Page 132 of Getting Down to Business

Chapter 26

How could he have done this? He could not believe how stupid he was. He couldn’t even remember who he’d brought home. Had Alyssa heard them?

“What’s wrong?” Alyssa asked as she popped her head in his room. He was still lying in bed naked, so he pulled the sheet up quickly to cover himself.

“Uh, nothing.”

“Are you sure?” She took a step into his room and he felt his shame multiply.

“Did you…?” He sighed. “Did you happen to see a woman leaving here this morning?” He hung his head, unable to look at her. He was never going to be able to convince her he was a good person after all of this.

He took a breath and held his head up. It was only a week, two at the most. He would be leaving, and she wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore. He wouldn’t have to deal with living with a woman he loved who didn’t love him back. It would all be over. He would send her an email on her birthday to show he remembered, and that would be the extent of their relationship.

Two weeks.

“A woman?” Alyssa looked confused as she turned to look down the hall.

“I apparently brought someone home last night, but I don’t remember. Is anything missing?”

Alyssa looked down at her T-shirt and bare legs. Except…it wasn’t her T-shirt. It was his, and he knew it had been in his room before he left the day before.

Bare legs?

He swallowed loudly, trying to gather the courage to ask the unaskable question.

“I was with you?” he said in barely a whisper.

For a moment, he thought he might be sick. She’d made it clear she didn’t want to be with him. She stared at him with big eyes and then shrugged.

“I slept in here, but nothing happened. You don’t remember… anything?” Her voice sounded tiny and far away.

He shook his head quickly, unable to look her in the eye. He was focused on his shirt she was wearing and saw her shift her weight from one foot to the other.

“I’m so sorry, Liss. I know you wanted things to go back to—” He stopped short in that thought. “Wait. Were you drunk too? Did I take advantage of you, Liss? Christ!”

“No! No. I wasn’t drunk. I came to get you. I helped you get home, and showered. Then I stayed with you, but we didn’t have sex.”

He must have been in pretty bad shape if she slept next to him despite her plan to keep a twenty-foot buffer between them at all times.

“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t say it enough.

“Do you want waffles?” she offered. He knew her well. Better than anyone beside himself. She was trying to play it off as if she were fine, and he cowardly wanted to let her. Even if they hadn’t had sex, he still crossed a line. He shouldn’t have put her in a position to have to come rescue him from his own stupidity.

“Uh, yeah, sure. That sounds good.”

She vanished out of his room like a racehorse out of the starting gate.

He took his time getting dressed, noticing he was clean. She said she helped him in the shower. That must have been uncomfortable for her. He stopped himself from chasing her down to apologize yet again.

The thought sparked a fleeting memory of them kissing under the stream of water. It was an excellent memory, but he pushed it away painfully. He didn’t deserve to have a memory of that.

She was quiet when he came out to the kitchen fully clothed.

“I think we need to talk,” he said, but she shook her head quickly.

“No. We don’t need to. Nothing happened. Just snuggling.”

“But we agreed we weren’t doing that anymore.”