wasn’t as if she’d been expecting him to take her out to dinner or a nightclub or anything. Perish the thought! She was perfectly fine about watching old movies on the large-screen television and ordering room service.
It had been very quiet next door, which was both a relief and a surprise. She’d expected to hear a boozy giggle or two as he brought a nameless girl back from a nightclub. She’d strained her ears for the sound of clinking glasses or the murmur of voices, but instead she had heard nothing, which just showed how incredibly soundproof the walls of Chatsfield Hotels were these days.
But when it got to ten the next morning and she still hadn’t heard a peep from next door or received a text from Lucca she started to wonder if he had stayed out all night. She paced the floor of the suite and fumed. How dare he leave her hanging? It would serve him right if he missed his important business meeting due to a massive hangover.
Lottie glanced out of the window and saw a cluster of paparazzi in front of the hotel. There was even a television crew. Her stomach knotted. She had pointedly ignored the newsfeed on her phone and the newspaper that had been delivered in the early hours of the morning and was still hanging in its silk bag on the doorknob outside the suite. She could just imagine what utter rubbish the press were peddling. Fashion Tragic Ice Princess Charlotte Spends Night with Dashing Hot Playboy Lucca Chatsfield in Secret Lust Fest.
She turned away from the window in disgust. She would be laughed at, pilloried as usual. Pitied for being the ugly sister. Cinderella without a handsome prince to take her to the ball.
No one would be running after her with a glass slipper in his hand.
No one would be running after her, period.
No one was even checking on her to see if she was fine about being left all alone for hours on end.
Lottie went over to the adjoining door, staring at the lock she had turned over the day before. She felt an inexplicable compulsion to open it. It was like an out of body experience as she watched her hand reach out and touch the old-fashioned brass key. The shock of cold metal against her fingers wasn’t enough to stop her turning the key with a click that sounded like a rifle shot.
The door was silent as she pushed it open. It didn’t even whisper over the carpet.
The bright morning light from her suite fanned across the room like the V-shaped beam of a searchlight and a muffled expletive sounded.
Lottie’s heart jumped as if it had been jerked by a tractor towrope but she didn’t back away or close the door. The suite was in total disarray. It looked like a tornado had been through it. Or a crazed burglar. There were balls of paper littered over the floor and the bed was a mangled mess of sheets and naked male limbs. No female ones that she could see. Thank God.
‘Get the freaking hell out.’ The words didn’t quite have the sting they should have had. Lucca’s voice sounded flat, listless, as if he didn’t have the energy to spit them out.
‘Are you all right?’
Another curse came out of the strangled sheets. ‘Peachy.’
Lottie pursed her mouth as she came farther into the suite. She stepped over a damp towel, her nose wrinkling in distaste as she caught the sour smell of vomit in the air. ‘Serves you right for going out all night drinking,’ she said. ‘Did you know that excessive amounts of alcohol can actually permanently damage your brain? The repeated bouts of dehydration causes the brain to shrink.’
He lifted his head out from under the pillow he’d been sheltering under and cranked open one bloodshot eye. ‘This is not a hangover. I’m sick.’
She folded her arms like a schoolteacher listening to a naughty pupil’s creative excuse for not completing homework. ‘Sure you are. Copious amounts of alcohol irritates the stomach lining causing acute nausea.’
His head flopped back down to the pillow. ‘Whatever …’
Lottie frowned. He looked dreadfully pale and he appeared to be shivering. She could see the shudders vibrating his body like the rigors of a bad fever. She approached the bed and touched the back of his shoulder. It was roasting hot and damp with beads of sweat. ‘You’ve got a temperature.’
‘You don’t say.’ Sarcasm should have sharpened his tone but it was still flat and toneless.
‘Maybe we should call a doctor.’
‘Maybe you should get the hell out of my room.’
‘There’s no need to be rude just because you’re not feeling well.’
He rolled onto his back, keeping his arm across his eyes as if to block the harsh sunlight. ‘Give me a break, princess. This is not my best look, okay? I just need a couple of hours to sleep this man flu off.’
‘What about your terribly important business appointment?’
He sat upright so quickly his face drained of what little colour remained. Lottie saw him sway as if his centre of balance was skewed. But then he threw back the sheet and stumbled towards the bathroom, banging his shoulder painfully against the doorjamb as he went. He didn’t have time to close the door to protect his privacy. He hunched over the nearest basin and was violently, wretchedly sick.
Every compassionate muscle of Lottie’s heart contracted. She joined him in the bathroom, grabbing a fresh hand towel from the rack and rinsed it under the tap before squeezing it out and handing it to him.
He pressed his face into it for a moment, his body still shaking with fever. ‘Go.’
‘I’m not going till I call a doctor.’
He dropped the towel in the vague direction of the bathtub. ‘I meant to my appointment. You’ll have to bid for me.’
Lottie scrunched up her forehead in confusion. ‘Bid for you?’
He gripped the edge of the basin for balance as he looked at her through wincing eyes. ‘I want to bid on a miniature painting. It’s never been auctioned before. It’s come from a private collection. The auction is at noon.’
‘But I’ve never been to an auction before. I wouldn’t know the first thing about—’
‘Please.’ His tone brooked no resistance. It was as if he had summoned the last remnants of his energy to convince her. ‘I want that painting. It’s the only one of its kind.’
She chewed at her lip. ‘Do you have a budget in mind?’
Lottie had never felt more pleased with herself. She had not only got out of the hotel undetected by the press—thanks to the aid of a senior staff member, Jean Rene, who set up a decoy—but she got to the auction, which was being held in a private villa and managed to outbid the highest offer. The exquisite painting was no bigger than a brooch and was of the mistress of a duke from the seventeenth century. Back and forth the bidding went until it was finally down to her and a man in his sixties who eventually caved in, shaking his head in defeat as the auctioneer brought the gavel down. ‘Sold to the young lady in pink at the back.’
Lottie got back to the hotel, again without detection, and dashed up to Lucca’s suite as if she were bringing the crown jewels. ‘I got it! I won the final bid. I—’ She stopped and looked at the sleeping form of Lucca
