That would explain when and how she’d slid off him into the cool embrace of the wall.
‘Bumped into duffel dude heading out before dawn. A friend of Poppy’s brother. I gather she wasn’t thrilled about him being here.’
So … this morning wasn’t surreal enough. Now her boss was filling her in on her own flat’s gossip. Her pulse started to panic.
‘Hold that thought,’ she said, holding up a hand.
The plethora of hanging things clattered against her door as she opened it and hurried into the bathroom.
Relief only took moments but Izzy hung out in there, standing on the toilet mat to stop her feet from chilling on the stone tile floor, gnawing on the inside of her cheek and desperately trying to pluck reality from this weird fantasy she’d found herself in.
What was the protocol here?
Should she ask him to leave? Should she ask him to stay? Should she invite him with her flatmates to breakfast later? All equally terrifying concepts. They’d had a fantastic night of what Tori would call ‘monkey sex’ and overall she was very pleased with her first crack at a one-night stand.
Possibly her last if this excruciating indecision was always waiting in the morning.
Why couldn’t he have just tiptoed out like the coward he probably was ?
Finger-combing her short hair and briefly checking her face for panda eyes, Izzy turned back for her bedroom and entered with the words already forming on her lips.
‘So—’
But she needn’t have bothered. Harry had re-donned his suit in the time she’d been hovering like a coward in the bathroom. He was just tucking his tie into his jacket pocket. As he did he pulled her ID card back out of it. And held it out.
‘So, see you Monday?’
She just blinked.
‘At the office?’
It hit her then. What he thought their single night had meant. How deluded he was. And how exceptionally arrogant.
She left his extended hand hanging. ‘I’m not coming back, Harry.’
‘Sure you are. We’ll get on fine now.’
Was he joking? ‘Now that we’ve broken the ice with the exchange of bodily fluids?’
Metaphorically. If not for the convenient condoms he’d produced.
He shrugged. ‘We know each other a bit more now. Have each other’s measure.’
Extremely intimate measure.
‘Are you suggesting that our bout of horizontal yoga has somehow increased your level of professional respect for me?’
The outstanding quality of last night’s activity really didn’t deserve her dismissive words. But Harry Mitchell sure did. He frowned. ‘Izzy—’
‘Miss Dean, to you, actually.’
Both his eyebrows shot up. ‘We have four orgasms between us. I think we’re a bit past Miss and Mister, don’t you?’
‘My friends call me Izzy.’
‘And what do your lovers call you?’
No. She wasn’t about to confess how little time she’d given to nurturing relationships with anyone. Let him think she did this all the time. Better than giving him any kind of hint that he might be special.
‘They don’t.’
‘I’m not surprised if this is how you handle the morning after.’
Yeah. She wasn’t dealing with this well at all. But the man was a boor when his mouth wasn’t occupied with kissing and related pleasures.
‘You know what? I think we should probably just call it a night.’
Or morning.
The dark brows sank back down again and then formed a deep frown. ‘I don’t understand what’s happened here. I thought you were cool with something casual.’
‘I’m not hoping for more!’ she shouted far louder than the early hour would recommend. ‘The fact that you think—in a million years—that sleeping with me was all that was required to fix the abysmal mess that is our workplace …’
Because that was exactly it. He believed she was the problem. He had no concept of his own flaws.
‘We talked,’ he said. ‘We got along.’
‘Hell freezes over infrequently. The chances of us getting along again are statistically smaller than before.’
Ah, numbers. The warm sanctuary of maths.
Harry slid the ID card back into his pocket. ‘You’re a strange one, Isadora Dean.’
She straightened until her spine almost cracked and curled her arms across her chest. ‘At least now I’m free to be as normal or as strange as I care. And you won’t need to trouble yourself with how I feel. Thanks for last night and all the best with your career.’
But he couldn’t let it go so easily. He moved towards the door and stopped, a bare inch from her, and breathed his parting words down onto her.
‘Just one correction, Izzy. I will always be troubled—intimately—by how you feel.’
‘He did not!’ Poppy’s forkful of scrambled eggs suspended just before it reached her gaping mouth.
‘I kid you not,’ Izzy said. ‘Those exact words.’
‘Oh, my God. What a fantastic line.’
‘Tori!’
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Tori placated. ‘I mean, bastard!’
‘Thank you.’
Around them, Ignite’s busiest time burbled on, people nicking in for takeaway coffee before their Saturday jobs, others settling in for a breakfast as leisurely as Izzy and her friends. It made a confidential conversation more challenging but the buzzing noise of customers, clanking crockery and the music pumping out of the café speakers afforded some level of privacy.
Izzy hastily brought them up to speed with the events of the previous night.
‘I have to say, Iz, given how thunderous your face was when I left the kitchen, this is not how I expected the rest of your evening to pan out.’
‘You and me both, Poppy.’
‘I can totally see it,’ Tori announced. ‘He was too cute. And that accent … sigh.’
‘If I didn’t know how
