Oh, God! What had he done?
Mack listened to the soft breathing of the sleeping blonde lying beside him in room 509 of the newly refurbished Mandarin Oriental Hotel, his home until his KEY News service flat was ready.
He hated himself.
There was no excuse for it. Too bad if he was heartsick about leaving Eliza. Too bad if he was lonely. Too bad if he had downed one vodka martini after another at dinner with Marcy McGinnis and her pretty young assistant. The assistant whom Mack would now be seeing day after day at work. The assistant who had just turned over on her side and pulled the covers closer around her.
How could he have been so stupid?
Mack groggily remembered the resigned expression on his bureau chief’s face as she excused herself and said her good-byes for the evening, leaving Mack and the blonde at the table at Harvey Nick’s. This was certainly not the first time that dinner in the posh “see and be seen” department-store restaurant had been the prelude to an indiscreet dalliance.
As his head throbbed, the old warning about dipping your pen in the company ink passed through Mack’s mind. He had always made it a policy not to get involved with anyone where he worked. Eliza had been the notable and totally worthwhile exception.
He didn’t even know this young woman. Was she trustworthy or would she be sharing the news of their encounter with her friends in the London office? Even if she only told one person, word would get around. It always did. And what if it got back to Eliza?
Mack slipped from the bed and felt his way in the dark to the bathroom. He closed the door behind him, switched on the light, turned on the faucet and doused his face with cold water. His bloodshot eyes stared back at him in the mirror. He loathed himself.
How could he have betrayed Eliza so easily and so quickly?