Amy’s first thought when as her eyes skittered open was to wonder why the hell the rhythmic bleeping of her watch alarm wasn’t coming from her wrist. Instead the sound blared from some random corner of the room. She wasn’t wearing it.
She wasn’t actually wearing anything.
Her second thought was that the bed was much too firm to be staff-quality. The sheets were crisper and the pillows were plumper. The furnishings in the staff quarters at the Lavington were basically cast-offs from the hotel itself that were roughly one step away from being lobbed in a skip. The mattress in the staff bedroom she was meant to be occupying had probably been slept on by thousands of Lavington guests before she ever got to it. It was a thought she’d tried not to dwell on the previous evening. As it happened she needn’t have worried. She’d slept somewhere else entirely.
Then a bleary voice spoke out of the darkness next to her and she nearly hit the ceiling in shock.
‘Bloody hell it’s a bit early for an alarm isn’t it? Half past five.’
Her sleep-dulled memory woke up like a shot. Scrambling out of bed in the pitch darkness, she followed the sound of the alarm, dragging the sheet along with her by clamping it against her breasts with one arm. She heard his yelp of protest as he attempted to hang on to it and then the sheet pulled free as he gave up. She found a pile of garments on the floor and groped through them, the alarm getting louder. At last she snatched it up triumphantly and pressed the off button.
The bedside light clicked on.
She turned back towards the bed, blinking like an owl in the sudden glare. Owen Lloyd was lying back against the headboard stark naked except for a strategically placed pillow. Even after the previous night out on the lash followed by what had gone on between them – warmth began to creep upward from her neck as the memory of that began to kick in – he looked utterly gorgeous. Whereas she was draped in a sheet, sprawled on the floor in the middle of a random pile of clothes, and from the burning sensation in her cheeks she knew she was bright tomato red from neck to hairline.
‘I liked it better with the light off,’ she said.
‘Come back to bed.’ He pulled himself up on one elbow, watching her. ‘It’s early. You’ve got loads of time.’
She ignored him, scrambling to her feet, dragging the sheet with her and holding it awkwardly under her arms while she wriggled back into her creased and crumpled uniform. She avoided his gaze like a blushing teenager on a public beach. All the while the previous evening crashed back into her mind in wave after wave of shocking images.
Only now did she realise quite how completely bumping into Luke again had knocked her ego. The Amy Wilson of even two days ago would never – repeat never – have jumped into bed with someone she met for the first time that same day. Amy Wilson chose her relationships carefully – ergo she’d had hardly any of them. They needed to have some kind of potential, some kind of staying power, for her to invest herself in them. Even if that potential turned out to be only in her mind. In the past she’d epically failed to separate the emotional from the physical in her dealings with men. As a result the situation with Luke had been totally distorted, each of them coming at it with a totally different agenda, she believing it had longevity, he making do until something better came along.
On the back of that discovery, her normal set of standards had been knocked completely off-kilter.
Clearly last night’s moment-of-madness rationale could hold its own in the cold light of the very early morning, only as long as she stuck to that same theme going forward. The idea that she could do whatever she wanted, enjoy one night with Owen, worked as long as she went into it on a physical basis only and took it for what it was. No room for emotion and therefore no room for rejection. She would walk away this morning and never look back.
As long as word didn’t reach the management of her little adventure of course.
A nauseating tendril of dread twisted through her chest as she thought exactly what she’d laid on the line here. It might have seemed like a snap inconsequential decision last night, the hint of danger about it making the decision to enter his room seem even sexier. In the depths of the night with only a skeleton staff and all the guests tucked up in bed, a hint had been the limit of it. She hadn’t thought as far as falling asleep next to him. At getting on for six in the morning, the hotel would be alive with staff. Chambermaids, waiting staff, the concierge team at full pelt as they shifted luggage down the corridors for checking in and out. Hotel staff sleeping with the guest was a line that simply wasn’t crossed if you valued your job. Instant dismissal would follow. Lavington legend spoke of a guest services assistant who’d slept with a celebrity tennis star guest and had been practically thrown out on the pavement.
She’d put the job of her dreams on the line here because she’d been feeling a bit low about her past rejection-filled life. What a total muppet she really was.
Getting from here to the staff quarters without being seen in her dishevelled state would be like running the gauntlet, and it leached any hint of latent sexiness from the room. She took a deep breath and ran again with last night’s emotion free rationale. No time now for regrets or self-hatred – they wouldn’t secure her the manager’s role. Instead she took immediate refuge in the practical. She could do thoughts and feelings about this monumental cock-up on Monday night, perhaps, when the wedding was over and the entire party – including Owen Lloyd - had checked out of her life for good.
