CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sapphire surfaced from sleep, a sharp spike of pain in her back hurtling her towards consciousness. She lifted her head and rubbed at the base of her neck, trying to work out where she was and why her shoulders ached so much. Marco stood over her, fastening cufflinks into his shirt. Her mind whirled as she took stock of her situation. Memories of last night’s encounter on the sofa kick-started her train of thought and her panicked eyes darted around the room and settled on Marco, who was now packing away his laptop.
With a sickening lurch, she knew that she had not dreamt it. Eyes still fixed on Marco, she put her fingers to her mouth, as if her lips would confirm that they had indeed been kissed.
Marco’s demeanour gave little indication that he recollected anything out of the ordinary as she sat up, acutely aware of her disadvantaged position. It would be fine, though, once they’d had a chance to talk it through as adults, right? Things might be a little difficult, sure, but Marco would reassure her, and –
‘You have thirty minutes before the cab arrives.’
And, then again, maybe not. She slumped into the feather cushion that served as a pillow and pulled the blanket up around her neck, peeping over the top of it, as one certainty struck her: Marco was going to pretend last night hadn’t happened.
‘You now have twenty-eight minutes.’ His voice was clipped and he sounded more like an automated alarm than a man.
She was dishevelled, wearing ancient pyjamas, and was tangled up in a blanket while Marco was showered, dressed and edgy, with a note of irritation in his voice.
She moaned quietly. Okay, she could do this. Her brain was finally up to speed on the situation, although she rather wished it wasn’t. The reality was that she’d kissed her boss, and with rather more ardour than was sensible – not that anything they’d done last night had been sensible.
She took a deep breath; it would be fine.
She would just stay on the sofa until Marco returned to Italy – or took a one-way trip to the moon, maybe. And she’d simply settle for the blanket over the head trick until he did, blocking out everything she didn’t want to see. If she couldn’t see anyone, then no one would see her; everyone knew that was a fact.
‘Twenty-five minutes,’ the speaking clock that was Marco declared.
She groaned inwardly. She was going to have to climb off the sofa in her pink bunny pyjamas and Marco would see them and laugh, and her Medusa bed hair would still be frizzing manically unless the hair-straightener fairies had worked their magic while she was sleeping.
She raised herself up on her elbow, trying to plot an escape route to her bedroom that afforded her a semblance of dignity.
Marco gave her a pointed look and made a show of checking his watch and still she couldn’t get her body to move.
He threw her another glance. ‘Twenty-two minutes. I’ve turned your shower on. Come on, we don’t want to miss this flight, I need to get home.’
‘Right. Yes, I’m on it,’ she said, giving the tartan blanket another tug up to her chin.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Frustration was clear in his voice, but he looked at her with something akin to kindness – or maybe it was just pity.
‘I’m just wondering why there’s never an invisibility cloak around when you need one.’ She attempted a smile, hoping humour might be enough to break the barrier of formality that Marco had erected between them. If he had returned her smile, even slightly, it might have done the trick and they could at least have acknowledged last night’s foolishness and moved on, but his face was shuttered, accepting no compromise.
She sighed and dragged her fingers pointlessly through her hair. ‘I’m going – and just for the record, I never oversleep,’ she challenged, thrusting her chin out, waiting for a counter-argument.
‘I’m glad to hear it.’ Marco fixed her with his unrelenting gaze, not even turning away as she clambered off the sofa in an undignified scramble, almost falling over the blanket as it fell to the floor.
Marco adjusted his tie and smoothed down his dark blue jacket, looking irritatingly gorgeous and totally in control as she shuffled past him, wholeheartedly wishing the zombie apocalypse had been real and she’d been eaten in the night.
Back in the safety of her own bathroom, she took a minute to rethink the situation. At least there was no sign at all that they had … had they? No, of course they hadn’t, but he had kissed her and touched her body. She remembered his heart thudding next to hers and his clean smell, with the underlying aroma of whisky on his breath, the stubble on his chin rasping slightly at her throat as he nuzzled into her neck. She shivered, weak with longing. ‘Oh, God, I’m doomed,’ she said into the mirror as she ran a hand over her face, blotchy with sleep.
As she showered she tried not to think about Marco lying next to her on the sofa in the deep of the night, and already it seemed an unlikely scenario. If he wanted to pretend it had never happened then that suited her, even though she would hold the memory close and dust it off from time to time when he was safely out of reach.
For now, though, she would have to face him. She tousle-dried her hair in minutes and fumbled into her clothes, throwing the rest into her suitcase. Giving herself no more time to think, she girded her metaphorical loins and slammed through to the sitting room. ‘I’m ready,’ she announced, stopping dead as Marco held up his forefinger in a gesture to quieten her as he spoke into his mobile.
He ended the call and pocketed his phone, giving her the once over. ‘Ah, the real Sapphire returns. Good.’
‘Good? Why’s it good?’
‘It is good that you are back to being – well – Sapphire.’
She nodded. He was safer with the old Sapphire who wasn’t a threat to him, was he? Fine, it was easier being the real Sapphire anyway, so win–win all around, she thought. Except that Marco seemed to be attracted to the other Sapphire, the Sapphire she wasn’t.
The only constant she had amidst all this confusion was that Marco Cavarelli was back to being no more than a boss, and a grumpy one at that. It wasn’t fair that he called the shots all the time, and the injustice of it annoyed her too much to remain quiet. ‘And just so it’s clear in your head, I wasn’t the one drinking whisky last night,’ she said.
Surprising her, his eyes softened and he smiled gently. ‘I know you weren’t – I have an excellent memory.’ He scooped up her overnight bag and headed for the door.
And that, she thought, was the closest she would get to an acknowledgement.