The sun was just peeking over the horizon when I glanced through a window after I arrived at the hotel. I didn’t have anything to do yet, so I was lounging in the staff area out of uniform before my shift started in an hour or so. I was drinking a cup of mocha I’d made myself, with extra chocolate, cream, and sugar, and some whipped cream and marshmallows sprinkled on top. I lightly stirred it before eating some of the whipped cream and marshmallow combo, and then drank some of the mocha as I stared off into space, my thoughts only a few miles away. If the level of whipped cream went down, I’d add some more without thinking, I was enjoying the treat but my mind was a whirlwind.

I was spraying on some more whipped cream when the door to the staff room opened, causing me to look up and accidentally spray more than I’d wanted to.

It was Laura, and she arched an expertly shaped blond eyebrow at me and then at the mug in my hand.

“Are you drowning your sorrows in sugar, Jessi? Because that’s more likely to give you diabetes than anything,” she said, tilting her head at the mug. Her long hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and for a moment it looked like a squirrel dancing on her shoulder. I had to hold back a snort of laughter as she tilted her head the other way quizzically.

I looked down and winced when I saw what was inside my mug. The mocha was about halfway gone, but the whipped cream overflowed the cup.

“More like gain weight,” I muttered, sighing as I licked it. “I do watch my sugar intake with all the pastries I make, I’m just giving myself a desperately needed treat today.”

I stared at my drink, wondering if this wasn’t a little too much of a treat. I did try to keep fit. My body had grown shapelier as I grew out of puberty and my teens, but I didn’t always picture it as a good thing. I didn’t brag about it, but I was a little buxom. As a late-bloomer, I didn’t really grow out until after high school, when I started turning quite a few heads. It had helped slightly with my self-esteem. But only slightly, because being ogled wasn’t something I enjoyed, especially when most men’s eyes fell to my chest instead of looking at my face when I talked to them.

That was only one of the annoying things.

Having a slightly big chest sometimes got in the way of my work. I’d grown used to it, so it no longer got in my way but getting used to the changes in my body had taken me a long time, and sometimes it still annoyed me. I would have rather been slightly smaller, but I couldn’t change the way my body was.

The other thing was my wide hips and my ass. Not to mention all those meals that went to my middle, my thighs, and my hips. It caused me to exercise more than I would have liked, because I was one of those lazy girls in high school that would run a few feet then pause, doubled over, feeling like I was about to pass out and breathing like I’d run a mile.

I needed the exercise, though. I was just a little conscious of my weight and shape.

“If you’re not gonna finish it, can I have it instead?” Laura asked with a hopeful gleam in her eyes.

“Was that the real reason behind your questioning? You just wanted to have it for yourself?”

“I have a feeling you’re drinking a mocha, and yours are always the best. Make me one?”

I shook my head, and she sighed again.

Laura crossed the room to the kitchen area of the staff room. We didn’t eat the same food we made for the guests, more often than not having to make our separate meals. The hotel was awesome in that the kitchen in the staff room was about as well equipped as the kitchen we used to cater to the guests, if a little smaller. Laura got herself a cup of coffee, then came to where I sat in the lounge area and took the couch across from me.

“So,” she started after she’d taken a sip, then held the cup between her hands, looking up at me expectantly. “Do I get to hear why you’re drowning yourself in sugar this early in the morning and won’t share in the hedonism? Something happened?”

I sighed, not really wanting to get into it, but last night was still plaguing me.

Laura and I weren’t just colleagues; we were also friends. I wouldn’t call us so close that I’d told her all the sordid details of my life and how it tied in with the Thompson family. But she was such a nice, happy person that she got along with pretty much anybody and everybody. She worked as a maid and I worked in the kitchens, so we didn’t get to meet all that often, unless we both happened to be in the staffroom at the same time, or if she came looking for me.

After a moment of thinking about it, I figured there was nothing wrong with telling her. She rarely gossiped, so I knew I could trust her.

I took a sip of my mocha, chewed on a slightly soggy marshmallow, then looked over at her.