‘Breakfast is served from seven o’clock,’ she said loudly. ‘I’ll have to be on hand in case the wedding guests need anything or have any last minute issues. The chairs need to be lined up in the ballroom ready for the ceremony. The florist gets here at nine and I’ll be double checking the flowers. Tables need to be arranged and dressed. Oh and some meddling pain in the arse changed all the celebratory drinks options so I’ll be checking in with the Chief Bar Manager to make sure he’s on top of that.’ The thought of what Conrad would say when she filled him in on what she’d done now made her head spin and not in a good way. ‘In short, every minute of the day ahead is spoken for. So no. I don’t have time to come back to bed.’
Owen pulled himself up into a sitting position. Firm muscle rippled his body and her eyes stuttered for a second on the gorgeous view. She snapped her gaze away like a misbehaving child and headed for the door.
‘I’ll catch up with you later then,’ he called after her.
In the course of running the gauntlet down the corridors of the Lavington and back to the staff quarters it felt like she aged five years. Every corner she turned seemed to have a chambermaid lurking behind it or a breakfast-toting room service minion. She double-backed on herself three times, took the back stairs instead of the lift and at last legged it into her staff bedroom completely out of breath.
This was what you got for moments of madness. There was a reason why she’d focused so hard on cold practicality these last months. Practicality got you places with no margin for screwing up. And if she’d thought to put in place a practical exit strategy before having her emotion free mad moment with Owen last night, there wouldn’t be any of this morning after stress.
This morning’s fluster was only down to that, she insisted to herself, just the stress of realising what she’d done and then getting back to her room unseen. It had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any feelings she might be experiencing about Owen Lloyd. Moments of madness did not have room for feelings, that was the whole bloody point of them.
The plan now was to get right back into immediate work mode, leave the crazy moment behind her and hope to hell that he would do the same.
There was absolutely zero point going back to sleep when your body was on standby for a rerun of the previous night’s activities and your partner made an exit that would hold its own against an Olympic sprinter. Watching her get dressed with her hair bed-messy and the glimpses of her peaches and cream skin was enough to get Owen seriously hot, right up until the point at which she legg
ed it out of the room.
He might actually have been a bit offended at the fact she couldn’t get away fast enough, if there wasn’t a big rational chunk of his brain telling him her disappearance was a complication-busting gift. He had no desire to get close enough to anyone that they might feel they had a stake in his life, no matter how small. A morning-after swift exit was, in that sense, just the ticket.
He’d be checking out of here this time tomorrow and between then and now were a myriad of best man duties, not least of which was the not insignificant challenge of getting Luke to look and behave as if he was sparkling fresh instead of hung way over. Twenty-four hours and he’d never see Amy Wilson again.
For some reason, the expected sense of relief that thought should bring just wasn’t coming through for him right now.
CHAPTER 7
An hour since she’d made it back to her room and Amy was in a fresh Lavington uniform, name badge in place, hair neatly pinned up, concealer under her eyes to hide the shadows, and heading away from the staff meeting where she’d confirmed with a confident smile that all details of today’s wedding were under her absolute and capable control.
The smile slipped from place the moment she left the meeting room.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think straight. On balance she’d probably managed less than three hours sleep and was pretty much operating on caffeine and determination right now. The day ahead was filled with hundreds of tiny details, all of which had to be perfect. She gritted her teeth hard as she headed for the honeymoon suite to check the bride was enjoying a perfectly cooked champagne breakfast, as per the explicit instructions Amy had given the kitchen. Sabrina, after an evening of healthy food and pampering followed by an early night, looked as fresh as a daisy in her Lavington Hotel fluffy bathrobe, her skin dewy and glowing as she helped herself to fresh fruit and muesli from the groaning silver breakfast trolley. Amy hoped she knew what she was letting herself in for.
Immediately afterward she swept downstairs to the dining room. Onto the next task, then the next… Showing her face at breakfast would be a good starting point. After that she would take it step by step. She’d spent too long waiting for this opportunity to screw it up because she was too bloody tired.
Back to work, that was the thing. Get on with the day ahead as if nothing had ever happened and surely Owen Lloyd would do the same. What had he said? Dare you. Last night had been a fun one-off. To expect more would be to disregard the conclusion that had been reaffirmed to her over and over again, that the only true security in life was the kind you made for yourself.
Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to keep Owen at arm’s length today. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have responsibilities himself. He was the best man, after all. With any luck he would be up in Luke’s room right now, standing him under the shower and making sure he was fully sober before Sabrina clapped eyes on him and called the whole thing off.
It wasn’t just the sex, although let’s face it, she was going to have her work cut out today trying to keep her mind wandering back to the deliciousness of it. Sex in her experience was not like that. In her experience it wasn’t something instinctive and adventurous. It wasn’t a laugh. It was more of an add-on. Once she’d been out with Luke for a couple of months it became something of a standard next step. In the same way she had supposed that moving in together might reasonably follow at some point. Perfectly enjoyable but not something that blew her away like this did.
She gave herself a mental shake and tried to squash sex from her mind in general. Not least because there was something so wrong about recalling sex with the bridegroom of today’s wedding. Eew.
