.' If he spoke to her now, his voice and his anger would betray him.

He dialed another number that he had memorized by heart. His faithful secretary picked up on the second ring, "Mr. Bass, I trust that your trip is going well? You're surely about to close the deal, sir?"

"Actually, something unexpected has come up, and I need to return to New York immediately. Please have the Bass Jet prepared as soon as possible," he was shorter with the woman than he'd meant to be, but he really didn't have pleasantries in him at the moment.

"Of course, Mr. Bass. I hope everything is -"

"I would also like my suite at the Empire ready when I arrive. I'll be staying there for a while," he snapped. "And, Margaret, not a word to Blair. If she calls, I'm in a meeting in Madrid, do you understand me?"

Margaret gulped, but she simply affirmed Chuck's request. In her many years of service, she had learned not to question him. Somewhere during her time at Bass Industries, she had developed a soft spot for the young couple. She knew the inner-workings between the power couple because she often scheduled their appointments or witnessed their conversations. After she'd learned that they were experiencing fertility issues when she was put in charge of scheduling their multiple appointments with a reproductive therapist, she'd quietly added them to her prayer list, in hopes that a little help from the universe would give them another Bass baby. The last time she'd talked to Blair, she'd learned that they were expecting, and she'd been almost as overjoyed as a grandmother-to-be. In this most recent phone conversation with her employer, she heard the pain hidden behind Chuck's cold demands. He was close to losing it, and she worried about what his reaction would mean for Blair, the baby, and Henry. She resolved to drop dinner off at the Bass residence for Blair and Henry to at least check on the young mother's well-being. Surely she could watch over them without betraying Chuck's instructions; she just needed to call Dorota first.

A/N: I know that this chapter was all Chuck; Blair will be in the next chapter. :) I know things are angsty right now, but just remember, I'm a huge Chair fan, and I will never steer them away from each other.