“I saw Trent Thompson,” I admitted. “You know my mom works over at their place, right? Well, I ran into him yesterday.” Literally.

She tilted her head slightly to the side, confused for a moment before her eyes widened in realization. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to laugh at her expression or her dancing squirrel more. I breathed my laughter out and waited for her response.

“Oh! The one you have a history with, right? I’ve only ever heard of him, I’ve never had the chance as to even see him. He’s the oldest, right?”

“How do you even know about that? I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it to you…”

She had the grace to look sheepish. “Well, I hear things around. And the rumor mills have been going wild around here the moment people heard the Thompson sons would be coming back.”

I frowned. “I don’t think there are people who know that he and I have history, though…”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “You do realize there are people here you probably went to the same high school with or something? They could just be making rumors for the fun of it, but I’m pretty good at distinguishing what’s true and what’s not.” She grinned. “Like, there’s one that says the two of you had an affair in his last year of high school, so his dad sent him away to keep the two of you apart, and you sticking around here for work is the reason why he’s never been back.”

I snorted at the ridiculousness of it. “Trent isn’t the kind of person who would just do whatever he was told. I’m pretty sure he left on his own because he wanted to. And there was no affair.” I grimaced. “I told him I liked him and he laughed in my face,” I admitted, my voice quietly shaking.

Laura’s eyes widened again. “Wow,” she breathed. “Fuck, that’s bad. Seeing him again can't be easy for you, can it?”

“It’s not. Not at all. What I want to do is avoid him, but that means never going to visit my mom, and she’s going to ask me why.”

The expression in her eyes was sympathetic. “She doesn’t know that you had a crush on him and got heartbroken?”

More like I still had a crush on him. And it broke my heart every day. Especially with him around and acting like an asshole. My silence pretty much told her everything.

“You wanna know what I’m dreading? Mason,” she said with a wrinkle of her nose.

I sent her a grateful look for changing the subject for my sake.

“Why?” I asked. Mason was the middle brother of the Thompson clan. He was a few years younger than me, not quite as young as Emily, but I’d never really talked to him before.

Laura shot me a part-incredulous, part-horrified look. “How could you even ask that! He comes around here a lot, you know? I’m dreading him getting back here because that guy always throws wild parties. Do you know how hard it is cleaning up after him? It’s a freaking nightmare for all us maids. I’m not the only one a little more than sick of it.”

I felt my face twist into disgust. “That bad is it?”

She nodded quickly. “You don’t get to see a lot of it because he never asks for dessert for any of his parties, just food sometimes, and there’ll always be plenty of alcohol.” She narrowed her eyes slyly at me. “Hey, why don’t we put our heads together and see what we can do about our problems with these Thompson boys, huh?”

“It’s not like we can touch them. They might as well be our bosses.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I thought we could get away from it for a while and badmouth them behind their backs. You probably need it, and I know I do. We could make it into a girls’ night out.”

When she put it like that, I became interested. She was right; I had quite a few things to do with Trent that I would love to get out with someone I trusted. Emily and I were friends too, but even though she wasn’t close with her brother, it was awkward for me to talk to her about it. Laura’s plan sounded perfect.

“I guess we could set something like that up,” I said, then finished my mocha. “When do you think we should go?”

Laura was suddenly full of enthusiasm. She leaned forward, eyes wide open and practically sparkling as she opened her mouth to speak.

Only, she never got the chance to. She was interrupted when the door opened, and I looked up, my face going blank with shock when I saw the last person I would have expected to see.

Trent.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted, more out of surprise than really demanding to know.

He stuck his hands in the pockets of his slacks and arched a condescending eyebrow at me. Nobody with blond eyebrows should be able to look that condescending, I thought, just before he spoke and destroyed my day. Again.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? What are you doing at the hotel? Or are you still trying to follow me everywhere?”

I was too shocked for a moment to even respond. What was Trent doing in the staff area? It was the one place I’d thought I would never have to see him! I’d thought I’d be safe there. But then his words registered, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Not everything in my life is about you, you know,” I retorted. “I’m here because I work here now. My shift is about to start. I work in the kitchen.”

