Chapter 11
JAMIE
A hard knock at the door jolts me awake.
“You alive in there?”
“Y-yes!” I yelp, scrambling for my phone. It’s dead—I forgot to plug it in last night. I managed to kick off my shoes at some point, but otherwise I’m still wearing my clothes from yesterday and they’re clammy with sweat.
I glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand and see I should have been up an hour ago.
I jump to my feet—leaving an alpha waiting ranks highest on my threat assessment.
When I whip open the door, there’s a wall of sweat and muscle in front of me. Morgan wears a sports bra and tight leggings, her arms and abs totally bare and glistening with sweat. Her dark hair is up in a ponytail, and she sips casually from a massive green smoothie.
That would be enough to set my heart racing. But then the scent of her sweat hits my nose, deep and earthy with an edge of spice. I have a horrifying impulse to bury my nose under her arm, breathe deep that scent. Instead, I hold my breath.
Her violet eyes flick down, up again. “You’re hungover,” she states, amusement glinting in her eyes.
“I’m fine,” I say weakly.
“We’ll fix it at the spa. Change. We leave in five.”
I jump to obey, rummaging through my suitcase for clean jeans and a long-sleeve henley. It’s early enough that I assume we’ll come back to the hotel before we go on stage this evening. That distance helps keep my nerves from going totally haywire.
I reemerge to find that Morgan has thrown on a crop t-shirt over her sports bra, but otherwise remains unchanged.
The omega in me purrs.
My forebrain, however, is very concerned.
I force myself to not be a total creep as I follow Morgan back down to the driver. A few minutes later, we pull up to another gorgeous building styled in white marble and stainless steel.
I was expecting a really, really nice nail salon.
This is a whole other world.
A ten-foot waterfall cascades down a wall in the lobby, gently bubbling into a koi pond filled with flashes of orange fins and smooth green lily pads. The wall behind the front desk is lush with mosses and trailing vines, which fill the air with an earthy scent.
“Welcome back, Ms. Hunter,” the woman at the front desk says. She’s blonde with high cheekbones, bright blue eyes, and a light Nordic accent. She must be a model—she’s that gorgeous.
“This is Jamie,” Morgan says.
“Welcome.” The blonde flashes a smile of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. “You’ll find the locker rooms at the end of this hallway. Please let me know if you have any questions. Champagne?”
“Please,” Morgan says.
The blonde woman cracks open a bottle and pours two glasses, handing them to Morgan and me. I’m not sure more alcohol is a good idea—my throat still aches from last night.
“Jamie will also take the rejuvenation treatment during the manicure,” Morgan adds.
“Of course,” the blond woman says with a nod, typing something into the keyboard in front of her, her two-inch acrylics clacking against the keys.
Morgan starts down the hall, and I follow.
The only thing more horrifying than admitting I have no idea what I’m supposed to do is being alone in a locker room and still having no idea.
“I thought we’re just getting manicures,” I whisper.
“You are,” Morgan says.
“Then why are we starting in a locker room?”
“You’ve never been to a spa?” she asks, and I can’t tell if she’s teasing me.
“No,” I confess.
“You’ll find robes and slippers inside. Shower, then change. Our manicures are in forty-five minutes. Someone will come find you. There’s a sauna and hot tub to use in the meantime.”
“I don’t even want to know what this manicure costs,” I murmur.
“You’re cute,” Morgan says wryly, then she disappears through the door of the women’s locker room.
I stand frozen in the hallway for a moment, then suppress the twinge of discomfort as I push into the men’s room.
Fortunately, it’s pretty empty.
I step around a corner and see the full bare ass of an elderly man, and I drop my eyes, but he hardly seems to notice me.
I thought the bathroom at the hotel was fancy, but the showers here are on a whole other level. Fortunately, there are private shower stalls—I guess it wouldn’t make any sense for a luxury spa to have open showers.
I go ahead and wash my hair, trusting that the spa’s luxury products—of which there are a dozen to choose from—won’t turn my hair into a frizzy mess.
That only kills fifteen minutes.
I don’t think I’m supposed to wander through the spa totally naked, so I carefully examine the rest of the locker room. There’s a rack of bathrooms and, next to that, another rack lined with swim briefs on delicate golden hangers.
Wow, they really think of everything. I feel a little awkward wearing snug swim briefs instead of trunks, but it’s not like anyone’s going to see them under my bathrobe.
I have no idea what sauna etiquette is, so I skip that door and head a little further to the open area with the hot tub.
It’s like a… hot pool. It’s styled like a lagoon, shaped from glimmering blue tile and rimmed with miniature palm trees. A little waterfall streams into the pool on one side, sending steam into the air.
There’s a tray of room-temperature spring water on top of a fridge stocked with more. I grab a bottle and down it, realizing I’m still pretty dehydrated from last night.
I’m kind of surprised that the water isn’t from Fiji, but then I take a look at the label and I realize it’s probably ten times fancier than Fiji water.
As I sink into the hot water, the scent of minerals rises from the surface, and the heat instantly unwinds the lingering soreness in my back and neck.
I lose track of time, floating in the soothing heat and listening to the sound of the waterfall.
A soft voice calls from the door, startling me.
“Jamie? Your next service is in five minutes. You can follow me when you’re ready.” She takes a step back and stands dutifully outside the door.
I hurry out of the hot tub, towel off, and slip my robe back on to join her at the door. She leads me down a padded hallway to a room lined with windows and a set of beautiful glass desks that must be the nail stations, since Morgan is already seated at one.
