Page 56 of Love Me Ever After
Once we were in my room, Whit threw herself on the bed. “God, I wish we’d been given the option to stay here tonight. This is soooo comfy!”
Laughing, I hung up her dress bag. “Why don’t you see if they have a free room?”
She glared at me. “Not at the prices I’d have to pay. You and the other candidates got accommodation paid for. I was told I had to stump up the dollars if I wanted to stay over. Plus I’m pretty sure Ems wouldn’t like it.”
Shit. Ems. I checked the time. It was coming up to six p.m. here, so would be close to eleven back home. I promised her I’d video call her each night and I doubted I’d be in any fit state to do it later. As we’d barely had any communication today, it made sense to try her now.
“Why don’t you get a shower and get ready? I need to call Ems.”
“Good idea. I want to look amazing if I’m going to flirt with that blond guy all night. What’s his name again? Patrick or something?” She hauled herself off the comforter, grabbed her stuff and went into the bathroom.
I tugged off my suit jacket and tie, undoing a few buttons on my shirt. Setting up my laptop on the dressing table, I logged in and found Ems’s details, then pressed call. Fingers crossed she was still up or at least awake enough for a chat.
I missed her.
It had only been a couple of days and the pull of home actually felt quite strong. Not being able to hugs Ems after my first day of interviews and have her tell me everything would be fine, coming back to the characterless hotel room that didn’t smell of Ems’s perfume and our somewhat chaotic shared house, being surrounded by colleagues who weren’t true friends—hell, I even missed Trevor.
Not for the first time, I thought I might be making a mistake coming here.
After a while, when I contemplated ending the call, Ems answered. She was on her phone and by the looks of it, was already in bed.
“Sorry, babe, did I wake you?”
Ems yawned and ran a hand through her hair. “No. I was out with Georgie and went straight to bed when I got back.”
“Rough day, huh?” I noticed her eyes were red-rimmed. “You look tired.”
“Thanks,” she snorted. “Good to know I can always rely on you for all the compliments.”
“If it’s any compensation, I think jet lag is starting to catch up with me. I feel like shit.” I rested my chin on my palm, propping it up with my elbow, omitting to tell her about my late night drinking shots.
Ems bit her bottom lip and glanced down, avoiding my gaze.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“There is something I need to talk to you about…”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Mason, is there another towel I can use to finish drying my hair?” Behind me, Whit came out of the bathroom dressed only in a black bra and matching thong. I could see her image reflected in the picture on the screen.
“What the fuck isshedoing there?” hissed Ems. “And why is she only in her knickers?”
I could see how bad this looked. If it had been the other way around and I’d seen a guy in his boxers parading around Ems’s hotel room, I would have gone bat shit crazy.
Turning around to Whit, I pointed to the closet where I’d seen extra towels and frantically waved at her to get back in the bathroom, or at least out of shot.
“Well?” Even though her end was dimly lit, I didn’t miss the anger on Ems’s face.
“We’re going out to dinner tonight. It’s a group thing, me, some of the Lane & Parks people and the other candidates. Whit came here to get changed because it saved her going home first.” It sounded perfectly innocent to me, but understandably Ems thought otherwise.
“How handy of you to come to her rescue. And is she staying with you afterwards because it’s closer to the office in the morning?”
“Ems, no. You know there’s nothing between Whit and me. There never was. You can ask her yourself if you want.”
A sarcastic sounding laugh came over the line. “Yeah, why don’t I do that? Get Whit to sit on your lap in her underwear and tell me there’snothinggoing on between the two of you? Fuck’s sake, Mason, do you think I’m stupid?”
I took a deep breath. Ems had never really been the jealous type, in spite of her green-eyed reaction to Whit when I’d video called her the other week. To an outsider, Whit and me in a hotel room might have looked dodgy, but we knew the truth.