There was a minute show of surprise on his face, and I would have missed it if I wasn’t looking at him so intently. But I caught the slight twitch of his eyebrows and felt a little smug that he didn’t have an immediate response.

That didn’t last long though.

“What did you do?” he asked with a sneer. “Because you did something, right? Or did someone owe you a huge favor, and that’s how you landed a job here as a chef?”

I stared at him with my jaw dropped. With the way he was looking at me up and down, I had a good idea what he was thinking. As if I would ever stoop to something so low! In spite of the fact that seeing him in front of me was making my heart beat out of control, there was no way I was going to take shit from this guy after all the crap he’d already given me over the years.

“Excuse you, Trent,” I growled, scowling at him as I tilted my chin up. “But I got my job here because I worked my ass off, meaning I got it the old-fashioned way.”

He smirked, but I wasn’t quite done yet.

“I know you like to look down on me,” I continued, narrowing my eyes at his look, “but believe it or not, I managed to get to school and worked my ass off to get through. I got a scholarship and several jobs even to manage. We’re not all like some people who can buy their way through a university education. I finished school, applied for a job, and worked from the bottom of the hotel to get to where I’m at right now.”

He’d lost the smirk, and I couldn’t help but flash a look of triumph.

“Just how good can you be?” he said with a scoff.

“You know the standards your dad has,” I returned. “Especially for this hotel, since it’s the closest one to home. I’ve done a good enough job that he met me personally and offered me a job at any of the other hotel branches around the world. The only reason I stuck around here was because I didn’t want to move too far away from my parents.”

I didn’t know what I expected from Trent exactly. It wasn’t like he was going to pat me on the head and tell me I’d done a good job. It would be condescending, but I probably would have been happy. Him looking at me a little differently would have been enough for me as well. Hell, I would have settled for him ignoring me and just leaving.

But the way he looked at me, it was with the same ridicule from over a decade ago. Suddenly, under his gaze, I was that same gangly teenager having my dreams stomped into the ground by the boy of my dreams. I could feel my cheeks start to flame in embarrassment, and I hated how he could still affect me with just a look even after all this time.

He can't be thinking about it, I thought frantically. But he was looking me up and down with the same derision, and I knew he was. My mind went back all those years to when I’d kissed him and confessed my feelings for him. Trent was thinking about that kiss, the second most embarrassing thing that had happened to me that day besides him laughing at me afterward.

Why am I not saying anything?

I had a lot to say to him about that day. If he was going to give me looks like the one he was giving me, I at least wanted to let him know what an ass he’d been, and how I’d disliked him since that day. It would be a lie, and he probably wouldn’t care. It might not even make me feel better. But I wanted to say the words, if only to find some closure and finally move on from this man.

But I just stood in front of him, my body starting to tremble the longer he just stood there staring at me. Like he knew how he was affecting me, he smirked again. He didn’t even say anything, just turned around and walked away. I watched his back until he was out of sight.

“Wow.”

I turned to Laura, who’d been sitting there silently the whole time and all but ignored. It had felt like there was only Trent and me in the room, and I felt my face grow even hotter.

“That man is a piece of work.”

I just growled. I’d jumped to my feet at some point as I defended myself against him, and I let out an explosive sigh as I plopped back into it. My body was still trembling, and I could feel the sting of frustrated tears in my eyes. I refused to let them fall. I wouldn’t cry again for a guy like that.

“I just want to strangle him!” I growled to myself as much as to Laura, my fingers clenching into fists at my side as I tried to control my emotions. “Maybe if I cut off some of the air into his brain he might become a little less of a bastard.”

Not that I ever would. It would mean touching him, and even as irritated as I felt, I knew I’d be doing something other than strangling his neck if I ever got my hands on him again.

Like she knew the route my thoughts were taking, Laura gave me a strange look. She didn’t say anything out loud, and I was grateful.