She swept her legs off the bed, relishing the sensation of her bare feet sinking into the plush pile of the carpet. A far cry from the polished wooden floors in her small apartment, and yet another example of the differences in their lives. Blair rose from the bed, acknowledging the minor aches in her muscles. Aches which sent a flush of desire across her body as she remembered how she’d earned them.
She looked around the room for her clothing, scowling silently as she remembered that Draco had undressed her in the bathroom and she’d left her pack in there. Would she be able to slip inside and gather her things without him noticing? She doubted it. So, what did that leave? Going home wrapped in a sheet? Hardly likely, although a sense of urgency gripped her. How much longer would Draco be in the bathroom, she wondered?
She darted across the room and listened at the door, the sound of water cascading in the shower reassuring her for a moment.
There was nothing else to do but borrow something of his, she decided. She could always courier it back to him, if he even noticed it missing. She quickly rummaged through the dark cherrywood tallboy, grabbing a T-shirt and a pair of lightweight drawstring track pants. Draco was taller than she, but not by so much that the track pants would drag on the ground. She swiftly pulled the clothes on, regretting for a moment that she hadn’t had a chance to grab her shoes. Okay, she acknowledged, there might not be much between them in height but there certainly was in body size. Draco’s shirt hung on her like a rag, and the pants would trip her in a minute, no matter how high she hitched them to her waist. She bent to quickly roll up the legs a couple of twists and then tied the T-shirt in a knot at her lower back. There, that was a bit better.
But what about her feet? A quick glance in the walk-in wardrobe confirmed there was no way her narrow feet would carry off wearing a pair of Draco’s running shoes or anything else in there. She’d have to forget about footwear for now and just pray she didn’t have to walk too far before finding a taxi.
She stiffened as she registered the sudden silence in the bathroom behind her. Damn, he was out of the shower. She didn’t have much time.
Blair shot through the apartment and let herself out the front door. She ran lightly down the corridor to the elevator and leaned on the button to call the car to the top floor, her eyes fixed on the door to Draco’s apartment the whole time. When the door whooshed open behind her she jumped, and then laughed at herself for her ridiculousness. What had she been expecting? That he’d jump out from behind the elevator doors and drag her back to the apartment, hold her there as his love slave forevermore?
She rolled her eyes at her mirrored reflection in the closing doors, taking a minute to push her fingers through her hair.
One night he’d asked for. One night he’d had. It had to be enough—for both of them.
Some people might call it running away—others, well, “tactical withdrawal” were the words that immediately came to Blair’s mind. If she wasn’t at the apartment or the restaurant, then Draco couldn’t find her, and that’s just the way she wanted it. The instant Blair got back home she showered and changed into her own clothes, grateful to put on fresh underwear and to rid herself of the tingling sensation of Draco’s clothing against her bare skin. All her bare skin.
She threw the clothes in a bag for dry cleaning and added them to the laundry to be picked up by their linen supply company. Then she quickly put together a few things, enough to last her a couple of days, and headed out the door.
She hadn’t been to visit her father since she’d returned from Tuscany. Now seemed as good a time as any. Monday and Tuesday were supposed to be her days off, not that she usually took them, so it wasn’t as if she was running away. Not really, she told herself as she threw her bag into the passenger seat of her station wagon and put the vehicle in gear. A couple of days at the beach would do her good.
As she drove down the rutted driveway toward the house her father rented by the beach at Kaiaua, on the Seabird Coast southeast of Auckland city, she knew she’d made the right decision. Already, the soothing sounds of the sea, the cries of wheeling gulls and the soft onshore breeze began to invigorate her in a way being back at work hadn’t in a long time.
She thrust open her door and loped over to the house. She ignored the two shallow stairs that led to the weathered wraparound deck and jumped the short distance, her feet landing with a muffled thud before she ran around to where she knew her father would have his French doors open to the ocean.
“Dad?” she called as she stepped inside.
A tantalizing aroma filtered through the air to tweak at her nose, and Blair instinctively followed the scent through to the compact kitchen, just beyond the airy, open living area that faced the sea.