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But right now … God, I wish he felt the same clawing need for me that I do for him.
We barely speak on the ride back home, and then we go into the house and I follow Alex up the stairs, still in total silence. It’s awkward to say the least, and I can’t wait to get to my room. I almost wish one of the ice sisters would appear so we would have to act like everything is normal between us so they don’t think we’ve had a fight or something. In fact, I think a fight would be easier to get past than this burning cold.
We reach the door to my room and Alex stops. I turn to look at him. His face is set, unreadable.
“Goodnight,” he says curtly.
“Goodnight,” I reply. My voice is slightly breathless. I step towards the door and reach for the doorknob, but I don’t want to leave things like this between us. “Thank you for dinner. I really enjoyed it, especially the food.”
It’s not much, but it’s the best I can come up with and it seems to thaw Alex a little.
He gives me a half smile. “It was my pleasure.”
I step into my room then. As I close the door on the raw animal magnetism that he exudes, I tell myself I should be glad to be away from him. Away from the relentless attraction, and the awkwardness of not being able to do anything about it. But, it’s simply not true. I’m horribly, horribly disappointed that he didn’t try to kiss me, or make some lame excuse to come into my room. I couldn’t have made my availability clearer. It tells me everything I need to know.
To Alex I am, and always will be, just business. I can only hope that in the morning, without the tipsiness, I will feel exactly the same. Or at least I’ll convince myself I do.
Kicking my shoes off, I strip off, and leave my dress where it falls, then I pad into the bathroom and use the toilet. I don’t even take my make-up off. I’ll sort it out in the morning. Right now, I’m so tired all of a sudden and I just want to go to bed.
I wake up in the dead of night to the sound of footsteps in the hallway again. I close my eyes and try to ignore them, but they’re so loud, I can’t ignore them. I roll over and realize how cold I am. I’m shivering and my teeth are chattering. I can see the plume of white in front of my face as I breathe out. So much for spring not being cold.
I sit up quickly, ignoring the frigid air that wraps itself around my bare skin as I hear footsteps in my room. They run from the bed towards the bathroom. I reach out and snap the light on, but the room is empty. I hear a noise like a door slamming and I tell myself it’s the pipes. Nothing but the pipes. I have to know for sure though, and I push the duvet back and stand up. I move slowly and cautiously towards the bathroom door.
“Hello?” I say.
I feel foolish talking out loud to what is almost certainly just the pipes, and I get annoyed with myself suddenly for letting fear consume me to the point that I’m whispering at doors like this. I reach out and throw the bathroom door open, almost daring there to be a crazed ghost in there. The bathroom is empty, as I knew it would be. Its emptiness seems to mock me, laughing at the dumb foreign girl who doesn’t understand the ways of the house.
I feel a shiver run down my spine at my strange thoughts and then I force myself to laugh. It comes out a little shaky, but it makes me feel better. As if the house is mocking me. I shake my head and turn to go back to bed. I grab my robe from the chair in the corner first and slip it on. It’s short and silky, extremely thin, and it’s almost useless against the cold.
It’s only as I get back into bed that I realize the bathroom wasn’t cold. I felt the wave of warmth coming out of it as I opened the door. I wonder if I’ve accidentally knocked the heater off in my bedroom and I get back up and go towards it. The dial is still where it should be, and I reach out hesitantly to touch the actual radiator. I half expect it to be warm, to prove to me that this room is indeed haunted and the ghost of the crazy old aunt is making the temperature plummet. Of course, that’s not the case. The radiator is stone cold. I shake my head at my own imagination and head back to my bed again, making a mental note to tell Alex about the heater in the morning so someone can come and take a look at it.
