TEN
Evie was staring at him, a tiny crease on her smooth brow. He was fairly sure his expression gave nothing away. He wasn’t one of those drunks who got clumsy or stumbled or slurred their words. He’d often been told it was hard to tell at all. In fact, many of his previous girlfriends, Liv included, had complained fiercely that after a few drinks he became completely unreadable, face and eyes a void. Which never failed to surprise him. Because what he most often felt like was a small boy lost in a very large supermarket, trying hard not to cry.
“The Prestwick suite,” he explained, “turns out to have very thin walls.”
Evie frowned, confused. Then she got it. “Oh.” Then louder, grimacing: “Oh!”
She stepped back, gesturing into the room. He took a step or two inside and she closed the door, then went to sit on the edge of the bed, looking at him. He stayed where he was and leant back against the door.
“I won’t stay long,” he said.
“From the look of Domnall, you’ll probably be safe to go back in two or three minutes.” She laughed. He couldn’t join in.
“Or,” she said, grinning, “we could go to your room, jump up and down on the bed and make pretend sex noises?”
“No offence, but I’d rather find a dark corner to crawl into and die.”
“Fair enough.”
She looked at him for a moment, head tilted. She was in pyjamas—unsurprisingly, given it was one o’clock in the morning. Dark blue, he thought, not quite able to tell in the dim light, only moonlight in the room. But it was a full moon, the sky clear, her curtains open on all of the three windows that lined the large bedroom. Her bed was large, too, Jacobean and dark-framed, though the rumpled covers looked modern. Not quite silk, he thought, looking at her pyjamas again. A loose top skimming small breasts, short shorts, loose around her thighs. Cotton, blended with silk. No, not silk at all. That wouldn’t be vegan. But the fabric was smooth and soft, shimmering faintly in the moonlight. The room was cool, one of her windows opened to the deep September night, and her nipples were hard, beautifully pert.
“On a scale of one to five,” Evie said, seeming unaware of his study—it had only been a glance, though in his drunken state it felt like he had lingered longer. He would have quite liked to linger longer. Anything to take his mind off what was happening in the room next to his. “On a scale of one to five, how drunk are you?”
“One to five? DEFCON six.”
She laughed softly. “Thought so. Hang on.”
Getting up, she padded barefoot to the bathroom and returned with a glass of water. But he shook his head as she held it out to him. “I’m alright.”
“Sure?”
Giving up, she put the glass down on the bedside table nearest where he stood, then got into the bed—into it properly this time, snuggling under the covers on the far side, where presumably she normally slept.
“It’s cold,” she said, by way of explanation.
“It is,” he agreed.
“You could get in?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You look extremely uncomfortable, standing there.”
“I feel far worse on the inside, believe me.”
Ah. OK. There was drunk Aubrey. Admitting that. Even welcoming the soft pity that swept Evie’s face. He swallowed, throat dry, looked longingly at the glass of water. It was only water. Couldn’t hurt. It was all Evie had been allowed at dinner. He swallowed again, forcing down something sharp, and went over to the bed. Picked up the water. Evie patted the pillow next to her.
“At least sit down. Give it thirty minutes and go back. You’ll be safe then, surely.”
He just nodded, opting not to think about it, then sat down on the bed, above the covers, back against the headboard, forearms resting on his bent knees. Very much not getting into bed with Evie.
He felt her eyes on him while he drank. When he set the glass back down, she said, “I have to ask… Why Liv?”
“It’s always been Liv.”
“But… why? ”
He let out a breath, looked down at her head on the pillow. “Do you believe there’s even the tiniest part of me that wants to talk about it?”
“It might do you good.”
“Mm. And you should probably eat a steak.”
She let out a shocked gasp of laughter. “Roscoe once warned me you were too Aubrey. I’m beginning to see what he meant.”
He frowned at that. “Roscoe’s normally right. Except when he’s completely wrong.”
“That’s…” she protested. “Actually…that’s quite true now I come to think about it.”
“Mm.”
“But seriously, why Liv?”
“I love her,” he said simply, voice just as expressionless as everyone had always complained. “Always have. First lecture of the first day at university, she walked in, and that was it.”
“Even though she’s awful?”
He looked down at her. Her eyes looked black in the moonlight. Sparks like stars inside them. Fierce mischief.
“Yes. Even though she’s awful. Even though she broke my heart when we were twenty, reduced me to such a mess I couldn’t finish my degree. Didn’t even want anything to do with lawyers anymore, not when I found out she was sleeping with a partner at the firm she was interning at. Loved her so much I took her back three years later. Only for her to do the exact same thing.”
“And you still love her?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not just…a habit? A really bad one. Like smoking.”
He gave her another look.
She grinned up at him. “Maybe try a patch,” she said. “Some gum.”
“My main tactic to date has been meaningless sex with a string of beautiful women. It doesn’t seem to work.”
“Wow. Way to humblebrag.”
He breathed a laugh, infuriated, amused, it was hard to tell. The dark corners of the room were swimming, and all the words they spoke were bobbing up and down, sliding carelessly in and out of his hearing.
