He flinches, which is what I wanted. For him to feel as cold as I do. “Harper.”
“No,” I cry, losing my tenuous grip on composure. “You had your chance with me. Now you don’t want me to be with someone else?”
“It’s not about that,” he says, but he’s a liar. Like the man on the plane with a secret girlfriend in New York all those years ago. And like Daddy.
That’s what men know how to do: make money and lie to women.
“Get out,” I say, turning away. I’m not even angry with Christopher. I’m mad at myself for letting him in the room. For letting Sutton walk me here. For trusting them even when I don’t have any reason to. Because that’s something women are good at: loving men we shouldn’t.
I open my eyes and stare at the chandelier lit by sunrise, wondering where the hell I am and why I’m awake. Then the hotel room phone rings again. Briefly I fantasize about throwing it across the room. Or maybe attempting to flush it down the toilet.
Instead I answer with a sleepy, “Hello.”
“Mademoiselle St. Claire, this is your requested wake-up call,” says a voice in lightly accented French. It makes me wonder if L’Etoile hired him only for that accent. They do love ambiance. “At six o’clock. Would you like us to send breakfast?”
“Coffee,” I manage to croak before letting the receiver roll out of my hand. It hangs over the side of the bed, because I’m too exhausted to pick it up.
In my defense I’ve been a college student and an artist for the past few years. Being Instagram famous doesn’t exactly require waking up early. I know without asking that the men will be awake early, regardless of what happened last night, and I’m determined to pull my weight, to actually earn the money they’re damn well going to pay me.
I drag myself out of bed and into the shower, where a spray of hot water finally lures me into consciousness. While I’m inside, I hear the room service knocking.
“Coffee,” I tell the shower wall, and it echoes the word back at me, sounding relieved.
I’m in my towel when I open the door.
Sutton looks ridiculously fresh and awake at this ungodly hour, his suit crisp across his broad shoulders, narrow at the waist. His only saving grace is the cup of coffee he holds, the white lid and green stirrer keeping the heat and steam inside. It’s not from the hotel, this one.
“Bless you,” I tell him fervently, taking the coffee and backing up.
He steps inside with a grin, with absolutely zero shame in his blue eyes as he takes in the tops of my breasts above the towel. “A very good morning.”
My body responds as if he just stood up after kneeling at my feet, his hands on my thighs, his mouth on my clit. Sparks between my legs. Heat in my breasts. My nipples turning hard against thick cotton. “How did you know I’d be awake?”
“I was hoping to find you still in bed,” he admits. “I would have joined you.”
“You’re only a few minutes late for that.”
It’s a struggle to take the little green stirrer out without letting the towel drop, but naturally he doesn’t help me whatsoever. He’s not quite a gentleman.
Not when it means he can see my skin covered in droplets.
“There’s always tomorrow,” he says. “I was going to drive you over to the library, so you can see what’s there before I show you the plans.”
The coffee burns down my throat, the perfect blend of sharp and sweet. “If you bring me coffee like this, you can take me anywhere you want.”
A knock comes at the door. “Room service.”
Sutton gives my body one last look, his blue eyes tinged with regret. “You should probably get dressed. I’ll get the door.”
It’s with a sense of disappointment that I retreat to the walk-in closet, quickly dropping the towel and sorting through the clothes that are in my luggage. It would be nice to have a power suit or something equally professional, but instead I’ll have to settle for a flowing sage green skirt and a white T-shirt that says, Yo
u should see my active bitch face.
A quick brush of powder covers some of the freckles that make me look twelve years old. And there’s nothing to be done about my hair, which falls damp and sea-blown no matter what I do. There’s a mirror on the door, and I look at my hazel eyes, wondering what Sutton sees in them.
Sutton uses people. That’s what Christopher said, as if I didn’t know what men want from women. Even if I’ve never had sex before, that doesn’t mean I’m totally naive to their ways. I’ve been to plenty of frat parties. Walked in on one of my professors and his student, once.
And there was that husband of my mother’s, the one who climbed into my bed.