It was a shame that I was going to be stuffed in my room working for the whole trip here. With a sigh, I cracked open my laptop and looked at my email. Naturally, I had a dozen new messages and one personally sent to me from Mr. White.
* * *
To: Jules Adams
From: Adrian White
Subject: Before You Sleep
* * *
Miss Adams,
We’re leaving for the Coleton Enterprises conference first thing tomorrow morning. I’m giving a presentation at 11 A.M. Several very important board members and executives at Coleton will be watching. It’s critical that the presentation goes well.
I’ve attached a copy of the slides and resources I’ll be covering. There is a separate document explaining exactly when to transition slides and when to shut off the presentation. I expect you to memorize these like your life depends on it.
We’ll meet for breakfast in the morning, and I’ll make sure you’re prepared. I’ll provide you with the rest of your tasks for tomorrow.
See you then, Miss Adams.
* * *
Adrian White
* * *
I looked at what time it was. Nearly midnight. This asshole wanted me to study his presentation, memorize verbal cues for switching slides, and wake up “first thing in the morning”?
I rubbed my eyes. Maybe I just needed some coffee. I looked around the room but didn’t find a coffeemaker, so I opened a menu beside my bed and found a list of room service items. I called in for two large cups of coffee and got myself set up at the little desk in my room.
It wasn’t the first time I wondered if Mr. White was deliberately testing me. No sane man could honestly expect all the things he was asking of me. And yet I knew I could do it. Worse, some screwed up part of me reveled in the opportunity to prove I could do something he probably thought I couldn’t.
The coffee helped a little, and after two hours, I’d made myself a few notecards as cheat sheets so I’d know when to switch the slides. I’d also done my best to scan the contents of the presentation, even if I didn’t understand why I would need to know what he was talking about, I wanted to make sure I could’ve given the presentation myself if I had to.
When I drained the last of my coffee, I shivered and looked around for a jacket. My room had been gradually going from drafty to downright freezing. I threw on a coat, walked over to the heater, and tried to crank it up. It made a mechanical thumping noise, shook around a little, then whined and shut off.
“Come on,” I muttered, giving it a kick. Nothing happened.
It was a little past two in the morning and I didn’t know how early “first thing in the morning” was in Mr. White’s eyes. I was going to assume five, because you had to be insane to wake up any earlier than that.
I set my alarm, grimaced when I saw I had less than four hours to sleep before what was probably going to be a very long day, and got in bed. Even though I was dead tired, I couldn’t sleep. I was shivering, and it felt like my room was getting colder by the minute.
I eventually got up, dug through the bathroom, and found a hair dryer. I plugged it in beside my bed and started running it on its hottest setting. I blasted my feet, my neck, and my hands.
The heat felt so good that I slid off my pajamas and let it run against my bare skin, breathing out a sigh of relief as I felt the blood flow return to my body. Once I’d mostly warmed up, I wrapped the comforter around myself and tucked the hair dryer under the blankets with me, filling the whole space with deliciously warm air.
I figured it was probably a fire hazard to run a hair dryer for as long as I’d been, but I couldn’t bring myself to shut it off. I decided I’d just give it a couple more minutes, then I’d hopefully have enough warmth to get me through the night.
I yawned, rolled to the side, and fell straight to sleep.
12
Adrian
What the hell was that noise? I’d made sure Jules’ room was right beside mine, and for the past hour she’d been running some kind of machine in her room. It was directly on the other side of the wall from my bed, and I couldn’t sleep through the sound.
I got up and went to her door. I knocked a few times. “Jules. What the hell are you doing in there?” I demanded.
The sound kept going and she gave no response. This fucking woman. It was the second time in less than twenty-four hours I’d had to barge through a locked door to check on her. I took out the extra key they’d given me when I booked her room and unlocked her door.
A wave of freezing air blasted me as soon as I opened it. I frowned. It was way too fucking cold in here. She was going to get sick.
It took me a second to register what I was seeing. It looked like there was a blanket larva with a cord sticking out of it on her bed. It was a blanket-covered lump roughly the length of a small, sassy woman and some sort of loud machine was running inside the covers.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. I walked over and yanked the cord out of the wall.
The blankets stirred, then Jules’ head popped out. Her forehead was plastered with wet hair and sweat. “Uh,” she said, blinking through sleepiness. “I was going to turn that off in a sec.”
“Turn what off?” I asked, yanking the covers back. The moment I pulled the covers back, I knew I’d made a mistake. Jules was topless and wearing only a thin pair of white panties beneath the blankets. The only saving grace was that she had her arms crossed and her knees pulled up in a way that kept me from really seeing anything.
Somehow, in the course of three days, I’d seen my personal assistant in her bra and panties before the office party, with her bottoms down and her ass out on the airplane, and now topless and nearly nude in her bed. It felt like the universe itself was testing my self-control.
I jerked my head to the side. “Shit,” I said through clenched teeth.
I heard the blankets ruffling as she pulled them up to cover herself. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with you?” I countered. “I couldn’t sleep with that sound. I thought you were vacuuming or something.”
“Why would I be vacuuming a hotel room?”
“I don’t know? But you were sleeping with a running hair dryer under your blankets. Apparently I can’t assume you’re going to be doing something sane or logical.”
“My heater won’t turn on,” she said. “By the time I was done studying your stupid slides I didn’t have time to wait for someone to come try to repair it. I figured I’d just get through the next couple hours any way I could.”
“You’re lucky the bed didn’t catch fire,” I said, lifting up the hair dryer, which was extremely hot to the touch.
“What do you suggest I do, Mr. White?” she asked. God, she even looked incredible with her eyes puffy from sleep and her hair wild. She looked raw and unfiltered. Worse, I knew the only thing between her nearly nude body and my eyes was that comforter.
“You’ll sleep in my room. We don’t have time for this.” I started walking toward the door. “And put some clothes on. Bring your pillow and comforter, too.”