Poppy woke slowly, appreciating first the amazingly soft pillow beneath her head. Then the orgasmically comfortable mattress beneath her.
She stretched her arms out at her sides and realized she didn’t hit anything. Not the edge of the bed. Not the arm of the sofa. Not the side table next to it.
Her eyes flew wide and saw the afternoon sun streaming through the massive wall of windows. It all made sense as she remembered she wasn’t in her and Eva’s apartment above Rosie’s.
She groaned. Her lunch break had stretched far longer than an hour.
It had to be getting late in the day. She had work to do. But damn this bed was comfortable. She’d slept better than she had in weeks. Maybe months.
Perhaps Ethan was right and she should take Wyatt up on the offer of lodging, if only so she could get some decent sleep. But she didn’t want to feel like she owed the man anything. Things were too weird at work right now.
More than that, she didn’t want to abandon Eva. Although maybe Eva was craving some privacy. Unlike Poppy, Eva had lived alone in New York. Having a roommate had to be a huge change for her.
Thoughts of Ethan had her lifting her head and glancing around. He wasn’t anywhere within her view.
Maybe the bathroom? She listened, holding her breath and straining to hear. Nothing.
The silence told her she was alone. He must have had to get back to work. She needed to do the same.
Resigned, she struggled to sit upright, then swung her legs over the edge of the bed.
The remains of her sandwich on the nightstand looked too good to abandon, even if they had been sitting out for an unknown number of hours. The room was cool enough with the air conditioning on.
How bad could it be?
It wasn’t like it would be the first time she’d eaten questionable leftovers. That had been pretty much a daily occurrence at the sorority house. Besides, she was starving.
Grabbing a piece of the panini, she stood and padded barefoot across the thick carpet toward the table while chewing on a bite. There she found a glass of lemon water. The ice had long ago melted, leaving nothing but condensation as evidence it had been there at all, but it would still quench her thirst.
Standing, she swept the well appointed room with her gaze.
The Wilder was no doubt a luxury hotel.
In spite of it being privately owned by the Wilder family and located nowhere near a major city or landmark of note, it could compete with any of the more well known and better located high end lodgings run by corporations as far as amenities.
Still, it wasn’t an easy property to market because of its remote setting and the lack of a well known brand backing it.
The new event calendar should help with that—hopefully. But not if she didn’t get back to work.
Sighing, she turned to look for her shoes and found them by the bed. And inside them, propped up, was a folded piece of paper and a keycard.
Ethan.
He was clever. She might have missed a note left somewhere else in the room, but not there.
Bending, she scooped up the piece of hotel stationary and read what he’d written.
Hello, Sleeping Beauty
If you rise and shine before six tonight, come to my rodeo practice.
I hear you groaning at that idea. Stop! You can take pictures and video for the website. You’ll need them for the rodeo excursion.
See you later. And don’t wear these sandals! Shit happens. Literally.
Signed,
Your Prince Charming
She smiled in spite of his high opinion of himself in the signature.
He knew her too well. Her first reaction was that there was no way she was going tonight. First, because her at a rodeo? But mostly because she should work tonight since she’d slept half the day away.
But he wasn’t wrong. She did need something for the rodeo excursion on the site. And going would actually be necessary for her work.
She also probably would have worked here right up until six and driven directly to the address he’d put at the bottom—while wearing the sandals he’d put the note in.
The man was far too observant. And too damn tempting. Dammit, she wanted to go. Wanted to see Ethan in all his cowboy glory. There was only one problem with that idea. She was going to want to peel off his Wranglers afterward.
She might be a New Yorker, but it seemed she had a thing for cowboys. Or at least for one particular cowboy with twinkling blue eyes. And long legs. And broad shoulders. And a narrow waist. And a very talented tongue…and hands.
Swallowing hard, she glanced back at the bed again. He’d said they had the room for the night. Maybe she should take advantage of that.
It didn’t have to mean anything. Just fun. Casual, even if it would, technically speaking, be her first time completing that one particular act, in spite of coming close with him the other night at the apartment. It wasn’t like they’d start being a couple afterward or anything. A ladies man like Ethan would be more than fine with that. Right?
Plan set she took one more gulp of water and then sat to put on her sandals.
She had a lot of work to do. Then she had rodeo practice to get ready for. Not to mention the post-practice event preparations.