For a few moments she had no idea where she was. Sunlight was seeping through a gap in the curtains and panning across the pale carpet. A dark shape next to the wall looked like a dog about to pounce but, as her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw it was just her coat, thrown carelessly over a chair. In the distance there was the sound of a door slamming and footsteps coming close before receding again. A couple of seconds later she heard a low mechanical clunking and subconsciously recognised it as the sound of a lift making its way to meet a pressed call button.
For some reason, the room was spinning. Lily closed her eyes, then opened them again, but it didn’t help. Lying on her side she stretched her legs out behind her and her foot hit something. As she started to roll over, she suddenly realised it was someone else’s foot. By the time she had turned fully the other way, Jake’s face was just inches from her own. His eyes, those lovely rich brown eyes, were looking at her.
‘Good morning,’ he said. His voice was slightly husky.
‘Oh God!’
‘Nice to see you too.’
‘Oh God. No, I mean… Shit!’ Lily flung back the covers, then – realising she was naked – dragged them back over herself, rolling onto her side, reaching down to the floor and feeling around frantically with her fingers, soon coming across the clothes that lay strewn where she must have left them the previous night. Her head was pounding so hard it was as if someone was tapping on the front of her skull with a frying pan.
She found her shirt and pushed her arms through the sleeves, hearing one of the buttons pop off and fly across the carpet. There was no sign of her knickers, but her jeans were right beside the bed, so she grabbed them and wriggled into them, only then finally leaving the safety of the covers and standing up. Her entire body lurched with the effort and a wave of nausea flooded over her. She caught sight of herself in the mirror above the dressing table and dragged her hand through her wild hair to try and flatten it.
She finally turned round to look at Jake. He was on his side, his arm across the space beside him in the bed where she’d been lying.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, squinting up at her.
‘No. I think I might die,’ she whispered. ‘How much did we have to drink last night?’
‘No idea,’ he muttered. ‘More than we should have done.’ He closed his eyes and a smile spread across his face. ‘It was worth it though. Come back here.’
She groaned and looked down as the room span. One trainer was on the floor in front of her and she slowly knelt down and ran her hand under the bed, where she came across the other one, as well as her knickers. She scrunched them into a ball in her fist and sat back against the edge of the bed, breathing deeply to steady herself as she pushed her feet into the shoes.
‘What’s the time?’ she asked. She usually kept her phone nearby at night but there was nothing on the bedside table, where the hell was it? As she looked around, she remembered switching it off and putting it in her coat pocket yesterday evening as she walked by the lake.
Jake’s weight shifted in the bed as he turned to look at his watch. ‘It’s 9 o’clock,’ he said. ‘Christ, I need to get up, I’m late for work!’
Lily suddenly went cold. Nine o’clock? It couldn’t be. She’d been out all night, leaving her mother on her own at Glenmorrow. How could she have done that? What had she been thinking? She had somehow come to this hotel room with a man she hardly knew – although she couldn’t actually remember coming here – and done goodness knows what with him, while her elderly mother had been left alone in a strange guest house. Worst of all, she hadn’t been feeling well – she’d had that cough. This was awful, truly awful.
Lily pushed herself up from the floor, but had to put out both hands to steady herself as she stood. This was not good. She was so hungover and her brain so foggy, she could only remember snippets about last night. They’d stayed in the dining room for some time, she knew that, and they’d ordered another bottle of wine. She remembered shrieking with laughter at something Jake was saying. After the bottle of white wine, hadn’t they moved onto red? Then there was the lift. They’d fallen through the opening doors and he’d pushed her up against the wall and started kissing her. She remembered his hand resting on her stomach, then pushing downwards, moving the material of her jeans away from her skin.
‘Bloody hell,’ she groaned. ‘This is terrible.’
Glancing sideways into the mirror again, she saw her hair wasn’t the only overnight casualty. Her mascara had smudged below her eyelashes and there was a red mark on her neck that looked like a bruise. She must have bumped into something the previous evening? Then, when she leant closer to the mirror, she realised what it was.
