‘I wasn’t that tipsy … was I?’
He gave her a hardened look. ‘You were pretty smashed.’
Lottie screwed up her face for a moment. ‘I don’t remember much after that vodka chaser.’ She relaxed her features into a bright smile. ‘The nice man behind the bar—your friend—gave it to me on the house. Wasn’t that sweet of him?’
His expression still had that pained tinge to it. ‘I’d stay away from champagne cocktails and men you don’t know in future.’
‘How I am going to meet anyone new if I only associate with people I know?’
‘Not my problem.’ He strode to the connecting door. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’
‘So, what time do we leave?’
He turned back to look at her, his mouth pressed into a thin flat line. ‘We don’t.’
‘QUARANTINED?’ LOTTIE GASPED once Lucca had filled her in. ‘Does that mean we can’t leave our rooms?’
‘Apparently so.’ He scraped a hand through his hair, a habit he’d developed recently, she’d noticed. That and frowning so deeply his brows met in the middle. ‘They want to keep the virus—if that’s what it is—contained.’
‘Gosh, no wonder you looked so ghastly the other night,’ she said. ‘And here I was thinking it was self-inflicted.’
He gave her a levelling look. ‘I know I’ve got a reputation for hard partying but I never let myself get out of control. I know my limits and I stay within them, unlike someone I know who shall remain nameless.’
‘There’s no point going on and on about it,’ Lottie said with a cross look. ‘I didn’t know that third drink would go to my head like that. At least nothing bad happened. It could’ve been much worse. You could’ve taken photos of me while I was in my underwear….’ She narrowed her gaze at him. ‘You didn’t, did you?’
His eyebrows slammed together in affront. ‘What sort of cad do you think I am?’
She gave a huffy little shrug of her left shoulder. ‘Who knows what you might’ve got up to while I was out of it.’ She gave him a beady look and added, ‘You took my dress off.’
He did the hair-scrape thing again, and then added to it by dragging the same hand down his face, distorting his handsome features as he let out an exasperated-sounding breath. ‘You got the zip jammed. You came out of the bathroom with your dress stuck around your hips. I undid it for you and then you got into bed and went out like a light.’
Lottie tugged at her lip with her teeth. ‘I didn’t do or say anything embarrassing, did I?’
He cocked one eyebrow in a sardonic arc. ‘You mean the bit about wanting to show me how convincing you are at faking an orgasm?’
‘I did not say that!’
‘Sure you did.’
Lottie felt her blush go from her face to her scalp in a hot spreading prickle. ‘You’re making that up. You’re teasing me.’ You’d better be teasing me. The alternative is way too mortifying.
His dark eyes glinted with malicious enjoyment. ‘You also gave a very good impression of being madly in love with me.’
She let out a laugh but it didn’t quite make the grade. ‘Ha, ha. Very funny. As if I would ever fall in love with someone like you. No one would believe it for a second.’
‘Yeah? Well, guess what? The whole world thinks you’re in love with me.’
Lottie had forgotten about the rest of the world. Her world had shrunk to the four walls of the Chatsfield Monte Carlo that currently contained her and Lucca. A secret world where she saw facets to his personality no one else saw: his vulnerability when he was sick, his artistic talent, his kindness and concern, his protectiveness, his gallantry. ‘Maybe, but they think you’re in love with me right on back,’ she pointed out. ‘I’m the first woman you’ve spent more than one night with. So far we’ve spent three nights together. For a playboy that’s kind of like being married, isn’t it?’
He winced as she said the word. ‘Kindly refrain from using that word when in my presence. It makes me want to puke.’
Lottie furrowed her brow. ‘What have you got against marriage? I know your parents didn’t do such a good job of it, but lots of people manage to live happy and fulfilling lives together. Why not you?’
‘Not going to happen.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’d be bored out of my brain within a week of the ceremony,’ he said.
‘Not if you married the sort of woman you felt an intellectual equal with,’ she said. ‘It’s no wonder you’re bored with the ones you hang around now. They don’t know you. They just want to sleep with you for the bragging rights. It’s not about who you are as a person. For them it’s just sex with a filthy-rich guy who looks hot.’
‘Thanks for summing up my sex life so profoundly.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Lottie didn’t see Lucca for most of the day. He’d gone to his suite and presumably showered and shaved and did what men needed to do after spending a night in a chair watching a tipsy girl sleep it off.
But once it got after eight in the evening she began to feel increasingly restless. It didn’t seem fair that the world was reading about her smoking-hot fling with the world’s most notorious playboy when said playboy was deliberately avoiding her. She decided if they had to be holed up in the Chatsfield Monte Carlo together, then they ought to be … well, together, for some of the time at least.
She gave his door a sharp rap. ‘Lucca?’
‘Go away.’
She frowned at the wood panelling on the door. ‘Are you sick again?’
‘No.’ There was a brief pause where she thought she heard him mutter a curse. ‘I’m working.’
‘Drawing, you mean? Can I see? Please?’ She rattled the doorknob impatiently. ‘Let me see. Are you doing the one of me?’
The door opened so quickly Lottie almost fell through the doorway. Lucca towered over her with a brooding scowl on his face. ‘Can’t you take a hint?’
‘Well, pardon me for disturbing the muse or whatever you call it but I’m bored witless in here and I think you should do the honourable thing and entertain me for a bit since it’s your stupid hotel that’s locked down because of some ghastly little virus.’ Lottie knew she sounded a little petulant, even a little vacuous. Knew she was probably giving a very good impersonation of one of his bimbo bedmates, but the truth was she missed him.
She enjoyed his company. She found it stimulating, exciting. He didn’t bow and scrape to her because she was a princess like most men did. He teased her and made her laugh.
And he was so talented and so secretive about it. That intrigued her.
‘Can’t you watch a movie or something?’ he said. ‘Read a book? Listen to music? Phone a friend?’
She gave him an arch look. ‘I just did, but apparently he’s got more important things to do than spend time with me.’
His frown cut deeper into his forehead. ‘I’m no friend of yours.’
Lottie brushed past him before he could close the door again, her gaze going to the desk near the window where