It Was Only a Kiss

“I don’t think so. It’s a little blurry, but I think the reception was pretty much over before...”

That alleviated a bit of her immediate worry; being stupid wasn’t quite so bad as long as there wasn’t an audience for the stupidity. Now, though, she had to face the fact she’d had sex with Donovan St. James.

No red-blooded woman would question her taste. Donovan had poster-boy good looks: deep green eyes, inky black hair with a slight wave that he wore long enough to look a little dangerous, and skin the color of the café au lait she desperately needed to combat this monster hangover. The high cheekbones and square jaw now shadowed with dark stubble spoke to a heritage as mixed as New Orleans itself—if one could pick the best bits and discard the rest.

Donovan definitely rated high on the hummina scale. Good looks, though, were pretty much all he had going for him, in her opinion. Why had he even been invited to the wedding? It must have been a professional or courtesy invite. At least a hundred of the guests had fallen into that category. But the St. James family was the worst kind of nouveau riche—using money to buy influence and respectability—and if Donovan had any class at all, he’d have RSVP’d no to what had obviously only been a polite gesture.

But money couldn’t buy class, that was for sure.

And she’d slept with him. She must have reached an astonishingly new level of intoxication to completely lose all her self-respect. I am never drinking again.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Lorelei. I’m not real keen on this new development, either.”

Donovan sat up—slowly, she noted, implying his hangover was equally as miserable as hers—and reached for his clothes. Lorelei averted her eyes, but not before she got a good long look at broad shoulders, a trim waist and a very nice, very firm butt. Donovan ticked up another notch on that hummina scale before she noticed the red claw marks marring his back.

She’d enjoyed herself, it seemed. Pity she didn’t have a better recollection of what had led to those marks. Although she felt like hell, underneath the hangover was a pleasant muscle soreness that spoke to a good time.

The silence felt awkward and uncomfortable. Despite her reputation, Lorelei wasn’t an expert on morning-after protocols, but she’d brazen through this somehow. Clutching the sheet to her breasts, she let it trail behind her as she grabbed her dress off the floor and headed for the bathroom. She thought she might have heard a sigh as the door closed behind her.

The sight in the mirror was not pretty. Lorelei splashed water on her face and tried to wipe away the worst of the mascara circles under her eyes. Then she finger-combed her hair until it didn’t look quite so wild and made use of the mini-bottle of mouthwash provided by the hotel. Feeling marginally human, she righted her dress and slipped into it.

She could only hope that no one would see her heading back to her room as nothing said night of debauchery quite like wearing a cocktail dress before breakfast. Six months of very hard work could be shot all to hell.

Of course she had a much more pressing—and disturbing—problem right outside that door which she had to deal with first.

“Okay,” she said to her reflection, “you need a dignified exit.” Taking a deep breath, she opened the bathroom door.

Donovan stood by the window, looking out over Canal Street, but he turned once he heard the door open. He’d pulled on a pair of jeans—ending up in your own hotel room instead of someone else’s had perks, like clothes—but he’d stopped before adding a shirt. Lorelei had a hard time keeping her eyes from wandering as he wordlessly handed her a bottle of water. She nodded her thanks.

“There’s aspirin, too,” he said, dodging past her into the bathroom and returning with a bottle. “Care for a couple?”

He shook the bottle, causing her head to throb, and she was pleased to see him wince at the noise, as well.

Lorelei felt like she was in a bad movie. “Look, I think we would both agree that last night should not have happened.”

“That’s for sure.”

She stamped down the remark she wanted to make at that insult. Dignity. “So we’ll just pretend it didn’t happen. I won’t mention it to anyone and you won’t write about it, okay?”

From the look on Donovan’s face, he didn’t like the implication, and Lorelei worried that she might have made a tactical error. Donovan had turned his high-school hobby of flaying people alive for sport into a profitable career. He destroyed careers, lives, families. Rumor had it that he was looking for another big story. People tried to avoid pinging onto his radar screen; no one with a shred of self-preservation would bait him intentionally.