“Back to the hotel?” the driver asks as we head off.
Eli sighs heavily before answering. “No, tell my PA to pack all our stuff and meet us at the airport. I want to go home.”
“Right, sir,” he simply responds, quickly tapping a call button on his middle screen. I hear him directing someone to get the plane ready, my heart in my mouth again as I try hard to swallow it down. I want to ask him what it is I’ve done, but luckily he speaks before I get the chance.
“I thought…” he sighs. “I don’t know what I thought, but tonight you seemed so different… so on my side… telling me it was my night. I just can’t understand why, after all that, you go and ruin it by cozying up with Jason Stamford, when you promised me you’d never speak with him again.”
If I thought my head was hurting earlier, it pales into insignificance to how it feels now. Jason Stamford? Jason Stamford? I have heard that name before, but where?
I don’t know what to say to defend myself. How can I when I don’t have the full picture?
“I…” I start, wondering how on earth to actually start. “I was quite happily sitting at the bar when he approached me. I had no idea…”
“It doesn’t matter for now,” he answers, cutting me off. “I’m really tired. We can talk about this in the morning.”
My mouth begins to dry. I want to say something, anything to make this less awkward and for him to hate me less. I just have no words. Without knowing what the hell is going on, how can I justify anything I possibly say?
So, I decide being quiet for now is the best policy. Maybe in the morning, I will wake up and find that all this has just been some hellish nightmare.
The drive to the airport is made in silence. The whole plane ride is made in silence. I barely have enough time to dwell on the fact that I’m flying in a private jet. A private frickin’ jet! I mean, how many people can say they’ve flown in a private jet in their lifetime? These are the sorts of things dreams are made of. I should be elated. I should be taking in every moment of this, but all I can think about is Eli and how upset I’ve made him without even realizing how. God, I wish I knew how.
By the time we land and are through a set of gates of what I can only describe as some Hollywood mansion, it’s well past three in the morning. I’m way too tired and still hungover to care about anything else.
We step through our massive, opulent double doors, and our driver takes our suitcases up the grand curving staircase. Eli quickly follows suit.
“I’m going to bed,” he simply states, making his way up. But, for some reason, he hesitates halfway. “I don’t know what’s happened to us, Kendra,” he says with such sadness in his voice that my own eyes well with tears. “The way you were with me tonight filled me with a sense of hope. A hope I thought I’d never feel when it came to us again. I wanted to believe every word that you were saying. I guess I shouldn’t have been so quick to expect you to change.”
With his gaze firmly fixed to the landing at the top of the stairs, Eli ascends, leaving me completely on my own in a living room the size of Texas. A lone tear drops down my face as I take in the scene before me. White walls, cream carpets, white sofas, cream rugs. Everything white and cream, making it look so… clinical. I’m guessing this isn’t the work of Eli, so this color scheme must have been chosen by me.
“Figures,” I say, under my breath.
I’m so tired. All I want to do right now is curl into a ball and sleep off this migraine, but where the hell is my bedroom?
My feet heavy and weary, I make my way up the cream carpeted stairs and along the biggest hallway I have ever seen. I scan all the bedrooms, noticing that the one in the corner is open, but the others are shut. Considering Eli slept in a different hotel room than me, I’m guessing I have my own room here too. I pass by all the rooms where the doors are shut, then reach the end bedroom and immediately I know it’s mine.
White again. Everything is so white, it’s almost blinding. I groan, my headache simply not letting up. The color scheme certainly isn’t helping. I step in, noting that three of the five suitcases the driver brought in are sitting neatly next to my bed. I take my high heels off with a relief that makes me moan out loud before padding over to the suitcases to find suitable nightwear. Everything is neatly stacked in order of dresses, then casual wear, then nightwear/underwear. I have no clue who packed this, but they’re certainly very well organized.
My eyes widen when my they land on a cosmetic case next to the nightwear. My hand snatches it as I secretly pray that some form of painkiller is in there to stop this raging headache. I rummage through, my hand clutching onto different objects. When it lands on something that rattles, I pull it out. Tylenol.
“Thank you, God,” I say, looking up at the heavens.
I race to the ensuite, which seems bigger than the living room downstairs, and quickly fill up a glass of water. I down the two pills, then throw my clothes haphazardly around the room before I land headfirst on top of the bed.
I’m out like a light.