“This is beautiful,” I said.
Carter nodded in agreement. He passed over the basket of muffins and croissants that he had brought over, and I retrieved a piece of each.
“Thank you.’ I said, and we began eating quietly.
I kept my gaze on the town that looked so alive. In the distance, I could see people kayaking, and it made me want to ask him about his hobbies but I wanted to keep it simple. In a few minutes we would most probably be gone from each other’s lives… permanently.
I completely avoided his eyes, even though I could feel them on me, searing my skin but I didn’t know how to face him.
Then he spoke, “Were you really going to leave?” he asked. “Without a word?” His arresting green eyes, completely unreadable, focused on me.
My hands trembled as they lifted a napkin to my lips, and tried to mask my nerves with a smile as I spat out the first lie that came to mind, “I um… had a thing that my friends and I had planned to do today. Early.” My head and voice lowered as I stabbed a piece of scrambled egg. “I didn’t want to miss it.”
He didn’t respond to the blatant lie, and it made the meal all the more excruciating to sit through.
Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. Never had inhaling and exhaling just to keep myself alive been more of an ordeal. I patted my lips with the napkin and drained my glass of juice. “Thank you,” I said to him,” for breakfast.”
Silent, he watched me as he chewed slowly.
I couldn’t help but notice the change in him. Now, in the light of day, he was contained and fully in control, the flirty, bubbly man I had spent the night with completely replaced. He intimidated me to my very bones. I pushed my chair backwards.
Just before I could rise he said, “Have dinner with me tonight.”
My brain scrambled to a halt. All I could do was stare at him, absolutely nothing coming to mind to say in response.
“Will you have the time?” He asked.
I settled back into the chair and took a deep breath. “Carter… I don’t—this isn’t usually how this goes right?”
He leaned back into his chair and folded his toned arms across his chest. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” I replied, well aware that he wanted me to spell it out. I did. “We had fun last night. Aren’t we meant to part ways today? Take it solely as the delightful experience that it was?”
His response was simple., “I’m not ready to part ways with you just yet. Are you? Ready to part ways with me?”
My lips parted to speak, but then they trembled with indecision and shut closed again. I honestly didn’t know how to respond to that, so I ignored the question. “I’ll have dinner with you.”
He slid his phone on the table over to me. I picked it up and inputted my number.
“I’ll call you,” he said. “Is 7 pm all right?”
“It is,” I replied.
He rose to his feet.
I did the same, and went into the room to search for my purse. I slung it over my shoulder.
He walked me to the door to pull it open for me. Before I could leave however, he said, “There’s a car waiting downstairs to drive you back to your hotel.”
“Oh no, that’s all right. I’ll just get a cab.”
“I insist,” he said. “He’s a personal driver assigned to me for the duration of my stay here. See you tonight.”
I thought he would give me a kiss, but he didn’t, so I stepped out of the room and went on my way. I didn’t look back until I heard the door close behind me.
At the entrance to the hotel, I looked around to see if I could spot the driver, and almost immediately, a black town car pulled up.
The driver got out, a heavyset Turkish man with a thick mustache, dressed in a dark suit. “Miss Peters?” he called.
“Yes, I’m Leah Peters.”
He hurried over to the back door to pull it open for me. “I’ve been asked to take you back to your hotel. Where is that?”
“The Sunprime, C-lounge. Thank you.” I got into the sleek vehicle, and was returned safely back.
I walked into our room to meet Anne mid-sprint.
I quickly moved out of her way as she dashed for the bathroom, and was about to ask what was going on when I heard the spew from her guts.
I sucked in my breath. “Yikes,” I said and turned to Tracy.
Sitting upright in bed, she was flipping through a Kristin Hannah novel. “You don’t know the half of it. That’s been going on all morning. And it’s almost noon, where the hell have you been? We missed out on our space on the pier, and we’re meant to go out this afternoon.”
I ignored her and walked into the bathroom to meet Anne, still bent over the toilet bowl.
I bent down, brushing away the tendrils of hair that had escaped from her bun. “Sweetie,” I called.
She lifted her head to stare up at me. She looked like she was in abject misery, her eyes bloodshot, and her gaze hazy from all the pain and discomfort of the hangover. “I’m dying,” she lamented.
I threw my purse aside, and grabbed under her arms to lift her up. “No, you’re not. You’re going to be fine.”
“I haven’t been this hungover since college. Fuck.”
“You’ll be fine,” I consoled, and led her to the sink so she could rinse her mouth. Afterwards, I led her back to our bed, and tucked her in.
“Take some Aspirin,” Tracy called out. “Or better yet, let’s go get some soup. They should have one spicy enough with some vegetables that will be able to soothe you.”
“I’m not going near food,” she growled.
I took my seat on the fluffy bed.
“She’s
