It didn’t help. By late afternoon, she knew she needed to pull out the big guns. She changed into workout gear and hit the hotel gym, running ten kilometres before coming upstairs to shower.
She was cooling her heels in the most frustrating of ways.
As the sun began to dip in the sky, she made a cup of tea and settled herself on the sofa, intending to read a few chapters of her book. Without realising it, her eyes became heavy and then she was asleep, completely exhausted, so the sleep overtook her entire body, making her limbs heavy and her breathing soft.
She slept until a hand on her shoulder roused her.
‘Oh.’ She felt groggy. ‘What time is it?’
‘Seven.’
‘I fell asleep.’
His smile was reflexive. ‘Apparently.’ He ran a hand over her hair almost as though he couldn’t help himself and then dropped it to his side. ‘You were tired.’
‘Understatement.’
‘And now? Are you hungry?’
She blinked, pushing away the last few threads of sleep, and nodded once more. ‘Starving. I don’t think I’ve eaten today.’
Something like derision briefly flared in his features, then he was reaching for her hands, pulling her up to standing. ‘Then let’s remedy that.’
He took a step back, loosening the top button on his shirt to reveal the thick column of his throat. It was stupid—just a part of his body, a part of the body that everyone had, and yet the sight of his tanned expanse of flesh, the hint of hair she could see at the vee of his shirt, made her mouth go dry.
‘Shall we go out? Or eat in?’
‘Eat in,’ she said quickly without a moment’s thought, and then, embarrassed, hastened to add, ‘I can’t be bothered doing all the stuff.’ She gestured towards her face.
‘Stuff?’ He was already moving across the hotel to the phone in the kitchen.
‘You know—make-up, hair.’ She scrunched her nose up and his gaze lingered on her face a few seconds too long before he spoke into the phone in fluent French. Jemima had a passable knowledge of the language, but she couldn’t keep up with his rapid-fire dialogue.
He covered the receiver. ‘Anything you don’t eat?’
She shook her head.
He delivered a few more commands then placed the phone in the cradle.
‘So why bother?’
She blinked, not understanding.
‘With all the “stuff”.’ He mimicked her gesture, waving his hand over his face.
‘Oh.’ She moved towards the kitchen on autopilot—more specifically, towards him. A smile hinted at her lips, except it wasn’t really funny. ‘Have you ever read those blogs or magazines? You know the ones: “stars without make-up”?’
He lifted a brow. ‘What do you think?’
It was so ludicrous to imagine him scouring gossip websites or flicking through a glossy that she laughed.
‘Is there really such a thing?’ he prompted a moment later, reaching into the fridge and pulling out a bottle of wine. He poured two glasses then slid one across to her.
‘Oh, yeah, it’s a huge thing. I guess it’s reassuring to know that even celebrities can look like crap without all the effort.’
His scepticism was apparent.
‘Hey.’ She lifted the wine glass to her lips. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t start the idea. I’ve just been the focus of more than my fair share of articles.’