The Morning After the Night Before

‘I gave it a shot,’ he breathed. ‘I need to get your keycard back, then.’

All warmth from their sparring drained from her eyes like the dregs from her glass. ‘Security can’t just disable it?’

‘They’re ten-quid access cards.’

She flushed and actually looked a little hurt that he didn’t even consider her worth ten pounds.

Really? That was her hot button—devaluing her? Handy to know.

‘Whatever. Follow me.’

The sudden distance she put between them was almost like a cool chill after the warmth of their heated discussion. Exactly when had it stopped being business and started being flirting? He took one final tug on his beer then left the three-quarters-full bottle on the kitchen bench and trailed her back out through the doors, being sure to appreciate the round sway of her arse.

Now that he could.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_3008bceb-88ed-56c5-b9fc-3e2c766755f2)

‘WATCH YOURSELF,’ IZZY murmured exactly as her ex-boss ducked sideways and down to avoid clipping his egotistically big head on the steel frame of the mezzanine stairs going up to the bedroom above them. Though a scar would probably only make him more handsome.

She shoved her shoulder against her door.

‘You’re kidding me,’ he said over the party music. ‘This is you?’

Spinning revealed him to be much closer than she’d expected. And it only served to remind her how tiny her new room really was. And how chaotic.

‘Much as I’d like to lock you in the store room as a hilarious prank and listen to you beating at the door while no one else could hear you, I do, in fact, need to sleep in here tonight. So I’ll just find my ID card and you can be on your way.’

‘What happened to the turret?’

Why did he look so concerned? ‘Poppy’s renting it to someone else.’

‘Your best friend evicted you?’

‘God, no. She’d never ask that. I swapped rooms. Economies of scale.’

‘Economical is right,’ he murmured. ‘I have a linen closet bigger than this.’

She smiled tightly. ‘Are you always so gracious?’

Colour streaked up his jaw and it confused her as much as a rare trace of humility in him always did. ‘I just … It doesn’t fit.’

‘Nothing fits, as you can see.’

He dragged his gaze the very short distance from the left of the room to the right, taking in her pathetic bed and her mounded-up belongings. ‘Is this because you quit the firm?’

Something about the size of him in her tiny room, the male scent swilling into every corner, the sexy accent and maybe the multiple champagnes in quick succession stole all but the most essential air from her lungs. But not so much that she couldn’t protest his monumental ego.

‘The world does not revolve around you, Harry Mitchell, surprising as that may be.’

‘So you chose to live like this because …?’

‘Because I’m careful with my money.’ Oh, such lies. ‘And because it’s easier for Poppy to rent the best room than this one.’

It had nothing at all to do with the fact that despite earning stupid money for the past few years she’d actually managed to put very little of it away for the rainy day that had now come. That she’d gone a bit spend-mad with the first real money she’d ever had at her disposal and then become ridiculously accustomed to it. Reliant on it. Which made the myriad belongings cluttered around them now very quality belongings … but still clutter.

And not the gently shambolic clutter of her parents’ meagre belongings. The clutter of someone with a life rapidly outgrowing her circumstances.

Much like her ambition.

She’d always had a disconnection between what she wanted and what life had given her. The only girl in her childhood estate with big-city ambitions.

Many people might call it denial.

Behind her, Harry leaned on the wall while she began the hunt for her work ID card. It wasn’t in the pile she’d hastily thrown together at her desk. No, that was because she’d been wearing it that day.

Her jacket … Where was Wednesday’s jacket?

She turned back for the door and paused in front of his inconvenient bulk.

‘Excuse me.’

Harry straightened and she squeezed past, the back of her calves pressing against her bed and her front brushing against the expensive fabric of his open coat. His lips twisted as he stretched taller to give her space and politely focused over her head on a point across the small room. Izzy rummaged around in the clothes hanging on the back of the door they’d just come through until she found the cropped jersey jacket she’d worn on Wednesday, and unclipped the security tag still pinned to its lapel.

‘There you go.’ She pressed it into his front as she squeezed past again.

His fingers automatically came up to catch it before she dropped it, but they snagged hers instead, pressing them into his not inconsiderable chest.

Izzy froze. Hard heat soaked through his cotton shirt and charred her skin.

‘Seriously,’ he urged as her eyes flashed up to him, his fingers still holding hers captive, ‘reconsider.’

His voice had dropped down somewhere much more gravelly and, down there, his accent did its best work.

‘Seriously,’ she mimicked. ‘I don’t go back on my decisions.’

‘Ever?’

‘Ever.’

‘Even the bad ones?’

‘Especially the bad ones. There’s no going back from those, only forwards.’ And she knew that from experience.

She glanced up into his fathomless eyes and heard her next words tumble from her lips. Surprised even herself with her candour. ‘That job was killing me. It was time. Regardless of everything else.’

‘You’ve only been in it for a couple of years.’

‘It’s not boredom. It’s—’ me! ‘—the work.’