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Hazel
Afirm hand shook my shoulder. “Sunshine. It’s time to wake up,” Jareth’s voice whispered in my ear.
“No.” I pouted, snuggling deeper into his warmth.
He chuckled and wrapped his arm around me as I slowly woke up. When I was partially coherent, he tugged me with him to get to the car door. After getting out first, he stood beside it waiting for me to swing my legs to the side. Just before I could stand, he picked me up.
My eyes grew wide. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you inside.” I was surprised he didn’t tack on the ‘obviously’ that was implied in his tone. He stalked into the building, the doorman on duty already hurrying ahead to get the elevator.
It was weird to have him carry me in front of all these people. The sleepiness I’d felt immediately dissipated.
“Stop fidgeting,” Jareth demanded.
“I don’t know what to do with myself,” I admitted. I’d never had someone carry me like this, not even as a child. At least not that I could remember.
“Relax.”
I tucked my head under his chin and released the muscles that had tensed. “Okay.”
We reached the penthouse and he put me down to open the door. “Why don’t you shower or go back to sleep. I’ve got a few things I need to take care of,” he suggested after taking both our coats and hanging them up.
We entered the living room, light streaming in from the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city. “It’s the middle of the day. I’ll probably be better off making myself stay up until tonight. Although, I might not be so tired if someone had let me sleep on the plane.”
He smirked. “Really? I bet they had an excellent reason to keep you up.”
We’d made use of the bedroom and shower onboard the plane. “I don’t think I can look that crew in the eye again.”
“I’ll hire a new one then.” We walked through the living room and down the hall toward the bedrooms and his office.
I snapped my head in his direction and grabbed his arm. Clearly, there was still work I needed to do to humanize him. There was no way I’d let him fire someone because of my off-hand comment. “What? No, you can’t fire them,” I snapped, anger punctuating each word.
“What would you have me do?” At least he was looking to me for the solution instead of immediately calling his flight crew to fire them.
“Nothing,” I responded, reminding myself that he was trying to do something nice for me. Even if it was misplaced. “Seriously, nothing, Jareth. I’ll just have to get over my embarrassment or not let you do naughty things while we fly.”
“Not happening, Sunshine. You made that flight infinitely better.” We reached his office door. “Why don’t you find something to do? I’ve got a bit of a mess to take care of here.”
I closed my fingers around the knob and twisted the door open. “I might as well work with you. That way when we get into the office I’m not left with as much catch up work. Why don’t I grab my laptop and we can?—”
Jareth stiffened next to me. “Hazel, don’t?—”
“Oh, my God. Were you robbed?” A horrified gasp left my mouth. What in the dickens happened here? The room was a disaster.
I took a step back afraid of contaminating the possible crime scene. “We should call the police. It couldn’t have happened all that long ago. Didn’t you say Cara was coming by to clean yesterday?”
He grabbed my hand when I reached for my cell phone in my pocket. “We don’t need the authorities.”
I gestured frantically toward the room. “What are you talking about? Of course we do.”
An uncharacteristic redness colored Jareth’s cheeks as he strode past me into the room and began picking up the papers strewn across the floor. His nonchalant attitude also tipped me off that something wasn't right.
“What happened here?” I asked softly, coming to stand beside him.
Jareth scrubbed a hand at the back of his neck. When he met my gaze with his own a hint of worry shadowed them. “I did this.”
I didn’t know what to say. Cool, calm Jareth who rarely had a thing out of place had practically destroyed this room. He had to have done this before we left for Bali. Before he came to get me from Jess’s and after he’d heard about my upcoming date.
