Page 44 of Worth Every Penny

Go to bed. Please, Kate. Go to bed.

“Oh, my God,” I wail again, as my drunken attempt to stick my lips on his flashes across my mental screen. Did I lick his finger too?

Oh, fuck. This is truly messed up.

The rush of shame is so violent I feel immediately nauseous. I tried to seduce Nico Hawkston last night, and he shot me down so hard I’m surprised I’m still alive.

What the fuck was I thinking? Clearly, I wasn’t. I don’t know how I’ll survive this. Maybe my hangover will kill me, because if it doesn’t the humiliation will.

Oh, my God. The hotel. The Penthouse.

Will you sleep with me, Nico?

Fuck. Is he still here?

I sit up, trying to ignore the pounding in my dehydrated brain, and clutch the bedsheets against me. I hold my breath, listening for any sign that someone else is in the suite. The other side of the bed is unrumpled, the sheets smooth and tucked in, so if Nico stayed, he didn’t sleep in here with me.

I peer beneath the covers. Yup. I’m naked. Completely naked. At what point did I take off my clothes? Where are they?

I scan the room, but there’s no sign of them. All I see is a thick white bathrobe draped over a nearby chair. A vague recollection of Nico putting the robe around my shoulders slips between the pounding of my headache.

“Nico?”

Silence.

I’m not taking any chances. I reach out of the bed and grab the robe, hauling it off the chair, which falls sideways with a bang.

I wait, but there’s no response. No concerned Nico appearing from the other room. I slide into the dressing gown, intending tohead towards the bathroom, when I notice a note on the table by the window.

Kate,

Gone to a meeting. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back before ten.

Nico.

P.S. Found your driver’s license.

My license sits right next to his note. I pick it up and another wave of nausea rushes over me as the shameful memory bursts open: pretending not to have it so he couldn’t send me home and then sleeping with it in my hand so he wouldn’t know.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.Drunken me is a complete idiot.

There is no way I am waiting here for Nico to come back. Where the hell are my clothes?

A knock at the door makes me jump out of my skin. I pull the robe tighter and open the door just a creak. There’s a man in Hawkston Hotel uniform outside with a trolley.

“Room service,” he says. I must look completely nonplussed because he adds, “Breakfast.”

I open the door wider and he pushes the trolley in, setting out an entire spread of food and a steaming pot of coffee on the table.

Then he hands me a bag and I’m too stunned to do anything but cling to it. Inside is my outfit from last night, fully dry cleaned, right down to the black panties I was wearing.

I want to die.

Could this situation be any more humiliating? I wait until the attendant is gone, then put the clothes on as fast as I can, stuff a pastry in my mouth, and down a scalding cup of coffee that burns my tongue. I need to get the fuck out of here.

But I have no shoes. I lost my favourite Erica Lefroy’s.Shit. No time to mourn them. I’ll think about it later.

The only thing I can use instead is the free bathroom slippers. White slip-ons with exposed toes and a grey HH for Hawkston Hotels embroidered across the front, beneath a silver hawk, wings spread wide in its bid for freedom.

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