‘Shit!’ At the age of forty-seven, she had a bright red love bite on her neck.
‘I’ve got to go.’ Rubbing at the black marks under her eyes, she walked across to the chair and picked up her coat, fumbling to pull the phone from the pocket and swearing under her breath as her trembling finger stabbed at the button to turn it on. What if Moira had tried to phone her? What if she’d felt really ill in the night and hadn’t been able to call for help?
‘Can I see you later?’ Jake was now sitting up on the other side of the bed and, even hungover and highly anxious, Lily’s heart did a little flip at the sight of his bare back, the muscles rippling across his shoulders and down the top of his arms.
‘This is appalling,’ she said, struggling into her coat. ‘I can’t believe what we’ve done.’
‘It wasn’t that bad!’ he said, turning towards her with a smile on his face. ‘I’ve not…’
‘You don’t understand!’ she said. ‘This should never have happened, I shouldn’t be here.’
He looked confused, then hurt.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said.
She turned and went towards the door, pulling it open with one hand, the other still clutching the mobile out in front of her, willing the screen to flicker into life. As she stepped out into the corridor, the wall lights blinked on. She had no idea where the lift was, but headed for a pair of doors at the far end of the corridor. The room door slammed shut behind her, sending reverberations thundering through her aching head. Through the double doors was a stairwell and she began to go down, clutching on to the black handrail for support. As she got to the bottom and came out into the hotel reception, the screen on her phone finally lit up and she stopped and scrolled through the notifications, her heart thumping so hard against the wall of her chest that she was sure anyone standing nearby would be able to hear it.
There were several texts from Eleanor, of course. She flicked past them. Then something from Gordon, which she deleted accidentally. Didn’t matter, she could call him back later. But to her relief, there was nothing from Moira. Thank God. Her mother rarely used her mobile phone, but she had Lily’s number on speed dial and she knew how to use it in an emergency. There weren’t any missed calls from a local landline either, so Archie Campbell hadn’t been trying to contact her – this must mean all was well. It was even possible Moira was still asleep? She’d been fighting off a cold last night and they’d had a busy couple of days, so her body would have needed the extra rest.
Coming out of the hotel entrance and walking back beside the lake, Lily felt some of the tension ebb away. It was all going to be fine; she would be back at the Campbells in less than ten minutes, and no one would have missed her. Moira would never need to know she’d spent the night elsewhere.
But, bloody hell, what a night it had been. That man! She hugged her arms around herself as she walked, unable to get Jake’s face out of her mind. Or the rest of his body, come to that. This was all so crazy. She’d never had a one-night stand in her entire life – let alone fallen into bed with someone like him. Dave’s face briefly popped into her head. Dave with his scratchy beard and wet lips and total lack of respect for personal space. A fortnight ago she’d been unable to refuse Dave’s desperate plea for a second date, and just yesterday morning she hadn’t been able to pluck up the courage to dump him properly. Now, she was walking away from a hotel room in Keswick where she’d just spent an extremely enjoyable night – what she could remember of it – in the company of a complete stranger. What had she been thinking? This was so not like her.
Turning away from the lake, Lily walked up the hill as fast as her wobbly legs would carry her. She was still feeling sick and took deep breaths to try and quell the waves of nausea curdling up in her stomach. It had been years since she’d had so much to drink – she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this hungover. What an idiot. She tried to put her phone back in her coat pocket but there was something in the way. She plunged in her hand and pulled out her knickers, realising she must have shoved them in there a few minutes earlier. Her face flared again as she remembered Jake’s hands on her body, his lips meeting hers, the feel of his naked chest pushing against her as she fell backwards onto his hotel bed. She stared down at the scrunched material in her hand, smiling despite herself.
Lily Bennett, she thought to herself. You total hussy.