I wondered, what would Jennifer Lopez drink when staying at the Hotel Le St. James penthouse?
Champagne. Definitely.
But I was no Jennifer Lopez, so I grabbed a beer, some trail mix, and chips.
I kicked off my shoes, pulled off my bra, and walked back out to the patio. I cracked open my beer, got comfortable in a lounger, and had a picnic by myself.
After half an hour, I felt lonely. I'd checked in with my mother that morning, in Vermont, but she didn't know where I was now. I thought about going out to buy a new cell phone, since Smith Fucking Wittingham had dropped mine in a glass of water, but figured it would be too late.
With nothing better to do, I dove into a glass of vodka, ice, and loneliness.
After an hour, my lips and body were numb, and I started feeling bad about my behavior. Had he stayed behind in the restaurant alone and enjoyed both of the meals we'd ordered? With all those people staring at him?
After two hours, I started to panic, and more vodka didn't help. Had he left me in Montreal?
I deserved it, after causing such a spectacle… even though he totally deserved everything he got for talking about my ex, Todd, and another girl's br**sts.
The worst part was, I hadn't even known for sure until then who Todd was dating. If it really was a redhead, then I knew exactly who it was. My friend Rochelle. The idea caused a fury to rise up inside me, choking my throat with hot rage. Todd was the one I was angry with, not Smith, who was just being Smith.
Where was he?
Was he out soliciting a prostitute, to get back at me? Would he come back to the room and show me the red lipstick around his cock?
All these thoughts tortured me, until the view inside my head was an endless slide-show of men using and dumping me, then marrying the next girl. If only I'd had some sense and refused the first man—fought the pattern—maybe my life wouldn't have turned into one giant clusterfuck. If only I'd lost my virginity to a teenager, maybe I wouldn't be so f**ked in the head.
I leaned over the railing of the patio, trying to see Smith out there, in the darkness and night lights of the city.
The vodka wasn't much comfort after all.
The lights blurred.
People. Cars. People in love. People going about their lives. Everything was happening below, and there I was, alone in my room like a bird in a cage. A beautiful cage.
I couldn't take the city anymore, so I went back into the room and took a shower. I sat on the marble tile, with the warm water pouring down like warm, cleansing rain.
I woke up in the king-sized bed, my skin prickling with the uneasy sensation that I wasn't alone.
“Good morning,” he said.
Smith looked relaxed and unflappable, wearing nothing but drawstring pajama bottoms and sitting at the foot of the bed.
I gazed over his broad, muscular chest, and down that golden treasure trail. Damn if I wasn't horny for him, too. After worrying about him all evening, the passion I'd felt for him the previous day in the airplane had only grown by not being properly satisfied. He had a tantalizing lump below his drawstring waist.
“My eyes are up here,” he said.
I glanced up at those baby blues that made my heart melt and my pu**y ache.
He held my gaze, even when I tossed aside the covers to reveal my gift. I'd worn a pretty peignoir to bed, hoping he'd join me in bed, feel the lace, then wake me and make furtive love to me… or start without waking me.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
“Not bad. And you?”
He shrugged. “Late night.”
He didn't mention the scene at the restaurant, and I didn't either, because I'd probably go soft and apologize, and I didn't want to do that. Apologies were overrated. Why tell someone when you can show them?
Wordlessly, I rolled up onto my hands and knees and started crawling like a panther toward him.
“You drank the beer and got into the vodka, but saved the champagne,” he said. “Were you thinking of me? How you wanted to share the champagne with me?”
I nodded as I reached him, then nudged his arm with the top of my head. Making a purring noise, I rubbed my head up and down his warm chest. The smell of him was intoxicating. I used my hands like paws, pushing on his chest to try to get him to lie down, but he resisted.
“We can't stay in bed all day,” he said.
I purred and threw my leg over his body so I was straddling his lap.
“Is the kitty sorry?” he asked.
I sank my teeth into the flesh of his shoulder.
He cried out in surprise, then said, “I guess the kitty isn't sorry at all. The kitty is a bad kitty. It's in her nature, and she doesn't know any better.”
I bit him again, this time on the neck.
He grabbed me around the waist and stood up suddenly, holding me tightly.
I wrapped my legs around his waist and dragged my tongue up the side of his face.
He mused, “Where shall I f**k you?”
I stopped biting and began kissing him tenderly, first on his blond eyebrows, and then moving down to his perfect lips.
He kissed me, his hands reaching down under my butt to support my weight as he walked.
“The patio?” he said, walking me through the penthouse. “No, no, I have a better idea.”
I felt myself being set down on a surface. A chair. I let go of him with my arms and legs and looked around.
Smith turned the chair and pushed me in, so I was facing a computer monitor. And a keyboard.
“Perfect,” he said, taking a spot behind me and rubbing my bare shoulders.
I broke my silence, saying, “What the f**k? You want me to type? Right now?”
“It is what I pay you for,” he said. “You're certainly not much value as a dining companion.”
I wanted to grab the keyboard and smash it on the expensive inlaid-wood floor.
“I've already ordered room service,” he said. “Nice, hot breakfast will be arriving shortly, but I figured in the meantime, we'd try to squeak out a thousand words or so.”
“And then what?”
“Then breakfast, and a few more thousand words?”
“Then what?”
“Shopping,” he said. “With all due respect, I think if you upgraded your wardrobe, you might feel more comfortable at fine dining establishments, and you might demonstrate a more refined decorum.”
He took my hand and guided it over to the button to push the computer monitor on.
“There's a good girl,” he said. “Be a good typist, and I'll be a good boss.”
I glowered at the monitor, but I squelched the argument raging within me. I had been hired to type for him, after all, before everything else had started.