It wasn’t just the sex. It was the way he’d held her, the easiness of talking to him and being with him, not just the physical side of it. When had she ever felt so comfortable, when had any guy listened to her and actually seemed interested in what she had to say?
And there was absolutely no point in this train of thought. Owen ran a chain of cocktail bars. Could there be a profession that lent itself more to casual relationships than that? Of course he was bloody good at them. He probably met different girls every night, a lot prettier and more engaging than she was. Flirting his way into a one night stand with her was probably all in a day’s work for him.
Best case scenario, which she absolutely was not going to let herself think about, meant assuming that Owen wasn’t upstairs right now deciding how best to backtrack out of what had happened between them. Assuming he really did like her beyond what had happened the night before, she knew exactly how this thing would proceed. She knew from experience. Her mother’s and her own. Things might tick along for a while, looking like they were all going well. There would be nothing discernible that was wrong with the relationship, but underneath it all there would be plenty. And if she let herself go down that path then at some point would come the moment at which a lens was put in front of the situation that suddenly made everything clear. All would not be hunky-dory. Something or someone would come along that was a better bet than Amy Wilson.
It always did.
Fortunately, because she had a handle on how life worked for Amy Wilson, she had the perfect action plan already in place. Hadn’t she spent the last couple of years operating very successfully on that premise? There was no room for emotion in the running of her life. Excluding emotion and using her mind without reference to her heart meant efficiency. It meant excluding poor judgement. It worked like a dream in her working life and it did a pretty damn good job in her private life too.
She stood near the entrance to the beautifully dressed dining room, with its perfect white table linen and silver cutlery. Ostensibly she was on hand in case the bride or groom should need to ask anything about the day ahead, but actually she was waiting on tenterhooks to see if Luke would drag himself down here, and if he did how hung over he might be.
The delicious smell of fresh coffee and smoked bacon drifted across the room. Classical music played in the background, something light and soothing to ease the guests into the day. None of it removed the feeling of nervous twirly butterflies in her stomach and as if that wasn’t enough to cope with, her heart launched into insane skittering as Owen appeared in the doorway. As she watched he paused to smooth a hand through his shower-damp hair and turned the movement into a nonchalant shrug as he noticed her eyes on him. He sauntered over to her.
‘Got back to your room without being sacked then?’ he drawled, a cheeky smile spreading across his handsome face that made a wave of heat curl through her stomach and end up somewhere near her toes. Her heart clattered against her ribcage and she clasped her hands together in front of her to stop them shaking. She widened incredulous eyes at him and glanced around to see if any of the dining room staff had heard.
‘Breakfast is a mixture of self-service and table service,’ she said loudly, tripping out the standard spiel. She waved a hand toward the breakfast buffet. ‘There’s a selection of cereal, yogurt and fresh fruit. Breakfast rolls and meats if you’d prefer something a little more continental. Or if you’d like a full cooked breakfast please just take a seat at one of the tables and one of the waitresses will be along shortly to take your order and organise coffee or tea.’
There was a long pause during which she waved a few more people past and tried to ignore the roll of his eyes.
‘There’s plenty of tables,’ she pointed out when he made no move.
‘You mean you really are just going to write last night off as if it never happened?’ he hissed in a stage whisper.
She nodded, smiling past him at a couple of guests as they entered the room.
‘Of course. What did you think I was going to do?’ The restaurant manager was looking at them with interest and she spoke through her beaming teeth. ‘If you could please try and be a bit discreet it would be helpful. Last night was just…one of those things.’
‘One of those things,’ he repeated.
‘No need to make it more than it was.�
�
She felt rather than saw an almost imperceptible stiffening of his shoulders. Then it disappeared as he leaned in towards her.
‘No problem,’ he said.
An ill-judged jolt of regret kicked her in the stomach as he simply turned and headed toward a vacant table and took a seat. She gritted her teeth firmly against it. There was no room for regret in this scenario, or any other feeling about the situation, not if she wanted to get this job. Tomorrow Owen Lloyd would be checking out of the hotel and getting back to his normal life. And she would still be Amy Wilson, who’d worked her butt off and waited in the wings for an opportunity this good ever since she’d left college. No way was she throwing this job away because of a stupid blip. No matter how deliriously gorgeous it might have been.
Still her traitorous eyes kept sliding across to Owen until the sound of loud voices in the lobby diverted her attention. Two minutes later and Luke sauntered into the dining room in a scruffy jeans-and-t-shirt combo. He drew to a halt in front of her and gave her a salute. For heaven’s sake, he still looked half-cut. Then again, it was hard to tell with his mussed-up appearance.
‘Feeling OK, are you?’ she said.
He gave her a wink.
‘Great thanks. Full steam ahead for the champagne breakfast.’
‘I’m surprised you feel like drinking ever again,’ she said.
He patted her shoulder as he passed.
Meet Me at the Honeymoon Suite Page 6
