Chloe opened her bleary eyes to the golden glow of early-morning sunlight, and racked her brains, trying to remember the last thing that had happened.
Suddenly, she was fully awake, jerking upright.
Was Ethan… going to kiss me?
Wait, wasIgoing to kisshim?!
Chloe groaned and flopped back down onto the bed, pulling her pillow over her face so that she could yell into it in frustration.
What had she been thinking?! By his overly reticent standards, Ethan had practically been begging her to stay the night in his ridiculously extravagant four-poster bed, and what had she done?
She’d said that she wanted to go home to do some work stuff and then go to sleep. The hottest guy on the planet had smoldered sexily and basically laid himself out on a platter for her, and she’d said she wanted towork and sleep.
Ugggghhhhh.
It hadn’t been entirely untrue – shehadbeen exhausted, to the point where if she’d spent the night with him, she probably would’ve fallen asleep the moment her head hit the pillow andembarrassed herself even more than she actually had done in the real world.
And shedidstill have work to do before she opened the clinic, though admittedly most of it was non-essential and she only wanted to get it done now so that she wouldn’t have to worry about it later.
Ghost mysteries and hottie hunks who could turn into mythical creatures weredefinitelymore interesting.
And okay, Curtis had been there as well, which was certainly off-putting, but maybe he would’ve disappeared into the ether again, leaving her and Ethan to get down to business? Then again, maybe he would’ve just stuck around to watchAmerica’s Next Top Modeland be old-timey scandalized by all the flesh on display.
So maybe itwasfor the best that she hadn’t stayed the night… but she was still feeling an extremely deep-seated regret.
What if Ethan had had second thoughts? He’d been into her last night, she was sure of it, oralmostsure, anyway… but maybe he’d changed his mind, now that he’d had time to think.
She was pretty sure that she wasn’t his usual type, after all – she barely even owned a pair of shoes that weren’t sneakers, never mind thousand-dollar dresses. She didn’t think she could get all dolled up for a gala ball, or whatever rich people did in their spare time, and teeter about in heels, eating canapes and saying inane things about renovating her holiday home.
Then again, maybe she was being unfair to Ethan. Maybe his work life and romantic life didn’t overlap. Maybe he only dated underpaid employees of not-for-profit agencies, and she was making rude assumptions about the kind of women he liked.
Chloe pulled the pillow from over her face with a sigh. All of this what-iffing was accomplishing nothing except getting her riled up. She’d just have to talk to him like a regular human being, and see how he felt about her today.
She reached over for her phone, steeling herself to make the call.
Luckily, it seemed like he was already one step ahead, if the text message he’d sent was any indication.
Chloe,
I trust that you are well.
As you are no doubt aware, our mutual acquaintance requires our assistance with the complication that has arisen.
I suggest that we catch up atSylvie’s Sweets and Bakeryin Girdwood Springs at 10:00 a.m. today in order to further discuss this. I have included a link to the company website for your perusal. I would appreciate it if you would RSVP as soon as possible.
Kind regards,
Ethan.
Chloe snickered as she read the message, her mood brightening. Ethan really couldn’t let go of his stuffy corporate persona, could he? While she understood not wanting to say in writing that they were trying to help out a ghost, the rest of it really was just over the top.
Especially since he’d apparently sent the message at six a.m.! Being efficient was one thing, but this was just ridiculous.
On the other hand, at least he had actually texted her, rather than –ha– ghosting her, so that was something. Hopefully he still wanted to see her for her sake, not just to help Curtis.
She checked the time – 8:08. Plenty of time before she had to get ready.
She tapped back a quick message, deliberately being obnoxious with her spelling and capitalization just to rile him up a little.
