“Exactly. Goodbye, Donovan. I hope I don’t see you again for a very long time.”
She didn’t wait for his reply. Cracking the door, she peeked into the hall and found it empty. With at least a hundred of last night’s guests having taken advantage of the location to enjoy Connor and Vivi’s open bar, she just needed her luck to hold for a few minutes. The quick dash to the stairwell was no problem, and her stiletto heels clacked on the stairs as she moved as fast as possible in the tight skirt. At the door to the sixth floor she paused, took out her room key, and took a deep breath. Another peek showed two people in the hall, but neither of them looked familiar. Just to be safe, she waited until they were at the elevators before making the last break for her door.
Only to find that her stupid key didn’t work.
* * *
Donovan was relieved Lorelei had left in a huff. He’d been awake for about fifteen minutes before her, and he’d spent that time anticipating a number of equally horrific and awkward scenarios.
But Lorelei had gone straight to indignation and huff—which, in this case, had been more than he’d dared hope for.
Of all the women who’d attended what was arguably the biggest society wedding of the decade, he’d managed to hook up with Lorelei LaBlanc. He’d known both Connor and Vivi at least tangentially since high school and, while they might not be close friends or anything, they were business associates and often traveled in the same social circles now.
He might be considered an interloper by some in those social circles, since his blood wasn’t quite as blue as theirs, but no one had the courage to say that to his face anymore. And, while he might not have generations of Old South manners ingrained into him, even he knew it was bad form to bed the sister of the bride after the reception.
Yeah, pretending it had never happened was an excellent idea.
Another excellent idea was liberal quantities of aspirin and coffee until he felt human again. That might take days.
The little two-cup coffeemaker on the desk didn’t have the best quality coffee included, but it would do for now. He set it to start and the smell of coffee soon filled the room.
The jackhammering behind his eyes had been honestly earned. He’d lost count of the tequila shots, but there might have been a bet involved about who could drink who under the table. He and Lorelei had never been friends, never hung out together, so how they’d got to that point last night was a mystery.
Lorelei had been a couple of years or so behind him in school—and they certainly hadn’t traveled in the same circles in those days. St. Katharine’s Prep was the school of choice for New Orleans’s best families. A safe haven for their precious children from the riff-raff of society, with only a couple of charity-case scholarship students as a nod to “diversity.” The Lorelei he remembered had been spoiled, narcissistic and stuck up. Even when he’d morphed from one of those scholarship students to the son of a major donor by his senior year, Lorelei hadn’t deigned to give him the time of day.
Oddly, he respected her for that. She might be shallow, but she’d proved herself to have slightly more depth than most of her socialite friends when the sudden influx of money into his family’s bank account hadn’t changed her attitude toward him at all.
Tequila had, though.
He had a few hours before checkout, and the need for a nap was nearly overwhelming, but if he headed on home he could nap in his own bed—a bed that did not now carry the scent of Lorelei’s perfume. He might not remember exactly everything that happened last night, but he remembered enough that the light fragrance sent a stab of pure desire through him and made the scratch marks on his back burn. Lorelei certainly had stamina.
He turned on the TV for background noise and picked a news station to listen to while he waited on the coffee. He still had to decide on a topic for Monday’s column, and...
The phone rang. Not his phone, but the hotel’s phone. Who would be calling him here? “Hello?”
“Open your door and let me back in.” The voice was quiet, whispery.
“Who is this?”
“Oh, for the love of... How many other women would need to get back into your room this morning?”
“Why aren’t you in your own room?”
“Because my key won’t work.” It sounded as if
Lorelei was spitting the words through clenched teeth. “I’m now stuck in the stairwell, so will you please open your door and let me in?”
The image of Lorelei hiding in a stairwell caused him to laugh—which then made his head hurt. He heard her sharp intake of breath, followed by some muttering that probably wasn’t very flattering to him. It was tempting to leave her there, just for the amusement factor and a much-needed ego-check. But Connor and Vivi might not be happy to hear about that.
He relented. “Come on.”
He returned the phone to its cradle and crossed the room. Opening the door, he stuck his head out. A few doors down, he saw Lorelei’s dark head do the same. After seeing that the hallway was empty, she sprinted for his door, nearly mowing him down in her haste to get inside. “You could have just knocked, you know.”
Lorelei didn’t seem to appreciate that statement, shooting him the pissiest look he’d ever seen. “This is a nightmare.”
“Just go down to the front desk and they’ll recode your key.”
It seemed Lorelei had an even pissier look—and this one called him all kinds of names, as well. “I am trying to avoid seeing people.” She gestured to her dress. “It’s rather obvious that I didn’t spend the night in my own room, and I don’t want people wondering where I did spend it. Or who with.”
“Since when do you care?” Lorelei was a LaBlanc. One of the benefits of being a LaBlanc was complete certainty of your place in the food chain. Lorelei could do pretty much whatever she wanted with almost complete impunity. And she had.
“I care. Let’s just leave it at that. Just call Housekeeping and ask for towels or something. Whoever brings them will have a master key and can let me into my room.”
“That’s a lot of assumptions.”
“What?”
“I sincerely doubt that any hotel employee who wanted to keep their job would just let you in without a way to verify that you are the registered occupant of the room. And there’s no way to do that without going through the front desk.”
She looked as if she wanted to argue that point. Did the woman seriously not understand what she was asking?
Lorelei c
ursed an unladylike blue streak and flopped dramatically on the bed. Then she bounced right back up like the bed was on fire, cheeks flaming.
Honestly, he had to admit it was a good look for Lorelei. The pink tint offset her fair skin and dark hair and called attention to her high cheekbones. Of course he’d be hard-pressed to decide what wouldn’t be a good look for Lorelei. Even nursing what had to be a massive hangover, she could still stop traffic. There were shadows under those big blue eyes—eyes that were currently shooting daggers at him—but they only emphasized her ethereal, almost fragile-looking bone structure.
That same structure gave her a willowy look, all long and lean, that made her seem taller than she actually was, and the slightly wrinkled cocktail dress she’d worn to the reception last night only made her legs look longer. The memory of those legs wrapped around him...
Lorelei was stronger than she looked. The look of fragile elegance was misleading. There was nothing fragile about the personality behind those looks, and Lorelei was pacing now with anger and frustration.
“What the hell am I going to do?”
He sighed and reached for his phone. “Let me call Dave.”
“And this Dave can help how?”
“Dave is the head of security here. He’ll be able to sort this out. Discreetly, of course.”
That stopped her pacing. “You just happen to know the head of security for this hotel?”
“Yes.” He paused in scrolling for Dave’s number and looked up to see her staring at him suspiciously. “Is that a problem?”
“It just seems convenient.” She shrugged. “Considering.”
“Considering what?”
“Your job. Having an in with security here just seems... Well, convenient.”
The insult, while not unexpected considering the source, and certainly not the worst he’d heard, still rankled. His columns and commentary were syndicated in newspapers around the country, and he’d built his platform and audience the old-fashioned way. She might not like his style, but he’d earned his place in the national discourse. He didn’t need an “in” with anyone to get his leads—hell, these days he had people falling over themselves to provide all the information he needed and then some.