“Mmm?”
“You’re not going anywhere, are you?”
He put a hand on her leg, feeling her warmth and taking strength from the contact.
“I’ll be here all night.”
And he was. He didn’t sleep. He couldn’t. He sat at the foot of the bed, reading a newspaper and watching her breathing. He would be furious with her the next day, but in that moment, he needed simply to be sure she hadn’t drunk herself into a coma.
She hadn’t.
The sun rose over London, and Olivia rose with it. More or less.
“Oh, crap,” she mumbled, putting a hand to her head and squinting her eyes. “Where am I?” Her eyes rotated lower, until they reached Tamir. She sat bolt upright, and stared around the familiar room. “What am I doing here?”
He set aside his paper. “You don’t remember?”
She closed her eyes, and held a hand to her head. “I drank too much.”
“Yes.” Tamir stood and grabbed another water bottle. He passed it to her. “We can deal with that another time.”
She glared at him with impressing animosity, given that she felt like her head was about roll away from her shoulders. “It’s not your problem to deal with.”
“Guess again,” he muttered, moving across the bed to put a hand on her forehead. “How do you feel?”
She pulled away from him sharply, so fast that her eyes burned. “How do you think I feel?”
“You were in quite a state.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Why?” He narrowed his eyes. “What would have happened if I hadn’t arrived?”
She scowled at him. “Nothing. I would have gone to bed. Alone.”
“I don’t think Jack was on the same page as you.”
She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. “You don’t know Jack.”
He shook his head. “What I do know about him, I do not like.”
“Then it’s just as well he’s my friend, not yours.”
Tamir shook his head and reached for the phone. “You can be very stubborn sometimes,” he told her quietly, before turning his attention to the receiver. He spoke into it succinctly, then replaced it.
“Why am I here?” She whispered, dropping her gaze to the crisp white bedlinen. “Why are you here?”
“You are here because you drank your bodyweight in alcohol and could barely stand up. You are here because you apparently cannot look after yourself. You are here because I could not leave you in your own apartment with a man who is far from trustworthy.”
She looked away from him. “I had a few drinks with a friend. I did what most people my age are doing every Friday night, okay?”
“No. It is not okay. You are not most people. You are… mine.”
She glared at him despite the raging headache that was brewing. “I am not ‘yours’, Tamir. You have to disabuse yourself of this ridiculous notion that you can own and control another human.”
“I don’t want to own or control you,” he said quietly. A knock sounded at the door. “Come,” Tamir answered, without looking away from Olivia. A servant bustled in with a plate of fruit, breads and two black coffees. Tamir took the tray and dismissed the servant.
“Eat something,” he ordered quietly, placing the tray down beside Olivia.