by Liz Fielding
She stood back, rubbing the inside of her arm against her cheek. It came away smeared with paint and she used the hem of Alexander’s T-shirt to wipe it off her face. She’d worn it on purpose, wanting the paint to obliterate his scent.
She had to stop sleeping with it tucked under her pillow so that she could catch his scent. Had to stop sending him little texts to keep him close and had to stop checking her inbox every five minutes, stop living for his replies.
She had to stop kidding herself that he would expect her to be waiting for him when he came back. He’d never even hinted that he wanted her to wait. On the contrary, he’d made it plain that he wasn’t interested in that kind of commitment and his last message had been a wake up call.
He’d been honest with her. The least she could do was be honest with herself.
She had to live now, not for some fleeting blue moon moment that might never happen.
‘Are you okay, Sorrel? You look...’ Elle hesitated. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll clean up here and then I’m going to walk home.’
‘Walk?’
‘It’s stopped raining. The fresh air will blow away the cobwebs.’
‘And the smell of paint.’
‘That, too.’
* * *
It was late afternoon when the taxi pulled up in front of Gable End. Alexander paid the driver and walked around to the rear of the house. Midge greeted him with enthusiasm. The new puppy attacked his boots. He picked him up, tucked him under his arm and walked into the kitchen.
Basil looked round from the stove and beamed with pleasure. ‘Alexander! Sorrel didn’t say you were coming.’
‘It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Is she here?’
‘She’s been working at KG’s all weekend. Putting the finishing touches.’
‘On her own?’
‘That’s what she wanted. Elle just dropped in to see how she was doing. Apparently she’s decided to walk home. Needs the fresh air.’
‘I’ll go and meet her.’
* * *
The river was running fast, the ducks had taken to the bank and there was no one out on the water. She had the towpath puddles to herself.
She hadn’t replied to Alexander’s suggestion she jump in one and he hadn’t sent another. Clearly he’d felt obliged to respond to hers and she had been making more of it than it was.
It was time to send him one that would let him off the hook, one that conveyed the message that she’d enjoyed chatting with him long distance but she had to get on with the life she had, not the one that shimmered in the distance like a mirage.
It was time to seize the fish.
* * *
Alexander rounded the bend of the towpath and saw Sorrel standing fifty or so yards ahead, looking down at the phone in her hand.
She was wearing an old pair of paint-splattered jeans and one of his T-shirts, her hair was tied up in a scarf, there was a streak of blue paint on her cheek and he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
He’d covered half the ground between them before she looked up and in that second, before she could hide behind the killer smile, he knew that nothing could ever beat this. This coming home to the woman he loved, who loved him...
‘Alexander...’ Now the smile was back. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I hated to think of you puddle-jumping on your own.’
‘You flew halfway round the world to jump in a puddle?’
‘No, I flew halfway round the world to jump in a puddle with you—’
And there it was again, a fleeting moment when she was emotionally naked and this time he didn’t wait for her to fix the smile back in place but reached out for her, sliding his fingers through her hair, drawing her close to him.
‘Don’t you have puddles in Pantabalik?’ There was a tremble in her voice that transmitted itself to his body. This was too important to get wrong.
‘Not ones you’d want to jump in,’ he said, ‘at least not on your own because that’s the other reason I flew home. To tell you that I love you, Sorrel. I’m home. If you’ll have me.’
He kissed her then, before she could say anything. Telling her in the only way he knew that one day without hearing from her was too long. That he could not live without her.
When he raised his head, he saw that she was smiling, but it was a different kind of smile. Soft, tender, the smile of a woman fulfilled, the smile that had lived in his dreams.
‘I won’t leave,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to tie you to my side, Alexander. It’s not the leaving that matters. All that matters is that you come back.’
* * *
Six months later Michael was Alexander’s best man as he waited in a packed parish church for his bride.
Sorrel had been right. He’d had to leave, go back to Pantabalik, negotiate a settlement with the headman of the tribe for the harvesting of their precious plant. The texts had flown back and forth, full of warmth, fun, love, but he couldn’t wait to get home.
Home.
He’d never had one before, but now there was Gable End, and the flat in the gothic mansion that Sorrel had filled with warmth and the house, perched high above the river bank, that they were building together.
He turned as the organist struck up, warning the congregation that the bride had arrived, and for a moment he could see nothing as his eyes misted over. Then she was there, her hand in his and looking up at him with the smile that no one but him ever saw as they seized the moment, the day, the life they had been given.
* * * * *
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ONE
The only thing worse than waking up naked in a strange bed was realizing there was someone else sleeping in the bed, too.
Someone male.
The bright light on the other side of her eyelids sent pain streaking through Lorelei LaBlanc’s head as she tried to piece together exactly what the hell was going on...and who she’d just spent the night with.
