I wake up with a pounding headache and no clue where I am.
I sit up, trying not to let the dizziness send me sprawling back onto the bed. When I look around me, I notice that I’m in a huge bedroom that certainly isn’t mine. I take in the sparse masculine decor and quickly deduce this must still be Kit’s house. I groan, falling back onto my pillow. This morning is a brutal reminder of why I don’t drink.
I try to sort out my thoughts as I lie in the dark, regretting everything I can’t remember. Fragments of the night come back to me, the shards of memory slicing through my headache like a knife. I remember Ben trying to kiss me. I remember sauntering up to Kit in my sparkly dress. When I look down, I see that I’m still wearing it.
Worst of all, the memory of shouting at Kit comes back. Me, responsible workaholic, shouting at Kit, my boss, about “challenges.” All those people watching me make an idiot of myself.
God! Why did I do it?
And then later...
Oh my God!
Was I coming on to my boss?
I was supposed to be getting in his good graces. Now, all I’ve managed to do is guarantee that I’m getting fired. Way to go, Alex.
I’m an absolute imbecile. I can’t believe he even let me stay in his house after the way I behaved.
And did he...did he catch me when I passed out?
Heat suffuses my cheeks as I remember his arms around me. Every pore in my body is certain that it was Kit who caught me when Ellie tried to take me home. Kit who maybe...carried me into his bedroom?
I feel another wave of humiliation and embarrassment.
I lie in the dark for some time before I hear the knock on the door.
Kit pokes his head in. He’s stoic and unsmiling but he doesn’t look too angry.
“Feeling tender this morning, Miss Croft?” he asks smugly as I peek at him from my duvet cave.
I close my eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“It happens to the best of us, Alex. Sit up. I’ve brought you a drink.” He shuts the door behind him and crosses the room.
He looks good enough to eat. Devour. But I really, really shouldn’t have such thoughts, even though he’s the only thing I seem to have an appetite for.
“I really couldn’t stomach coffee right now...”
“It’s not coffee. It’s something better,” Kit assures me.
I feel so humiliated I just want to hide under the covers and never come out, but I know I have to indulge him. I’m walking a very thin line between having a job and being spectacularly fired.
I prop up the pillows behind me and lean back. Fortunately, Kit doesn’t turn the light on, which is good for two reasons: one, because my eyes are extremely sensitive right now, and two, I don’t want him to see how much of a mess I am.
Another wave of embarrassment pulses through me. If there was one person I wanted to impress last night, it was my boss. Now look what I did.
He hands me a glass of something clear and fizzy. I wrinkle my nose.
“Did you just hand me a vodka and lemonade?”
Kit laughs softly. The noise hurts my head, but it’s actually quite nice to hear him laughing so freely after what happened last night.
“No, I’m not a sadist, Alex.”
“My mistake,” I say before I can stop myself. “I just thought...”
“Trust me, it’s lemonade with added sugar. My mum used to make it for me when I was feeling poorly. It works a treat for hangovers.”
“Oh.” Leaning forward, I sip the bittersweet drink, trying to remember if my mom did anything like that. After I left for college, I mostly stayed in contact with my sister, Helena. So no.
It tastes pretty good. For a moment, I think my headache even improves. I glance at him, wondering about his relationship with his mother. “So your mum...” I say with an exaggerated British accent, smiling. “Do you see her often?”
“She’s back in London. So...no. But we talk. I make sure she’s well.” He looks at me curiously, then tilts his head at an angle and narrows his eyes. “You?” The huskiness of his voice reminds me of the intimacy of being so close to him last night. I glance at my elbow, remembering his touch. Wanting it again.
Get a grip, Alex.
I shake my head, praying he doesn’t see the pink I feel coming into my cheeks. “My parents...well, my sister and I basically raised ourselves. They’re workaholics. I suppose you have them to thank for my work ethic, and why I’m so devoted to Cupid’s Arrow. It’s one good thing I learned from them.”
“So all your other strengths I should attribute to you alone?”
I suddenly blush head to toe to hear him say this. I’m secretly frustrated at myself for letting this guy get to me so easily.
