Chapter Ten
Saylor
Add my two noisy friends to the house and the mansion became crowded. Dani and Casey still had their original bookings at the hotel where we were all supposed to stay for my canceled wedding, but they weren’t due to check in for a couple of days. Their plan to stay with me until then had been fine, but now Hunter was added to the mix.
Hunter spent much of the day in a room set up as an office, working. Although we’d spent the night together in his bed, I told him that while the girls were here we were back to separate rooms. He readily agreed although I wanted him to protest.
I felt unsettled. Hunter and I had slipped into this thing we were doing so easily. We fit together with no abrasive edges in a way that felt just right, yet I was hiding it from my girlfriends. Part of me felt I needed time alone with Hunter when the other part felt as though we’d known each other forever.
Casey, Dani and I were sprawled across the large sectional sofas, drinking hot chocolate, when my phone pinged. I glanced at the screen, my blood chilling as I read the message.
“What’s wrong?” Dani asked.
“Rex. He says he’s given me enough time to ‘calm down’ and that he wants to see me. I feel sick. I thought he’d just go away.”
“Do you want to see him?”
“No. Hell no. I don’t want to see him again ever.” My fingers flew across the screen of my phone. “There. Fixed it. I’ve blocked him.”
Casey raised her mug to me. “Here’s to you, girlfriend, and that gorgeous new guy you’ve got hidden away here. We need to know what’s going on with you and Hunter. I mean, wow, he’s even more fuckable than he was two years ago.”
“Do you mind?” I said, my cheeks burning. “We’re not—”
“Puh-lease,” Dani said. “It’s blatantly obvious. Don’t even try to tell us you two aren’t making the beast with two backs in every room of this house.”
“We’re not—” I tried again, and again was interrupted.
“In that case, explain why there’s a pair of your pretty lace panties under a lounger in the loggia. Did you strip out there to get a snow-tan, or did you strip for your mountain man?”
“They were probably left by another guest.”
Casey shook her head. “Weak.”
I decided to give in early because the pair of them would continue chipping away at me until they got the answers they wanted.
“It’s just a fling, okay? Nothing more serious than a bit of rebound sex. As I said, I wanted to fuck Rex right out of my system, and Hunter showed up, so why not?” Dani shook her head at me, a strange look on her face, but I carried on. “He’s perfect. Hot looking, knows his way around a woman’s body, and best of all, he’ll return to London in a week or so—”
“I’m going skiing for the afternoon. If you have anything you want to do in town, I can drop you off and pick you up again around four-thirty.”
I jumped to my feet and faced Hunter. How long had he been standing there? What had he heard? His face was hard, his eyes freezing me out.
“We’re just going to hang out here,” I said.
He nodded and left the room.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“Not such a fling then,” Dani said.
I shook my head and followed Hunter through the house.
I found him in the kitchen, his face unreadable, arms folded across his chest as he leaned against the counter.
“I’m sorry, Hunter, what you overheard wasn’t what it sounded like.” The words tumbled out fast and made little sense, the tightness in my chest suggesting he most certainly was much more than a fling.
“So, what was it?”
The hint of British was back in his voice, but this time it wasn’t sexy, it was cold.