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Idoagree. As far as I’m concerned, Anirudh is our guardian angel, especially if I can go track down those cardamom cookies anytime soon. A guest library, too?Sweet. This inn is awesome, and I knew Reid would make everything okay.
“And the bad news?” My boss’s tone is clipped.
“The bad news,” Anirudh says, “is that there is only one room available tonight.”
My belly swoops. “With two beds?”
“No.” Anirudh gives a mournful shrug, but his regretful tone doesn’t match his eyes. “I’m afraid there is only one bed.”
Six
Reid
“Oh my god.” Noelle claps with delight, bouncing beside me in the doorway of our room. Oursharedroom. There are cardamom cookie crumbs on her coat. “It’s so—”
I cut across her. “Don’t say it. Do not say it.”
Because this room drips with more tinsel than a department store on Christmas Eve. Ugh. How can an intelligent woman have such dreadful taste?
“It’s like a separate blizzard blew through here and tossed cheap decorations everywhere. Vile.” I shrug off my coat and sling it over a nearby armchair, then march to the laundry hamper. “Help me with this.”
Noelle sighs and peels off her own coat, piling it on top of mine. “Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
Obviously. Because I’m her boss—inappropriate feelings aside—and if I spend ten more minutes surrounded by gaudy cheer, my head will explode.
So with much creaking of wicker and rustling of tinsel, we work our way around the room, stuffing armfuls of holiday tat into the hamper. Flecks of shiny tinsel stick to my shirt, and baublesthwumponto the pile one by one. I throw them harder than necessary.
“You are such a Scrooge,” Noelle says for the millionth time, lifting the holly wreath off the inside of our door. She lays it carefully in the hamper, like she’s settling down a precious child for a nap. “Tell me why you’re like this.”
“No.”
“We’re going to hurt Anirudh’s feelings.” Noelle folds her arms as I take down the pair of red and green stockings dangling from the mantelpiece, tossing them in the hamper without a second glance.
“I highly doubt that.”
“He’s saving ourlives, Reid. This is going to seem so ungrateful.”
Ugh. Fine. “I’ll leave an obnoxiously large tip. Feel better?”
Noelle rolls her eyes—but her shoulders do relax.
And with the decorations gone, the laundry hamper exiled to the corridor outside, this room feels much better. Uncluttered. There’s a double bed with a kitschy patchwork quilt; a mantelpiece and TV screen over an unlit hearth; a coffee table carved from oak. Several lamps that cast a warm glow, two squashy red armchairs, and a separate door leading to an en suite.
Where Noelle will shower at some point.
I’m going to hear her shower. I’ll be this distance away—barely any distance at all—and hear the water drumming through the wall, maybe the soft thump of a shampoo bottle. After she’s done, I could go in there and breathe the same steam.
Christ.
I’m unhinged.
And this is a terrible idea. I’m herboss, for god’s sake, and not the kind of man Noelle would ever want sleeping close. She probably likes cheerful men. Loud laughers and tight huggers.
Not prickly asshole bosses who snap at her all day, then obsess over her all night.
“On second thought, I’ll sleep in the car.” It’s probably warm in there, what with the snow heaped around the sides. Like a makeshift igloo. Cozy, and safe from bad decisions.
