Page 35 of Just a Taste
Hoxton nods, his expression unreadable as he rises from his seat. He reaches for the bowls, but I stick a hand out to stop him.
‘I’ve got it, don’t worry about it.’
He hesitates but then nods as he moves towards the door. ‘I fixed the heater in your room, by the way. Just needed a system reset.’
Relief floods through me and I manage a small, genuine smile in return. ‘Thank you.’
He gives me a half-shrug, as if to say, ‘it’s no big deal’, the same way I did with the dinner, and then disappears down into the hall, leaving me alone in the dimly lit living room.
I sit there for a while, enveloped in the silence that now seems suffocating without his presence. Only once I’m sure he’s upstairs and in his room do I let my head loll back against the headrest and allow a low groan to slip from my lips.
Why does it feel like we’ve taken one step forward today, and at least three back?
CHAPTER NINENoelle
I jolt awake, my teeth chattering in rhythm with the shiver that courses through my body. My toes are numb, my fingers are almost there, and my entire body has that weird stinging sensation you feel when you get too cold.
‘You’vegotto be kidding me,’ I whimper to myself as I sit upright and glare into the darkness around me. My room, once again, is an icebox. My teeth are quite literally chattering, and my breath is forming into tiny little puffs of mist in front of me with each frustrated exhale. With nothing to fight off the cold, my room has been turned into an arctic wasteland.
‘What happened to “I fixed the heater in your room”?’ I grumble as I pull my duvet tight around my shoulders like a makeshift cape. But it’s no use – the cold has seeped into my bones. ‘System reset,my ass.’
The quick fix Hoxton promised earlier echoes mockingly in my head as my toes grow numb with each passing second. I glance to my left where the thermostat sits on the wall. Its screen is flashing a bright, angry red and I resist the urge to smack it as hard as I can. No sense actually breaking the damn thing now, is there?
Another shiver racks through me and I let out an unholy groan before burying my face in the duvet. I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever been this cold before.
I can’t stay here like this.
The thought hits me like a truck because where else am I supposed to go? Besides, I know the moment I leave the bed, the cold will creep in fully, settling over me like an oppressive blanket. But the idea of staying here, shivering and helpless, isn’t much better. I close my eyes for a moment, taking a shaky breath, and force myself out of bed. The duvet slides off my shoulders a little, and I wince at the shock of air that hits the few pieces of exposed skin. My feet feel like they’ve been dipped in ice water as they touch the floor and I scramble towards the door, my mind racing with curses aimed at Hoxton.
He’s the one who assured me the heater was fixed. And yet, here I am, about to go full-on polar bear just to make it through the night. I can just picture him in his nice warm bedroom, sleeping without a care in the world while I freeze to death in here.
Maybe our conversation last night got to him more than Ithought, and this is just my punishment for daring to broach the topic of Christmas in his home.
Letting your personal chef freeze to death in your home simply because she asked about your Christmas plans definitely seems like overkill. Though I wouldn’t put it past Hoxton. Or maybe that’s just the brain freeze talking. Because this cold is most definitely affecting my brainpower right now.
I need to get out of this room.
I wrench the door open and peer out into the dark hall. As usual, all the other doors are closed and there’s no light to be seen under Hoxton’s office door whatsoever. Which means that he’s in his room, and I have no idea which one that might be.
Hoxton’s thinly veiled warning to not to go snooping around his home echoes in my mind; I have to admit, I’m intrigued. What is it he’s so desperate to hide? Is he just insanely private or does he have aFifty Shades-esque sex dungeon hidden behind one of these doors?
My curiosity is officially piqued.
I reach for the door directly opposite mine and step inside, bracing myself for the worst. But instead of blistering cold, I’m met with a strange stillness. The room isn’t freezing, but it’s not like I’m rushing to describe it aswarmeither. Still, definitely an improvement on my room.
I flick the nearest light switch and my eyes adjust quickly to the dim lighting as I glance around the room.
To my surprise, it’s a home gym, though not one I would’ve ever expected to find in a place like this. The floors are polished wood, gleaming faintly in the low light. Several sleek machines sit along the walls: ellipticals, a treadmill, and some free weights stacked neatly in one corner.
I step further in, my bare feet padding silently against the cool floor, relieved that at least the temperature here isn’t actively trying to kill me. The gym smells faintly of rubber and wood polish: clean, almost antiseptic, and eerily untouched. There’s a large mirror on one wall, stretching from floor to ceiling, and in its reflection, I see myself: dishevelled from sleep, braids gathering in a knot at my waist, wrapped in a duvet cape.
I turn toward the far corner of the room where a row of neatly stacked yoga mats rests against the wall. If worse comes to worst, I guess I could hole up in here for the night, stretched out on one of those mats.
Though I really hope it doesn’t get to that.
I glance around, wondering if there’s any hint of Hoxton’s personal touch here. Maybe a towel draped over one of the machines, a forgotten protein shake bottle… anything that might tell me he actually uses the place. But the room seems pristine, almost clinical. Not a single speck of dust, and certainly no trace of Hoxton’s presence. Which is ridiculous, because the man can’t look the way he does andnotregularly work out. Can he?
I run a hand over the smooth surface of one of the weight machines, a heavy piece of equipment made of polished steel and leather. For a moment, the soft click of metal echoes through the room as I shift it, and I pull my hand back, startled by the sound.