She’s scrolling on her phone as one of her hands soaks in an opaque container, and I get a whiff of acetone.
But overall, this nail salon doesn’t really smell like… well, a nail salon. I tried to go get a manicure once, but the nail polish scent was too overwhelming. This is surprisingly manageable.
The two nail techs are also model-gorgeous, with trendy makeup and long, smooth hair.
“What are we doing for you today?” My tech asks me as I sit down.
“Um…”
“Gel,” Morgan cuts in. “Something professional. Show them a few options.”
The nail tech pulls out her phone and hands it over to me, letting me scroll through an album of designs.
I was planning on getting beige or something so it’s not so obvious, which is already branching out from my usual black or dark green.
The fingers in the pictures are all so elegant, so pretty. I think most of the designs would look strange on my hands.
But something catches my eye—a light blue design with a delicate white flower print layered over top that reminds me of pottery.
“Is this okay?” I murmur, returning the phone to the tech.
“Great choice. What do you think of this color? I’ve been dying to do this combo.” She pulls out a bottle in a soft sage green.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” I breathe, and I actually mean it.
“Great match for your complexion,” she says, and I surrender my hands over the table.
It doesn’t take her long to strip the old polish, and I’m grateful that she doesn’t comment on how bad it looked. I’m familiar enough with the process of filing, soaking, and cuticle trimming, but then she pulls out a foil tube of lotion and pushes back the sleeves of my robe.
My chest tightens with anxiety—are tattoos allowed in spas? Or is that a bathhouse thing?—until she says, “Great tatts,” and smooths the lotion over the sleeve of medicinal flowers that covers my left arm.
“Oh, thanks.”
Morgan’s eyes flick over from her phone, and I brace for disapproval.
She purrs, “You are full of surprises.”
My cheeks heat. But I don’t get a chance to process what just happened as Morgan returns to her phone and the nail tech massages the lotion into my hands and forearms.
Oh, wow. This is the life.
The gel polish doesn’t have such a strong odor since it sets by UV, and my mind wanders over the polymer science as the nail tech works.
As she applies the overlay with a stencil, she asks, “So, how do you two know each other?” There’s a sparkle in her words.
My cheeks heat. “Uh, coworkers.” This is not a normal thing for coworkers to do—certainly not the CEO and some newbie. But if Morgan’s decided I’m a charity case, and this is what it takes for her to not be embarrassed to be on stage with me, then I’m not going to complain.
“Oh,” the nail tech says, with a hint of disappointment. But her chipper tone quickly returns. “I love it when boys get their nails done. More should. This is a great color on you.”
It’s arbitrary, but I appreciate that she said ‘boys’ and not ‘men.’ It’s literally her job to pay clients a lot of compliments and get them to come back, but it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling all the same. So much for being above flattery.
Next to me, Morgan switches her phone from one hand to the other to keep typing as the nail tech continues working. Morgan’s getting a smooth blue-grey base, with the inner edge lined in cool white and the outer edge a dark slate.
A million times trendier than what I’m getting, but I’m painfully certain that if she didn’t approve, she would have corrected it already.
“Time for the rejuvenation treatment,” a voice chimes—an older woman with hair and makeup as flawless as the others. She wears a white lab coat and pulls along an IV stand. “Left arm or right?” she asks.
I must look panicked when I turn to Morgan, because she says, “This will fix your hangover.”
“With needles?” I wince.
My nail tech stifles a laugh.
“Do you want to feel better or not?” Morgan says with dry amusement.
“Yes,” I manage, bashful.
“Are you left- or right-handed?”
“Right?”
“Left arm, then,” she says.
“That hand’s cured,” my nail tech says with a nod.
The woman in the lab coat pulls my sleeve up further and ties off my upper arm, instructing me to squeeze a stress ball. She wipes my inner arm with alcohol, like getting blood drawn.
Something that’s at risk of making me faint, even on a good day. The idea of fixing my hangover sounds great, but embarrassing myself…
I see the needle come out, and I tense.
“Look at me,” Morgan says, and command laces the words.
They grab my spine, turn my head to obey.
“Relax.” The tone is almost tender.
My body instantly responds, shoulders lowering from my ears.
There’s a pinch at the crook of my elbow, and the needle’s in.
“You’ll be done in twenty minutes,” the woman in the coat says. “I’ll be back then.”
“If you regret it, I’ll make it up to you,” Morgan says.
The idea of someone like Morgan Hunter owing me a favor isn’t so bad, so I decide I’m not mad. Yet.
My tech finishes my manicure, and seeing the soft florals on my own hands is a positive distraction.
The texture of the gel is different from normal polish, and I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I like the idea that it won’t chip tomorrow.
It might even outlast the trip. That’d be a nice souvenir.
I kind of hate to admit it, and maybe it’s the placebo effect, but the rest of my hangover really is melting away. It makes sense—why chug water when you can inject it into your veins?
The answer is that the latter is insane and requires a medical professional. But it’s nice to not stress my stomach any further.
For the first time in Morgan’s presence, I’m actually… relaxed. This is nice.
Morgan sighs and stands, lifting her phone. “I’ve got to take this. I’ll meet you at the event center. If you spend less than sixty euros on lunch, you’re fired.”
And then she’s gone.
“She was kidding, right?” I murmur to my nail tech.
She giggles and shrugs. “Yeah… I think so.”