“I’ve never experienced it,” Evie said after a while.
“Sex with beautiful women?”
“No, I’ve done that twice. I mean, I’ve never experienced that love at first sight thing. Or love at all, really.”
Aubrey looked at her, brain still caught on the first part of that. “Twice?”
She groaned, reaching out a hand from under the covers to hit his arm. “You are such a man.”
“I just need some clarification. Details.”
“It seemed worth trying. But I was depressed to learn I prefer men. I often wish I didn’t.”
“Fair,” he agreed. “We are awful.”
She looked at him for a moment. “You’re not shocked? Disgusted?”
“Why would I be?”
“Those sorts of conservative viewpoints often go hand in hand.”
“I’m pragmatic, Evie. Not illiberal.”
“Good to know,” she said quietly. They were both silent for a while. Thoughtful. Twice, was what Aubrey was thinking, his drunk mind enjoyably lurid and entirely uninhibited.
After a moment, Evie inevitably started talking again. “I have to ask you one more question, though.”
“God. What?”
“If you could do it right now, without any consequences at all, how much, on a scale of one to ten, would you enjoy emptying an entire bottle of ketchup over Domnall White’s head?”
Aubrey laughed. He laughed for a surprisingly long time. And what was most surprising of all, was that he hardly thought about Liv at all.
Aubrey woke up in Evie’s bed, neck aching from where was still half-sitting against the headboard. Evie was asleep beside him.
He looked at her for a long moment as his consciousness slowly came to life, extremely unhappy with him about the state of his head. Hangovers got more vicious with every passing year.
She looked deceptively angelic asleep, lips slightly parted, one hand on the pillow. His fingers would wrap around the slim wrist with room to spare. He could probably hold both in his grip. But he preferred the first image, pinning her on her back with a hand either side of her head, while she looked up at him, what? Teasing? Laughing? Panting.
The rush of desire that swamped him seemed inevitable, and he let it build, annoyed at himself, taking Evie in his mind while she slept on, oblivious, pale dawn light hazy in the still, silent room.
He was still and silent, too, his mind anything but. In there, he took her hard and fast. In this bed, over the bar, over his desk at work. Angry, filthy, that’s how it would be between them. He ought to go back to his room, take a shower, get this out of his system. But he was tired, couldn’t bring himself to move, addicted to just being there, watching, thinking…
He must have fallen asleep again, dozed off on a cloud of hungover, pornographic indulgence, because the next thing he knew, Evie was standing by his side of the bed, pulling on his arm.
“Get up!” she hissed, eyes bright with excitement. “Quick! They’re coming!”
“What?”
She pulled harder on his arm, and he stumbled to his feet, Evie dragging him to the door.
“I can hear them,” she whispered. “Coming from their room. If we go out now, they’ll see us both.”
“What?” he asked again, groggy. Then, suspicion dawning. “No… Don’t you dare…”
She clamped a hand over his mouth, laughing, rooting behind herself for the door handle. He was too hungover, barely awake, and she pulled him so hard that they stumbled together out of the room and crashed up against the opposite wall of the landing, Evie pinned beneath him, his hand coming up just in time to brace himself against the wall so that he didn’t crush her completely.
She was giggling, hands knotted into the front of his t-shirt, face half-buried there, the length of her body pressed up against his. Knowing, with a searing, dreadful certainty what he would find, he turned his head to where Domnall and Liv were paused at the top of the stairs, watching the performance. Liv stared. Domnall grinned.
“Morning,” called Domnall cheerily. “Always good to see such an enthusiastic start to the day.”
“Quite,” replied Aubrey dryly. He would have moved away from their apparent cinch, greeted the man properly, attempted to recover a modicum of professional dignity, but Evie was quaking with silent laughter, face still hidden against him.
Liv smiled sweetly. “Don’t be late for breakfast. We’re hunting in an hour, remember?”
Aubrey gritted a smile in reply, and the pair descended.
“What the fuck, Evie?” he hissed, pushing himself off her.
She had just about recovered from her laughter, still breathless and smiling slightly as she said, “Admittedly an impulse decision.”
“My current impulse is to throttle you.”
“Come on, after what she put you through last night?”
“This is how you’re helping, is it? Humiliating me in front of my client?”
“A man like Domnall? He has a prurient brain. It’s obvious from the way he looks at me, the way he handles Liv like she’s a piece of meat. I’m guessing you didn’t miss the way he kept grabbing at her last night? I’ve given you brownie points in his eyes. Proved your masculine virility or whatever outdated nonsense he measures people by.”
“You’re insane.”
Evie just rolled her eyes.
Why, why , had he come to her room last night? He was never drinking again. He would find some earplugs for tonight. Put a pillow over his head. Find another bloody bedroom to sleep in. There were hundreds of the blasted things in this place.
“Are you really going hunting?” Evie asked him, serious now.
“Yes,” he said, knowing she would hate it and glad of it. “It’s what I’m here for. And after all”—he smiled maliciously—“it’s the perfect way to prove my masculine virility.”