Chapter 10
TEN
CAMERON
Wednesday
Gregg’s Townhouse
Egerton Crescent, London, United Kingdom
I stir beneath soft sheets, my head is heavy and throbbing with the ache of too much gin, too little water, and a night that felt like a fuzzy dream.
Sunlight streams through sheer curtains, casting long, golden lines across a muted cream and slate-gray room.
For a moment, I don’t move, just squint against the brightness, unsure of where I am or how I ended up here.
I stir slightly within the bed, then the scent of Gregg hits me.
It clings to the pillow beneath my cheek, like cedar wood and the faintest trace of cologne.
It isn’t overpowering, but it is just enough to feel close.
The linens around me are impossibly soft, cool against my skin, and smell not of starch or hotel-grade detergent, but of home.
My heart twists at the realization, not in a sense of panic or regret, but fragile awareness.
I take in the rest of the room slowly. It’s beautiful in a quiet and unpretentious way.
Cream walls and brass lamps, a navy throw stretched across the foot of the bed.
And on the wall between the bathroom and the door to the hall, a single black-and-white photograph depicts rolling hills and misty cliffs.
The Scottish countryside, I guess. I run a hand over my face and exhale.
My mouth is dry and my memories of the previous night are stitched together with threads of dancing, heat, and music, and I recall Gregg’s hands on me.
Now it’s morning, bright light, and I’m wrapped in sheets in a bed that isn’t mine. Fuck.
I sit up and brace myself against the sharp pulsing behind my eyes and cradle my head in my hands.
When I pull my hands down, I notice a half-full glass of water on the nightstand and a small bottle of aspirin with two pills already removed placed on a coaster.
I blinked down at them, touched by the gesture.
It feels intimately personal and considerate, and my chest swells.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, heavy and leaden, but not by the weight of last night’s drinks alone.
There’s definitely some uncertainty, and a nagging space between what I can remember and what I can’t.
Did we sleep together? My last clear memory is when we were on the dance floor.
Flashes of purple light, Gregg’s hands on my waist, the press of our bodies in rhythm with music, and then it’s a blur.
I look down at myself, and I’m wearing clothes that aren't mine either.
A soft, slightly oversized T-shirt that is worn and thin at the collar drapes over me, navy lettering unmistakably reads Cambridge University, and gym shorts hang loosely on my hips.
Oh my god… I slept with him, I think to myself. Nice going, Cameron. Fuck.
My heart quickens from sheer not-knowing, and I run my hands through my messy hair and stumble toward the bathroom.
The floor is cold under my feet as I step across the tile, and I stare into the frameless mirror.
Fuck, I look absolutely disgusting. My eyes are ringed with fatigue and my skin is flushed from sleep and too much gin.
My hair is sticking out at all angles, and I find myself searching for clues of a drunken encounter.
I turn on the tap and splash my face with cold water, leaning forward, pressing my palms into the sleek counter.
I didn’t feel shame, just raw. Okay, maybe some shame.
But I strip it down to whatever truth last night had left behind.
Whatever had, or hadn’t happened, one thing was painfully clear, Gregg had cared enough to take care of me.
He’d given me water and aspirin. Clean clothes.
A place to sleep. Not even a guest room. His room.
Or… maybe not.
I look back at the bed through the open doorway.
The sheets are rumpled and slept in, but only on the side I’d woken up on.
I stare at the empty space, filled with questions.
Had Gregg laid next to me? Had we only slept?
Did we fuck? Or had the weight of the night pressed us both into a quiet, exhausted rest?
A distant sound drifts up from downstairs, pulling me out of my thoughts.
The smell of fresh coffee curls into the bedroom like an invitation, but damn, it would be so easy to crawl back under the covers and close my eyes.
To pretend, just for a moment longer, that none of this was complicated. That it was just new.
But even through the sharp throb of my hangover, I know better. Whatever this is, whatever I’d stumbled into, it mattered. And it deserves acknowledgment.
I open the door softly and stepped out onto the landing.
Thick carpet absorbs my footsteps as I pad down the stairs.
The house smells lived in. Fresh coffee mingles with the faint scent of wood polish and clean linen.
