I’m looking for Isaac afterwards to congratulate him when I catch sight of Ben. Wide shoulders that pull at his shirt and his suit jacket hung lazily over his arm. I didn’t know he was here in Edinburgh. His name hadn’t been on the itinerary as being on duty, although he was always working.
We’re in the foyer to the hotel, two guards I recognize are at the doors, Ben is at the reception. I want to walk over to him, touch his arm, watch his face when he sees what I’m wearing, tell him about the emeralds and I’m about to, when a tall, model-proportioned woman walks up to him. She puts her hand on his back and presses down and then he envelopes her in an embrace that tells me this isn’t someone he’s met recently.
The man on reception hands him a key card and he passes it to her and they’re talking and laughing.
I hardly ever see him laugh in public.
Ben grasps the back of her arm and guides her towards a corridor that leads to the suites. I follow, aware that I’ll be followed too. Ben will know what I’ve seen.
I stop in a doorway when they pause. She uses the key card and he follows her into a room, his arm around her shoulder.
I can’t breathe any more.
* * *
My suite is four floors up and a key is needed for the lift. I’ve wrapped my arms around my body, needing to feel pressure, something other than feeling what I’ve just seen.
We never said we’d be faithful to each other.
We never said that we were doing anything other than fucking.
He told me that we couldn’t be anything more.
I punch the door to my suite when I arrive at it, and as if by magic, it opens and Franklyn is there. Luckily I’m a crap shot, else he’d have taken one in the face and I laugh hysterically.
“Get yourself inside.” He closes the door behind me and I see Isaac standing there, his shirt sleeves rolled up, displaying forearms speckled with dark hair.
“Blair…”
I don’t think. I don’t think I can anymore.
I just dash towards him, throw my arms around his shoulders and kiss him.
Chapter Fourteen
When I wake, my mother is there, folding clothes and tidying up. She’s never gotten used to having people wait on her and refuses to let people do something that she could. This seems to have included sending Franklyn out of the way.
“When did you get here?”
She sits next to me on the empty side of the bed.
“Half an hour ago. Franklyn called me.”
I roll my eyes.
“Coffee?”
“Just a time machine.”
She laughs. “At least you weren’t drunk and don’t have a hangover.” Her eyeball tracks what I’m wearing. “Is that Ben’s T-shirt?”
I nod. “A hangover would be great. Then I don’t have to remember anything.”
“You kissed Isaac Everleigh. He kissed you back and then pulled away. Apologised. Then left.”
“Franklyn told you the whole sorry tale.”
“Blair, I’m not sure you did anything wrong. You kissed a very handsome man. If I was your age and single, I dare say I’d have done more than kissed, just not in front of Franklyn.” She passes me a bottle of water.
