Chapter 20 #3
It’s only when I can see our eventual destination in the distance that I remember we’re staying at the same hotel.
The weight of expectation guts me. It’s not that I don’t like sex anymore—my bedside table drawer is a testament to that fact.
But maybe sharing that part of my past has changed things between us.
I’ve made it not as fun for him anymore.
It’s heavier now. I remind myself Oliver is so unlike Malcolm.
We are not in competition with each other; he has no motive to do something like that to me.
Malcolm did it because he was scared and jealous; he was a misogynist asshole who aimed to embarrass, shame, and degrade me in front of my peers to get ahead.
Oliver believes I am an assistant, and he doesn’t want to be one.
He doesn’t even know my real name. The thought of telling him the whole truth occupies my mind, but I would be a hypocrite to Spencer.
I pick at the thought like a scab. What good is a name when everything else is true?
My attraction is true, my aching center a testament to the need to be near him.
The hotel lights shine in the distance, the soft glow washing over Oliver’s face. My phone starts to buzz in my pocket but
I ignore it. It buzzes again with a text from Spencer:
Where are you? Call me x
I didn’t give it a second thought before I let Oliver whisk me away into the night without telling anyone where I was going.
“We should probably head back . . .” I start to say, my whole body protesting the sentiment.
“Probably.” He grips my hand tighter for a second, then slowly unfurls his fingers from mine, the cold immediately turning
my hands numb.
“Before anyone sees,” I clarify.
“Sees what?” He smiles devilishly, then glances left down an ancient-looking street, with carved wood apartment doors and
Parisian iron streetlights twinkling in the fractured air. He holds his arms out as he pivots on a heel, gesturing around
him. “Sees me walking down this aggressively French street?”
“What are you doing?” I whisper-shout, curling my arms around myself to try and replicate his body heat.
“Sees me hiding from the rain in this beautiful doorway?” he whisper-shouts down the street. “Wow, you should really come
see this.”
I laugh, glancing a final time at the hotel lights before following his route, my heeled boot footsteps considerably louder
than his. Trying to step lightly feels like a bomb going off with each tap of the sole against the stone. Or maybe that’s
my heartbeat.
“This is a normal doorway.” I scoff, holding my hand out to a red door with peeling paint.
He takes my hand and pulls me out of the rain under the cover. He steps back, leaving me on the raised concrete step, holding
up his thumbs and forefingers into a square to create a makeshift frame. “Now, it’s a beautiful doorway.”
I roll my eyes but can’t help laughing. “Oh my god, that was the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard.”
He shrugs. “When in France.”
I tilt my head to him. “I think you mean, ‘When in Rome.’”
He matches my tilt, stepping forward. “There was something I wanted to do in Rome and still want to do in France.” We’re the
same height, face-to-face so I can admire him in more detail.
“And what’s that?” I smirk, heart racing as I lean in closer.
His eyes sparkle. “Say good night.”
“Good night,” I say.
“Good night,” he says.
“Good night,” I say.
He kisses me.
It’s soft at first, as delicate as the rain falling onto our cheeks. Immediately evaporating once landed, it could practically be nothing. It’s barely raining, you would say if you saw it. We’re barely kissing. Lips brushing like morning dew brushes the grass.
I place my cold hand against his face, feeling the bristly stubble. His hand snakes into my open coat around my warm waist,
and I melt into him. My blood turns molten as the kiss deepens, and I feel his heart hammering as hard as mine. His smell
invades my senses, and I curl my cold fingers around his wool lapel, needing him as close as possible. He presses me back
gently until I’m against the door, and the peeling paint crinkles as it grazes against the fabric of my coat. He pushes up
the step to meet me, eyes glazed and towering over me once again. My lips are swollen as he presses a thumb against them,
tracing them like he did to my cut palm in the bar. I pull him in, biting his bottom lip. His lips thin as they smile between
my teeth. When I let go, he trails his mouth down my jaw to my neck, turning my legs to jelly.
“You taste amazing,” he whispers, kissing the soft spot between my collarbone.
I let out a half laugh, half groan. “Michelin starred?”
“A different tire brand needs to make a whole new level of grading for you.” He squeezes my waist. “What do I have to do to
get you back to my room?” he says, practically begging.
“I’m getting on a train home in three hours.” I moan, hating every word spilling out.
“Fuck.” He rests his forehead against mine. “I forgot about the train, officially my least favorite mode of transport.”
We hold one another in silence, both basking in each other’s presence for a few seconds longer. The question is on the tip
of my tongue: Can I see you in London? But I don’t verbalize it.
“Want me to walk you back to your room?” he asks, before adding, “No strings attached.”
I imagine bumping into Malcolm with Oliver in tow. What would happen if he said something in front of Oliver? It would just
take a sentence for this whole operation to blow up in my face. And even if it didn’t, he would notice I’m sharing my room
with my fake boss. “No, it’s okay. I’m a big girl.”
Oliver sighs. “We should probably say good night, for real this time.”
We kiss again, urgently. If we are trying to get this attraction out of our systems, this is making it a lot worse. Like wanting
to finish every bite of dessert despite being uncomfortably full, and Oliver is crème br?lée. With a groan, our lips eventually
tear apart, and he steps down, holding his hand out for me to drop down beside him. We walk in silence to the end of the street;
the moment we get within eyeshot of the hotel, things have to return to professional.
But I don’t want to stop. I never wanted to do anything less.
“Good night,” I say.
He gives me a chaste peck on my hand and passes me his umbrella, somehow the gentlemanly gesture of all things making me blush.
He looks at me like he’s already committed the evening to long-term memory. Our hot, heavy breath mingles in front of us.
His glassy eyes bright under the streetlights. “A very good night.”
I feel his gaze on me as I walk the remaining few minutes until I’m back to the hotel’s front door, periodically turning around to see him walking a few yards behind like a comforting specter.
Close enough to keep me safe but far enough away to not raise questions.
By the time I make it through the sliding doors and into the elevator, Oliver has disappeared.
He didn’t follow me through the front. Thanks to working with Dominic, he must know all the staff side entrances like the back of his hand.
Glancing at my reflection in my dark phone screen, I look like I’ve been making out. My lips plump and naturally pink, my
pupils dilated, and hair frizzy from his hands running through it in the rain. As the elevator hums toward my floor, I scan
through several additional missed calls and texts I’ve received from Spencer and Cecily.
Spencer: OMG
Spencer: What the actual fuck
Cecily: JESS!!!!!
Cecily: Answer your bloody phone!
My stomach drops, my thumb slicing over the barrage of messages to get to whatever has gone wrong. Did Malcolm do something?
Did he expose us? Maybe he went straight to Dominic after he saw me leave the party?
As the elevator dings open at my floor, I freeze. Hands shaking, I finally reach the source of the texts.
Spencer: WE’RE GOING TO VIENNA BABY!