I feel grounded in its domesticity. On the next landing is a small office, with a window looking beyond to a small backyard.
It is clearly lived-in and worked-in, by someone who thinks deeply and often.
A wooden desk stands under the window, slightly cluttered and deliberate.
Notebooks lay open next to a slim, silver MacBook, the screen dark.
On the windowsill, two framed photos rest in a quiet narrative.
I lean in and smile at Gregg and Julian, their arms around each other at what looked like a university with a sweeping lawn and collegiate stone arch, laughter frozen in time.
They are both younger, but it was evident they are themselves.
The other frame is smaller and older. Gregg is just a kid, maybe ten or eleven, standing between his mother and father in front of an ivy-covered wall of a manor house.
His mother’s hand rests on his shoulder, his father’s smile more like a smirk.
Even as a child, Gregg stands with a practiced poise, trained in presentation.
I move my gaze to the built-in shelves that stretch from the floor to the ceiling.
They hold an array of books from worn classics with cracked spines to thick volumes on real estate law, global economics, business, and music theory.
A soft smile tugs at my lips and I take in this unexpected look into Gregg’s mind, this man who is becoming less and less of a stranger by the second.
I love the contradiction of him, that the businessman who probably can rattle off zoning laws without blinking also keeps a copy of Debussy: A Life in Music on his bookshelf.
On the lower shelf sits an old metronome and a photo of Gregg and Julian at their college graduation. But one frame pulls me in and holds me.
Gregg stands in a tailored morning suit, a perfectly knotted cravat catching the sunlight.
Beside him, linked to his arm, is a beautiful woman in a pale green, flowing spring gown, smiling up at him like he is the only person that exists.
Behind them, a garden explodes with blossoms, and beyond that, a countryside scene straight out of Jane Eyre.
The entire image is beautiful, effortless and intimate.
I don’t know who she is, she could be a cousin, for all I know.
But the way she looks at him doesn’t feel like family.
I swallow down a thousand quiet questions.
After all, I don’t have the right to ask them.
Hell, I don’t even have the right to think them.
I continue down the stairs and poke my head into the living room.
Morning light fills the elegant space, illuminating the taupe, gray, and lapis accents framing a painted brick fireplace.
The hearth is tidy, unused, and more books line the shelves on either side.
Soft, abstract art hangs in a corner of the room, each stroke feeling intentional.
But it is the black piano that draws me in.
The bench is slightly askew, like he’d played recently, and it spoke something quiet and vulnerable about him that went far beyond business deals and boardrooms.
I glance at the white sectional, and a throw blanket lay crumpled, half-slipped to the floor. A pillow with an obvious head-shaped indentation. A phone charger plugged in nearby, and a glass of water on the coffee table. Gregg had slept down here.
The realization lands in my chest, soft and heavy.
I freeze, not shocked exactly, but I feel some mixture of guilt and gratitude that I couldn’t quite name.
I still don’t know if anything happened last night, the uncertainty gnawing at me.
But I feel… safe. Gregg had drawn a boundary I didn’t even have to ask for.
But I’m unsure if it’s a boundary I even wanted.
The last few steps creak as I make my way down to the ground floor.
I don’t have much of an appetite if I’m being honest, but as I round the corner into the kitchen, my stomach gives a hopeful growl at the smell of coffee, eggs, and bacon.
The kitchen is modern with black cabinets and brushed brass fixtures, pale marble countertops, and French doors cracked open to a soft breeze drifting in from the yard.
Gregg is at the stove. Barefoot in gray joggers, round tortoise shell glasses sit perched on his nose.
A fitted black T-shirt is stretched comfortably across his broad shoulders, and with a spatula in hand, he coaxes scrambled eggs around a pan.
What a sight this man is, am I in a freaking dream?
“Morning,” Gregg says without turning, but I can hear the smile in his voice.
I hover in the doorway a beat longer than necessary before finally stepping inside. “Hey. Good morning.”
“Did you find the aspirin?” he asks, glancing over his shoulder with his beautifully subtle smile that keeps disarming me.
“I did, thank you,” I answer, rubbing the back of my neck. “And the clothes. And the water. And, I assume, the bed?”