and he wants it to be held in a meeting room, rather than my office. Neutral territory, he said.’
Freya actually laughed.
‘Three months in a hotel...’ James shook his head. ‘The guy’s a well-dressed gypsy. I’ve asked him to come and get a security tag—can you please sort out his head shot?’
‘I shall,’ Freya said.
She’d sort it tomorrow.
All she wanted now was home.
SO DISTRACTED WAS Freya that she forgot she’d booked in for another night at the hotel until she was nearly home. Freya decided to check in on Cleo and then head back, grab her stuff and just come home and sleep away the shame.
She really wanted to curl up and pull the covers over her head and hibernate till the end of March when Zack would be gone but knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Freya parked and went up to her apartment, and as she opened the door she saw that her neighbour Red was just on his way out after feeding her little pug, Cleo.
‘Hi.’ Freya smiled.
‘How are you, Freya?’
‘I’m well! Thanks so much for this.’
‘No problem. Are you back for the night?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Freya said, deciding she might just crash at the hotel. ‘If I’m not here, can you let her out for me?’
‘Of course.’
She had great neighbours and favours were freely given and returned. Red told her that he’d watched a movie last night with Cleo and had had a couple of beers.
Freya thanked him again and kept her smile on and wide, and only when Red had gone did she sink down onto the sofa and let her smile fade. She rested her head in her hands and just sat with the panic that had been chasing her all day since she’d worked out who Zack was.
‘Oh, Cleo...’
She picked up her little, fat friend and told her all of it, well, not in specific detail, but that she’d lost her head last night to the most gorgeous of men on the promise they would never again meet.
‘And now I have to work alongside him for three months. I don’t know what to do.’
Cleo gave her no answers, just snuffled. The little pug was the absolute love of her life. James had bought her for Freya on her discharge from rehab and Freya had finally found a soul she could pour her heart out to.
‘How can I face him?’ she asked her fur baby.
Freya cuddled her for a good hour and then she carried her down for her little walk. Cleo was getting so tired and so old and Freya knew she wouldn’t have her for much longer. James, because he was concerned how Freya would cope when her beloved companion died, had suggested, under the guise that it might give Cleo a new lease of life, that Freya get a puppy.
‘I don’t want another dog,’ Freya said to Cleo as she popped her onto the sofa.
And not just because she could never love another dog as much as this one.
Freya wanted a baby. She was so over attempts at relationships and had no qualms about being a single mom.
She couldn’t do a worse job than her parents had, and they’d been together till Freya was thirteen.
As she drove back to the hotel, Freya felt drained and exhausted. She’d had basically no sleep all night and the most awkward, uncomfortable of days and, joy, she had to face him again tomorrow.
She stood in the elevator and tried not to think of what had taken place such a short while ago and then she wearily swiped open her hotel door.
And there, just sitting there, drink poured, tie loose and wearing a triumphant grin, waving an envelope, was Zack. He just watched Freya groan as she remembered the room card she’d left.
‘One night, no names?’ Zack checked, holding up the envelope.
And when you’ve been truly caught, all you can really do is admit it.
‘Two nights, then,’ Freya said. ‘I never said I didn’t enjoy it.’
‘Great, wasn’t it?’ Zack grinned. ‘Well, thank you for the test results. That was actually very good of you. So good of you that I’m here to service you. Get over here.’ He stamped the floor with his boot.
‘I thought we were never to discuss it again.’
‘At work it is never to be brought up,’ Zack said. ‘Out of work is a completely separate thing. So come here.’
Oh, now she understood better his stance on not answering questions.
‘I can’t,’ Freya said. ‘I’m so embarrassed.’
‘Don’t be.’ He grinned. ‘Come here.’
Freya made her way over and he pulled her onto his lap and she was just one burning blush but he was laughing.
‘I really don’t get involved with people I work with,’ Freya said. ‘Dating and—’
‘Guess what,’ Zack interrupted. ‘I don’t date.’
‘Never?’
‘Nope,’ Zack said. ‘So don’t worry about awkward stuff and holding hands and all that sort of thing. Poor us, just sex.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘Liar, liar...’ And her knickers were on fire because he slipped a hand up her dress.
‘And you don’t have to worry, no one will ever hear your secret from me.’
‘Secret?’ Freya frowned.
‘That the uptight Freya likes a bit of no-name spanky on the down-low.’
‘Zack,’ she said, ‘I didn’t know till last night that I liked that...’ She looked at him and could tell he didn’t believe her. ‘I’m not like that.’
‘Freya, you emailed me a couple of weeks ago and said you were very single and not to tell James.’
‘That was after a very difficult night being told by my soon-to-be-married and married friends that it would be my turn next. I’d had too much to drink and decided to live a little. Believe it or not, you’re the only person I’d been with for the whole of last year.’
‘Well, given we saw in the New Year downstairs, you had no one last year, Freya, so you have some catching up to do.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Freya said, yet she was fighting not to undo the buttons
