Page 38 of Falling for the Forbidden
Chapter Eleven
I feellike death when I wake up the next morning. It’s not until I pry my eyes open that I realise it’s not as bad as I first thought, because my head is resting on Ben’s chest.
“Morning, baby. How are you feeling?” He laughs when I grunt and roll onto my back.
He goes to kiss me but must think better of it when I bite down on my lips. My mouth feels like the bottom of a bird’s cage; I don’t need to share it with anyone. His lips go to my neck instead, and almost immediately my hangover is put to one side.
* * *
“Good morning,”Erica sings when she sees me walking into the office. “Did you have a good weekend? Wait, don’t answer that…I can see it written all over your green face.”
“I need tea,” I mutter, walking past her desk and going straight to the kitchen.
“Sooo…” she purrs behind me. “Was it everything you thought it would be, even with the hangover from hell?”
I can’t keep the smile from my face, and Erica squeals like a teenage girl. “It was…incredible. But the hangover is courtesy of my best friend. Dad and Jenny came home and things went to shit pretty quickly. I needed to get out and she was more than willing to ply me with cocktails if it meant she got the gossip.”
“Sounds like a smart girl. Does your dad know?” Erica suddenly drops her voice and whispers the last bit.
“I’m still alive, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, but the verdict’s still out on Ben.”
The memory of his hangover cure this morning makes my cheeks heat. “I’ll take that blush as him still being alive, too…for now.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I admit.
“I wish I had the answer for you, I really do. But in all honesty, I’ve no idea what advice to give you aside from enjoy yourself while you can.”
My mood quickly depletes. The look Dad gives me when he eventually appears from his office is one that would melt a weaker person, but I’m fed up with letting him run my life. I’m nearly nineteen, and it’s about time he realised that his control-freak nature won’t roll with me. Jenny might bend over backwards to make him happy, but I won’t. It’s bad enough I agreed to live with him, although I can’t really regret that decision anymore because it brought me Ben.
I’m thoroughly pissed off when I march through the house later that evening. My hangover has long disappeared and I’m just about ready to start drinking all over again if it means forgetting my shitty day.
Aside from a tense few minutes in the kitchen with Dad and Jenny while I find myself some dinner, I hide out in my room, silently hoping I’ll get a surprise visitor, but he never comes.
* * *
“Lauren, get in here,”Dad barks from his seat behind his desk.
“Sure thing,boss,” I mutter under my breath as I push my chair out and follow his demands.
“I need you to work late tonight.”
“Great.” The sarcasm in my voice causes his lips to press into a thin line.
“I need all the customer details from these,” he says, pushing a massive stack of paper towards me. “Put into a spreadsheet.”
“We’ve already got—”
“Are you questioning me?” he snaps, his eyes darkening with frustration.
“No. Whatever you need.”
“What I need is for you to do your job without questioning everything. Can you do that?”
“Sure, but—”
“No buts, Lauren. Just go and do your damn job.”
