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Please, please, please let it have been a dream.
Max squinted into the room, hoping her mind was playing tricks on her, that she hadn’t begged her bodyguard to make love to her then dragged him out to a club where she flirted with any guy she came close to, just to piss him off.
But the claggy feeling in her mouth and fogginess of her head told her that it had happened, just as she remembered.
“Oh, hell.”
She showered and changed into a pair of je
ans and a singlet top, put on some lipgloss and mascara and fluffed her hair a bit. She looked like herself, but she sure as hell didn’t feel like it.
Maybe if she pretended it had meant nothing to her? That she’d hit on him because she was bored, just like he said? That it was simply a matter of her wanting to get laid and him being conveniently close at hand? But even imagining having that conversation made her feel icky. It wasn’t true. She was nothing like the press liked to paint her. She didn’t hook up with random guys every night of the week, she actually liked to get to know the men she slept with. She even held out hope that one day she’d fall in love – a crazy notion given the way she was raised. But lying to Noah was preferable to letting him know the mortifying truth – that she had wanted to sleep with him. Just him. Not out of boredom, not out of habit, just out of…necessity.
Ughhhh.
Coffee. She needed coffee.
“Oh.” He was, of course, awake when she stepped out into the lounge area, and he was, to add insult to injury, shirtless.
Their eyes met and he dipped his head in greeting before crossing the room, grabbing a shirt off the back of a chair and pulling it over his head. “I was working out,” he said, by way of explanation.
Great. Yet another visual she didn’t need.
“It’s fine.” She moved to the coffee machine, careful to give him a wide berth.
“Is your itinerary still accurate?”
She blinked, trying to remember what flight time she’d nominated. “I guess so. I’ll have to double check.”
“Just let me know any changes.”
“Okay.”
The silence throbbed with a mix of awkwardness and awareness. She watched coffee spool into a mug, moved it aside, then forced herself to look directly at Noah. “Would you like a coffee?”
“Sure.”
She reached for another cup. “How do you have it?”
“Black.”
Just like her.
She made another, passed it to him, and unlike last night, was abundantly careful not to let their fingers brush. His mocking half-smile showed that he realized.
Her stomach squeezed.
“About last night…” She curled her hands around the cup, searching for words, her eyes on his face.
The only sign that he’d heard was a slight narrowing of his gaze. Other than that, he stood as still as a statue.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
He waited, unspeaking.
“The whole kissing you thing was a mistake.” His eyes flashed with something she didn’t understand. His silence was making her nervous. “It won’t happen again.”
He drunk his coffee, eyes pinned to her face, so she felt as though he were touching her.