She forced herself to lie still; jumping right up might wake her companion, and she didn’t want to get straight into a confrontation before she had a handle on things.
Think, Lorelei, think.
She had a hangover that would slay a mule, and it hurt to think. How much champagne had she consumed in the end?
Connor and Vivi’s wedding had gone off without a hitch; all of the four hundred guests had had a fabulous time. The church had never looked better, and the hotel had outdone itself with both the decor and the food. She’d been at the head table for dinner, but once the dancing had begun and the champagne had really started flowing... Well, that was where things began to get a little fuzzy. She remembered having a small, good-natured disagreement with Donovan St. James over...
Her eyes flew open.
Oh. My. God.
Bits and pieces of the night before came rushing at her with distressing speed and clarity.
Carefully, so as not to aggravate her hangover, she rolled slowly to her other side. Sure enough, Donovan lay there on his back, bare-chested, with only a sheet covering his hips and one leg. His hands were stacked behind his head as
he stared at the ceiling.
She swore under her breath.
“Right there with you, Princess.”
The amused sigh in Donovan’s voice put her nerves on edge. “What the hell happened last night?”
He had the gall to look pointedly at the tangled sheets—which she was currently trying to pull over herself in a belated attempt at modesty—and raise an eyebrow. She really wasn’t ready to go to the whole we had sex bit just yet. She cleared her throat. “I mean, how? Why?”
“How? Buckets of champagne. And there were tequila shots involved. As for why...” He shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me.”
Tequila explained a lot. Jose Cuervo was not her friend. I’ve done some stupid stuff in my life, but this? With Donovan St. James? And now? A chill ran down her spine. If she’d publicly done something... Oh, her family was really going to kill her this time. Her sister would be first in line.
“Please just tell me we didn’t make a scene at the reception,” she whispered.
“I don’t think so. It’s a little blurry, but I think the reception was pretty much over before...”
That alleviated a bit of her immediate worry; being stupid wasn’t quite so bad as long as there wasn’t an audience for the stupidity. Now, though, she had to face the fact she’d had sex with Donovan St. James.
No red-blooded woman would question her taste. Donovan had poster-boy good looks: deep green eyes, inky black hair with a slight wave that he wore long enough to look a little dangerous, and skin the color of the café au lait she desperately needed to combat this monster hangover. The high cheekbones and square jaw now shadowed with dark stubble spoke to a heritage as mixed as New Orleans itself—if one could pick the best bits and discard the rest.
Donovan definitely rated high on the hummina scale. Good looks, though, were pretty much all he had going for him, in her opinion. Why had he even been invited to the wedding? It must have been a professional or courtesy invite. At least a hundred of the guests had fallen into that category. But the St. James family was the worst kind of nouveau riche—using money to buy influence and respectability—and if Donovan had any class at all, he’d have RSVP’d no to what had obviously only been a polite gesture.
But money couldn’t buy class, that was for sure.
And she’d slept with him. She must have reached an astonishingly new level of intoxication to completely lose all her self-respect. I am never drinking again.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Lorelei. I’m not real keen on this new development, either.”
Donovan sat up—slowly, she noted, implying his hangover was equally as miserable as hers—and reached for his clothes. Lorelei averted her eyes, but not before she got a good long look at broad shoulders, a trim waist and a very nice, very firm butt. Donovan ticked up another notch on that hummina scale before she noticed the red claw marks marring his back.
She’d enjoyed herself, it seemed. Pity she didn’t have a better recollection of what had led to those marks. Although she felt like hell, underneath the hangover was a pleasant muscle soreness that spoke to a good time.
The silence felt awkward and uncomfortable. Despite her reputation, Lorelei wasn’t an expert on morning-after protocols, but she’d brazen through this somehow. Clutching the sheet to her breasts, she let it trail behind her as she grabbed her dress off the floor and headed for the bathroom. She thought she might have heard a sigh as the door closed behind her.
The sight in the mirror was not pretty. Lorelei splashed water on her face and tried to wipe away the worst of the mascara circles under her eyes. Then she finger-combed her hair until it didn’t look quite so wild and made use of the mini-bottle of mouthwash provided by the hotel. Feeling marginally human, she righted her dress and slipped into it.
She could only hope that no one would see her heading back to her room as nothing said night of debauchery quite like wearing a cocktail dress before breakfast. Six months of very hard work could be shot all to hell.
Of course she had a much more pressing—and disturbing—problem right outside that door which she had to deal with first.
“Okay,” she said to her reflection, “you need a dignified exit.” Taking a deep breath, she opened the bathroom door.
