Page 61 of Fierce

Sightseeing

I woke without Hope.

Waking in a strange hotel room was nothing new to me. But it was always my hotel room. I preferred to retain home-field advantage, and what I’d told Hope was true. I didn’t sleep with women. But she’d been nervous enough already the night before, and it had been important to let her stay in her own space, to give her that comfort. And then I somehow hadn’t managed to make it back to my room afterwards. I’d fallen asleep with the sound of her soft breathing in my ears, one slim leg draped over mine, her arm across my chest, and then I’d just…stayed.

Where was she, though? The light coming through the curtains we hadn’t managed to shut last night told me it was barely dawn, the bathroom door stood open, and I couldn’t hear a thing.

I was at the door to the living room on the thought, trying to ignore the relief I felt when I saw her sitting at the little dining table. With her laptop.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

It must have come out too sharply, because she started. “Oh. Hi.” She slammed the lid on the laptop, and I stared at it, then back at her.

“Hope,” I said slowly. “What are you doing?”

“Um...” She was looking a bit flustered. “Martine asked me to take care of something.”

As I continued to stand and look at her, she jumped up. “So…did you want to get breakfast?”

“No,” I said, and if it came out grim, it was because that was how I felt. “I want to know what you were working on.”

“And I told you.” Her arms were crossed now over the white hotel robe she wore, and her eyes had narrowed. “A work assignment.”

“It’s Saturday.”

“And your point?” She wasn’t looking flustered now. “Exactly what is it you’re thinking here? I find myself just fascinated to hear.”

“You shut your laptop,” I pointed out. “You’re standing up.”

“Well, you’ve got me there,” she said, and there was no question. I was getting those sparks again. “I am standing up. Color me guilty. What, I’m setting up my online dating profile, now that you’ve awakened my inner goddess?”

When I didn’t say anything, she sighed. “OK. I’m going to tell you, on the principle I’m always trying to push with Karen, that open communication is essential to a mature, honest relationship. You might take note of that one. You want to know why I’m a little reluctant to share? Because Martine sent an assignment to me yesterday afternoon, and I didn’t finish it. I fell asleep after my bath, because I got a little…relaxed in there, you might say, and it was more work than I thought anyway. And then I wanted to be pretty when we went out to dinner, and I chose that instead. And I didn’t exactly want you to know that and think I was a flake, or that you’d made a mistake in getting Martine to hire me, and I’m nervous about my job anyway, so I got up early to try to finish it, and I still haven’t. So there you go. My dark secret for the morning. Happy?”

“Oh.” I ran a hand over the back of my head and tried to think of what to say. “I think you lost me a couple stops back. I got distracted at the part about you getting relaxed in the bath.”

“Uh-huh.” She was still trying to look severe, but that face wasn’t made for it. “I don’t think even your truly impressive line of dirty talk is going to get you out of this one. This would be a good spot to use that ‘s’ word again. You know, that one you’ve said twice already?”

“Twice more than I’m used to saying it, and I’m not rapt about saying it again,” I muttered.

“Now, see,” she said, “if I were a different kind of person, not the butterfly type, I’d tell you that you might not want to be quite so suspicious and dictatorial and make me mad so much, and then you wouldn’t have to say it at all. But of course, being a butterfly and all, I can’t. And did anyone ever tell you that you have trust issues? Remember my swan story? You’d have totally let me burn. I’m just saying.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re bloody saucy?” I tried a glare, but I wasn’t sure I was too effective. “Saucy girls can get themselves in trouble. As I may have mentioned last night. And I’d like the butterfly back, please.”

She was laughing now, not deterred a bit. “You only get the butterfly on special occasions. And you know, you might be a little scarier if you weren’t naked.”

“And here I thought that was my best look. Wait, though. Are we bantering?”

“You know what?” She smiled. “I think we are.”

“Huh. I don’t banter.”

“First time for everything, some people say,” she said, peeping at me from under her lashes. “For relationships, for sex, and even for banter. At least that’s what I hear.”

Later on, of course, I realized that Hemi never had apologized. But he’d dropped it, and that had been something, hadn’t it?

Well, no. The whole thing should have been a red flag, but what can I say? Hemi was distracting. Besides, he’d been so sweet after that, hadn’t balked a bit at my needing time to finish my assignment for Martine after he’d called down for our room service breakfast of coffee and croissants.

So, no, I couldn’t stay annoyed with him. Instead, I transferred my annoyance to Martine, because I was having to take time away from our stolen weekend to work. But then, she would have been expecting me to work on the plane, too, and I hadn’t been on the plane.

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