Page 28 of Tempt Me Forever

I'm sorry, but it was so late in the game that I could only find rooms at different hotels. One of them is a wedding suite. They got a last-minute cancellation because the couple split up. You two can decide who sleeps where and tell me or don't. Right now, they are both made under the name of Maxwell Hotels.

Kimberly replied right away.

That bed looks like someone vomited Valentine’s Day decorations on it.

Despite having many things to do, I opened the link to the room. Holy fuck, Kimberly was right. I’d never seen anything like it in all my years working in the hotel industry.

The thought of having an entire weekend with Kimberly seemed impossible. Even though we’d sleep in different hotels, we’d spend enough time together.

There could only be two possible outcomes: either I quit—because it was the only way to avoid giving in to temptation; or I'd have her in that hotel room that looked like someone had piled up an entire inventory’s worth of Valentine’s Day decorations in it.

Chapter Nine

Kimberly

Iloved running inthe morning, even in the freezing Chicago winter. I didn't really know how I picked up the habit, since I didn't run when I was in Paris. But after I moved here, as I worked out at the gym one morning, I glanced out the window and thought,I should try this outside. The next day, I put on my sneakers and hit the ground running—literally. It was an entirely different feeling to run outside rather than on a treadmill.

So I worked out a schedule where I could incorporate running without it eating into my day—I sprinted on the way to work for thirty minutes at high intensity. I was a total sweaty mess by the time I reached the hotel. This wouldn't be possible had I worked anywhere else, but here we had showers in the hotel's gym, and I kept clean clothes at the office. I always brought a stack of them at the beginning of the week to change into later.

Today, it was particularly freezing, and the tips of my ears felt like they were about to fall off. I had to upgrade to a beanie, even though I hated feeling wool on my hair. But my headband wasn't enough, and it kept sliding off while I ran, and even though I repositioned it a couple of times, it still didn't cover the tips of my ears. I was massaging them vigorously as I came in through the staff entrance in the back.

I went straight up the staircase, liking that I didn't even pass any of the staff offices with this route, as I tried to avoid being seen. It didn’t look terribly professional of me if I arrived all sweaty and out of breath. Luckily, I never ran into anyone.

I stopped in the entryway of the staircase, catching my breath and taking a long swig of water. That's when I realized there were steps echoing behind me.

"Drake."

"Kimberly? I see you like taking the stairs too." He took in my appearance.

I nodded, even more out of breath than before, though for a completely different reason. It had nothing to do with the cold or my sprint and everything to do with the fact that Drake was tugging at the top button of his shirt. His coat was on his arm, and he had another wool scarf around his neck. Damn, it looked so, so hot on him.

"You run in the morning?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yes, I sprint from home."

"And you have a change of clothes with you?"

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