The giraffe culprit blinked down at her, its long neck craned inside her open window. Enviously long lashes, big black eyes—beautiful and mesmerizing, but not exactly good-morning-kiss material.
Wait.
A giraffe?
Fletcher untangled herself from her bedsheets and shooed the massive creature back outside with a hand pressed against its muzzle. As it retreated, she leaned out the window and pointed toward the drooping boughs of a nearby apricot tree, bloated with fruit.
“Look! Right there!” she called. As if the giraffe spoke English. “Plenty of food, just for you.”
She could’ve sworn the animal winked at her before lolling its giant neck toward the fruit tree behind the outdoor sauna. It must have gone to the Asshole Rick School of Flirting.Yuck.
The savanna seemed to have crept closer overnight, like the tectonic plates themselves shifted with Dyer’s retirement announcement. Her giraffe suitor must have stepped clean over the fence separating the patio from the wild, but that wasn’t all. Vultures circled overhead, and just beyond the grounds, a pack of lions gnawed on a puddle of mangled red. Far too close for comfort.
An engine revved in the distance, more staff members heading up from their lodging at the jungle’s heart, most likely. Fletcher’s mouth started to water at the thought of a five-star breakfast as elaborate as last night’s supper. Belgian waffles, eggs Benedict, bottomless mimosas.
For the first time in years she’d fallen asleep with her falsies still glued on. Not to mention the giraffe saliva caking into a hard crust. Hell would freeze over before she let her colleagues witness her in such a state of disarray.
Gripping the marble ledge of the bathroom countertop, Fletcher faced herself in the mirror. She was made of soft lines. Full cheeks, round lips, and carefully drawn eyebrows. All curves and no corners. Freckles, fading as NYC descended into overcast autumn, spread across her nose, pinpricks on a map. Already the Lydell sun had sketched redness onto the fair skin of her forehead and the peaks of her cheekbones.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of complimentary skincare products had been arranged on the bathroom counter. It put Fletcher’s Neutrogena selection to shame. With a fistful of cleanser, she scrubbed her face until her skin pinked. She splashed her cheeks one last time, only to end up with very expensive suds in her eyes.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
Fletcher reached blindly for a towel.
Oh, god. A towel.
She’d forgotten to grab one. New zits sprouted at the sheer thought of using the hand towel with all of its hand towel germs.
With her eyes pinched closed, Fletcher waddled toward the linen closet. Twisting the knob with skincare-slick hands proved harder than she’d expected, but when she finally pried the door open, her hand planted firmly against something warm and solid.
“Good morning to you, too.”
A scream tore out of Fletcher’s throat. Her eyes peeled open in terror—and then clamped shut in pain. The soapsuds burned so sharply it curled her spine.
She spun too quickly, slipped on a bath mat, and skidded back into the sink. Fletcher fumbled for something, anything, and her hands snagged on a bottle from her toiletries bag and brandished it like a sword.
“Are you trying to defend yourself with a bottle of hairspray?”
That voice. She recognized that voice.
Fletcher pried one eyelid up, a fraction of an inch, and winced against the sting. Waylon stood, shirtless, hands planted against his hips, and watched her half-feral survival instincts with a smirk.
She glanced at her weapon of choice. “Dry shampoo. Doesn’t matter. Why are you standing in my closet?”
“I heard the water turn off. Thought I might hop in the shower.”
“In my bathroom?” Fletcher shrilled.
“Don’t you meanourbathroom?”
For the first time, Fletcher peered over his shoulder. Beyond him wasn’t a set of shelves, stacked with rolled terry cloth. There was a bed, a dresser, nightstands. Bedroom things just like her bedroom things.
And between them, a jack-and-jill bathroom.
“Did you want to join me?” Waylon’s photo belonged in the dictionary next to the definition forsmug son of a bitch.
Fletcher would have rolled her eyes if she hadn’t accidentally chemical peeled them. “I’d rather throw myself into an active volcano.”
