Paige drifted awake to a faint, delicious aroma, an even more delicious feeling of satisfied languor, and a vague sense of something missing.
She rolled, reaching out. “Conleth?”
Her searching hand encountered nothing but rumpled sheets. She propped herself up on one elbow, blinking sleep out of her eyes.
From the golden light slanting through the window blinds, she’d slept well into the morning. There was no sign of Conleth, but an insulated French press now sat on the bedside table, next to a coffee mug, a plate covered with a linen napkin, and a note:
I’m in the office downstairs. If you need anything, just call.
It wasn’t signed, but there was no mistaking Conleth’s meticulous handwriting. Peeking underneath the napkin, she discovered two perfect, freshly baked croissants, along with butter and a tiny pot of strawberry jam.
The coffee in the French press was still warm, and infinitely superior to anything she’d had at camp. Or anywhere. When she tried a bite of croissant, that was perfect too; layers of buttery, flaky pastry that practically melted on her tongue.
She was halfway through the second croissant before it occurred to her that even Conleth couldn’t have made a quick trip to France to fetch breakfast before she woke up. Maybe he just kept a stock of store-bought pastries ready in his freezer, but that didn’t seem quite his style.
Huh. Guess he really can make French pastries from scratch.
Licking the last flaky crumbs from her fingers, she went in search of the bathroom. The first door she tried led to an enormous walk-in closet, mostly filled with dozens of identical suits and immaculately pressed shirts. The second led to…well, she assumed it had to be the ensuite, but only because it seemed unlikely Conleth would be running a luxury spa in his own home.
“Okay,” she said, surveying a shower with six different angled heads and a gleaming touch panel offering options likeTropical RainorOcean Mist.“I could get used to this.”
Some experimentation produced hot, pulsing jets of water that massaged her body from every angle. She gave up trying to decipher Conleth’s shampoo bottles—apparently whatever he did to his hair involved six different steps, and possibly a chemistry degree—and settled for washing herself from top to toe with foaming shower gel that turned into a rich, creamy lather in her palm and was no doubt ruinously expensive. She couldn’t identify the subtle fragrance it left on her skin, but it reminded her of Conleth himself—complex, sophisticated, with an unexpected note of sweetness.
I coulddefinitelyget used to this.
A stack of fresh towels waited on a heated rack. Wrapping herself in one—it was big enough to cover her from shoulder to ankle, and soft as spun clouds—she padded back into the bedroom. She’d expected to have to hunt for her clothes, but she found them neatly folded on a leather armchair in the corner. And not just folded, as she discovered when she dressed. Each item was freshly laundered, so spotlessly clean they looked like new. He’d even ironed her camp t-shirt.
What time did he getup?
Even for a self-professed insomniac with speed powers and ADHD, this was starting to seem a little over the top. Especially when she made her way downstairs and confirmed that yes, he really had made breakfast from scratch, judging from the mixing bowls and flour-dusted rolling pin next to the kitchen sink.
“Conleth?” she called hesitantly.
“Through here.”
She followed the sound of his voice down a corridor that led to an open door. When she slipped inside, she couldn’t help a startled intake of breath.
“Yes, I know,” Conleth said, not looking around. He had his back to her, attention fixed on three large computer monitors arrayed in an arc on his desk. “Sorry. Try not to knock anything over.”
That was easier said than done. In stark contrast to the rest of the house, the office was—and there was no polite way to put it—an absolutedisaster.Every shelf and surface overflowed with a jumble of books, files, and notes, apparently in no order whatsoever. There were even piles of paper scattered across the floor. The overall effect was of stepping into a nest made by a very literate hamster.
She picked her way cautiously across the room, having to hop in a few places. “What happened here?”
“Me.” Conleth’s fingers danced across his keyboard. “It always looks like this, I’m afraid. I have a cleaning service that keeps the rest of the house in order, but they don’t touch this room. I can’t have people interfering with my system.”
She eyed the chaos dubiously. “There’s a system?”
“Yes,” Conleth said, tone dry. “It’s a complex organizational scheme of my own devising. I call it ‘keep everything out in the open so I don’t forget it exists the moment it’s out of sight.’ It’s an ADHD thing.”
She was starting to get some inkling of how much that affected his life. “Your office at camp doesn’t look like this.”
“That’s because I have to share it with Zephyr. I’ve tried to explain the clear merits of my method, but he remains somewhat unconvinced.” Conleth shrugged, still typing. “Plus, of course, it tends to alarm parents if the camp office looks like the secret lair of a serial killer with a fetish for Post-It notes.”
The sides of his monitorswerefestooned with dozens of sticky notes, overlapping in a riot of colors. She leaned against the back of his chair, trying to decipher the jumble of windows filling his screens. He seemed to be looking at…recruitment websites?
“You were up early,” she said. “What are you working on?”
“Potential candidates.” He added a row to his spreadsheet, rapidly entering a name and contact details, along with a cryptic stream of abbreviated notes. “For camp manager.”