Donovan stood by the window, looking out over Canal Street, but he turned once he heard the door open. He’d pulled on a pair of jeans—ending up in your own hotel room instead of someone else’s had perks, like clothes—but he’d stopped before adding a shirt. Lorelei had a hard time keeping her eyes from wandering as he wordlessly handed her a bottle of water. She nodded her thanks.
“There’s aspirin, too,” he said, dodging past her into the bathroom and returning with a bottle. “Care for a couple?”
He shook the bottle, causing her head to throb, and she was pleased to see him wince at the noise, as well.
Lorelei felt like she was in a bad movie. “Look, I think we would both agree that last night should not have happened.”
“That’s for sure.”
She stamped down the remark she wanted to make at that insult. Dignity. “So we’ll just pretend it didn’t happen. I won’t mention it to anyone and you won’t write about it, okay?”
From the look on Donovan’s face, he didn’t like the implication, and Lorelei worried that she might have made a tactical error. Donovan had turned his high-school hobby of flaying people alive for sport into a profitable career. He destroyed careers, lives, families. Rumor had it that he was looking for another big story. People tried to avoid pinging onto his radar screen; no one with a shred of self-preservation would bait him intentionally.
“I limit myself to topics of public interest, and even if this fit the definition—which it doesn’t—it’s not something—wasn’t anything—to brag about.”
Dignity be damned. She was not letting that slide by unchallenged. “I wouldn’t know. Must not have been that memorable an experience.”
“Then forgetting it happened at all won’t be a problem for you.”
“No, it won’t.” That was a lie, but Donovan had no way of knowing better, so it was a safe lie. And it allowed her to hold her head up as she gathered the rest of her things.
Her small purse was upside down by the door, her phone, lipstick and room key spilling out. Not far from that was one of her shoes, then Donovan’s tie and shoes, then her other shoe. It was a breadcrumb trail of shame that led straight to the king-size bed.
Lord, was there anything less dignified than searching for your underwear? She picked up Donovan’s jacket and gave it a shake. Nothing. Dropping to her knees, she looked under the bed. She found an empty condom wrapper, alleviating one of her fears, but finding two more had her cringing.
No sign of her underwear, though.
“If you’re looking for these...” Donovan drawled. She looked up to see him dangling her panties from one finger. She bit her tongue and settled for shooting him a dirty look as she jerked them from his hand and tucked them into her purse. The addition of the undergarment, as tiny as it was, was too much for the little bag, and it refused to close. Heat flushing her face, Lorelei had no choice but to take the extra time to put them on.
Funnily enough, she felt a little less flustered once she had. Underwear was a form of armor, it seemed.
Squaring her shoulders, she went to the door and examined the fire-safety map posted there. According to the red X marking her location as room 712, she could easily get to the fire stairs, go down one floor and she’d come out only a few doors away from her own room. Excellent. The chances of running into someone she knew had just decreased exponentially. Something might actually go her way this morning.
“Planning your escape route?”
She turned to see Donovan stacking the pillows on the bed into a comfortable back-prop, and then reclining, remote control in hand. He wasn’t even looking at her, and, if anything, he now sounded bored. Obviously this was not an out-of-the-ordinary morning for him. Why am I not surprised?
“Exactly. Goodbye, Donovan. I hope I don’t see you again for a very long time.”
She didn’t wait for his reply. Cracking the door, she peeked into the hall and found it empty. With at least a hundred of last night’s guests having taken advantage of the location to enjoy Connor and Vivi’s open bar, she just needed her luck to hold for a few minutes. The quick dash to the stairwell was no problem, and her stiletto heels clacked on the stairs as she moved as fast as possible in the tight skirt. At the door to the sixth floor she paused, took out her room key, and took a deep breath. Another peek showed two people in the hall, but neither of them looked familiar. Just to be safe, she waited until they were at the elevators before making the last break for her door.
Only to find that her stupid key didn’t work.
* * *
Donovan was relieved Lorelei had left in a huff. He’d been awake for about fifteen minutes before her, and he’d spent that time anticipating a number of equally horrific and awkward scenarios.
But Lorelei had gone straight to indignation and huff—which, in this case, had been more than he’d dared hope for.
Of all the women who’d attended what was arguably the biggest society wedding of the decade, he’d managed to hook up with Lorelei LaBlanc. He’d known both Connor and Vivi at least tangentially since high school and, while they might not be close friends or anything, they were business associates and often traveled in the same social circles now.
He might be considered an interloper by some in those social circles, since his blood wasn’t quite as blue as theirs, but no one had the courage to say that to his face anymore. And, while he might not have generations of Old South manners ingrained into him, even he knew it was bad form to bed the sister of the bride after the reception.
Yeah, pretending it had never happened was an excellent idea.
Another excellent idea was liberal quantities of aspirin and coffee until he felt human again. That might take days.