Kit looks smug, standing by the edge of the bed. “Well, what a night...”
I scowl, irked that he gets to look so handsome this morning when I’m in such sad shape. “Look, if you’ve come to revel in my misery, I’ll leave right now.”
“Oh come on, Alex. You have to admit it was funny.”
“Funny? You think me being a drunken mess and abusing my boss is funny?”
“Well if I can see the funny side, I think you should be able to as well.”
“You’re maddening!”
“And you think you’re not? I could’ve fired you on the spot, Alex. But I’m willing to look past it because I know these things happen. And I know you didn’t mean it.”
“Well, I did...”
Kit chuckles, shaking his head. “Not everything,” he says softly, his gaze a little more intimate. “And you really aren’t helping your cause. All right, you meant it. At least the bad part of it. Every word of it. At least you were honest.”
“Really?”
Kit shrugs. “Sure. It makes sense, and I forgive you for that. I can be a bit of an ass, I admit.” He pauses and smiles, almost to himself. “You thought my accent sexy.”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Oh come on, Alex. I thought you had a sense of humor...”
“I do, when something is funny.”
“Looks like I’m not the one with the problem. May I remind you that I just came in here with a peace offering?” He shoots me a hard look.
“You mean lemonade? That’s your peace offering?”
“I thought you coming to my party meant you had lightened up a bit. But no. You spent the entire night laughing and joking with me, only to turn at the last moment. You said I was arrogant, rude, bossy, unreasonable...just about every insult under the bloody sun. Take a hard look in the mirror, Alex. I think you will find that you are all those things and more. But here I am, willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
I’m a little shocked. I never expected him to be so affected by something I said when I was drunk. But there’s a fierce vulnerability in his eyes, even though he’s angry. I realize that whatever I said last night must have really gotten to him. And he’s right. I am all of those things. He’s right in saying that I’m being hypocritical. I shrink back into myself. I need to cool it.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I tell him, and I mean it.
He shrugs. “It’s nothing. I just thought we should hash things out.”
“Yeah. Sure, of course.”
Kit smiles and the flirtatious twinkle returns to his eyes. Any trace of sadness is gone so quickly, I’m not entirely sure it was ever there.
“You’ll grow to like me. I know it.” He sits at the foot of the bed and puts a hand on my feet, which poke up under the duvet. He grasps them through the fabric in a friendly, almost brotherly way.
I wiggle my toes against his palm and try for a half smile. “I wouldn’t push your luck.”
I glance down and admire his big tanned hand. He’s cupping my arches. The warmth of his touch even through the duvet, makes me forget my pounding headache.
Suddenly I remember him stopping my fall last night with such clarity, I’m flustered. “Thanks for catching me last night,” I whisper, my voice changing as I raise my eyes to his.
“I’ll always catch you, Alex.” He speaks naturally as if there is no doubt in his mind that he would. His eyes look a little darker and unreadable. Suddenly he glances down at his hand, as if he didn’t realize his thumb was caressing my feet through the fabric until now.
Kit lets go of my feet and stands up. “That’s what I do best, Alex. Push my luck, I mean. Are you fit to drive yourself home, or shall I call you a taxi?”
“A taxi might be best.” I’m not feeling up to driving at all.
“I assume dinner is still on for Monday?”
My cheeks are blazing hot, and my nipples are poking into my bra so hard that they hurt. I’m just glad I’m mostly hidden under the duvet.
God. The last thing I want to do is spend more time with Kit, especially with how crazy he makes me. However, I’m not giving up an opportunity to level with him. I have to go through with it.
“I’ll be there.”
“I’m free tonight. If you are.”
I meet his gaze, my breath catching.
I should keep it on Monday. We both should. But I whisper, “I’m free, too.”
His eyes flash unexpectedly, and a brief smile curves the corner of his lips. “Good. See you tonight then,” Kit says as he leaves the room. I watch him disappear and hear him talking on the phone in the corridor.
Strangely, the second he leaves, I wish he would come back and spend more time with me.