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Christ, I need some sleep.

“No, sir. Alice made sure to be discreet,” Mateo assures me.

“Thank you.” I nod.

“Are you heading home, sir?” he asks. “Shall I have your car brought round?”

“No need. I can get it.” I park in the tiny staff car park beneath the hotel. “Actually,” I say, looking over at the grand piano sitting silently in the center of the lobby. “I think I’m going to play a little before I go.”

“Of course.” Mateo nods, unperturbed. He’s more than used to my ways. “Have a good night, sir.”

“You, too.”

I give him a nod and head over to the black lacquered piano. It’s a Steinway Model D Concert Grand, the lid propped up over its elegant curves, revealing clean, taut strings and wool covered hammers. Pulling out the stool, I take a seat, then roll my wrists and my fingers, waking up the tendons.

I run my fingers over the smooth ivory, then lower my head. Playing the piano has always been my therapy. Since I first started hammering my fists on the badly tuned upright my parent’s housekeeper had in her little cottage, I fell in love with the way I could express myself with notes.

Once upon a time I thought music would be my career. But that was before my grandfather died and it turned out that neither my father nor Alex had a business brain in their head.

With my eyes still closed, I begin with a single line of Tchaikovsky’s “Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor”. The piece starts slow, my fingers moving across the keys without having to think consciously of their placement, the melancholy rhythm speeding up, matching the thud of my heart as I lose myself in the music, as everything else drifts away.

It's not a showy tune. It doesn’t attract audiences the way our matinee player does, which is perfect. I want it to be just me and the music.

And nothing else.

Which is why it takes me so long to notice somebody watching me from the other side of the piano. Her pale blonde hair is loose and tumbling over her shoulders and one side of her face is pink and creased, like she’s just woken up from sleeping on wrinkled sheets. She’s wearing a pair of cream cashmere lounge pants and a matching sweater that clings to every curve.

She looks warm. Soft. Crumpled.

I start to play harder. Because God knows, I shouldn’t desire anybody. Relationships always come at a cost and that’s a price I’m no longer willing to pay.

Not even for someone who looks as strikingly beautiful as Georgia Ingram.

4

GEORGIA

“Hi,” I say to the operator, my voice still thick with sleep. “Is there anywhere I can get something to eat?” I roll my shoulders and neck, trying to get the kinks out of my muscles. The combination of an overnight flight and daytime sleeping has my whole body out of whack.

“We offer twenty-four hour room service, Miss Ingram,” the operator says. “You can place your order with me.”

“Oh no, I need to get out of my room.” I give a little laugh. I can’t believe I’ve been in here all day. Mostly asleep, too.

I thought I’d experienced jetlag before, but it was never like this. The kind of exhaustion that makes every muscle in your body ache, and every time you wake up, determined to finally stay awake, your eyes close by themselves and you’re fast asleep again before you can even fight it.

And of course, now that it’s night time, I’m wide awake. And starving. Which fits, because it’s seven in the evening in New York, and I haven’t had anything to eat since the room service breakfast I ordered this morning.

“The hotel bar is still serving snacks,” the operator tells me. “Or I can make you a reservation at our restaurant?”

I look down at my outfit, a pale cream cashmere lounge set that Jennifer gave me for my birthday because ‘it has Cameron Diaz in The Holiday vibes.’ I haven’t even styled my hair after my shower. I’m definitely not restaurant-ready.

“Is there a dress code for the bar?” I ask, hoping to God it’s ‘Cameron-if-she-didn’t-have-a-personal-stylist-but-did-have-actual-hips’ kind of code.

“No, we don’t have a dress code for guests. We like you to be relaxed,” she tells me.

Okay then, relaxed it is.

Ten minutes later I’m stepping out of the elevator, my body still warm from the lovely radiators in my tastefully decorated, but also tiny, bedroom, my stomach rumbling loudly at the thought of some food at last.