Chapter 3
1147 Words
The champagne was making everything feel hazy but his words cut through the fog like ice water.
"You mean we will be sharing this room?" I asked.
He pulled off his jacket and threw it over the chair by the window then loosened his tie.
"Front desk confirmed it and they're booked through the weekend."
"So we just what, pretend this is normal?" I muttered.
"Unless you want to sleep in the hotel lobby princess."
That word again and the way he said it made heat crawl up my neck but not the good kind.
"Don't call me that and I'm not sleeping anywhere public."
"Then what's your plan?"he said teasingly.
I looked around the bed, it was a king bed, still covered in rose petals.
He moved towards the bed.
"I'm building a wall," I announced, before he even sat down.
Derek raised one eyebrow. "A wall?"
“Unless you’re taking the couch," I snapped. My voice came out sharper than I meant, but my pulse was racing.
I marched to the couch by the window and carried the big cushions to the bed. "Your side, my side and never the two shall meet."
"You're drunk."
"I'm functional." I grabbed another pillow and lined it up with the first. "And I'm establishing boundaries."
He watched me wrestle with a third cushion and his mouth twitched like he was fighting a smile. "Those won't actually stop me if I wanted to cross over."
"They're symbolic." I added a fourth one to complete my barrier. "They represent my personal space and your complete inability to access it."
Derek shook his head and walked to his suitcase while I stepped back to admire my work and it looked ridiculous but it made me feel safer somehow like I had some control over this nightmare weekend.
"Are you planning to survive on champagne or should we order actual food?" Derek asked from his side of the room.
My stomach growled loud enough for both of us to hear and I realized I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast because I'd been too nervous and excited about tonight.
"I guess I need something to eat."
"Chinese, Thai, Italian?" he asked.
"You're sharing?"
Derek was scrolling through his phone. "We're roommates Anna and I'd prefer my roommate doesn't pass out from hunger plus the rose petals and champagne setup tells me you were expecting someone who didn't show."
My face burned because he was right and I hated that this stranger could read my situation so easily. "That's none of your business."
"You're right but since we're sharing space I'm making it my business to keep you fed." He held up his phone. "Thai works?"
Twenty-five minutes later we were sitting on opposite sides of my chair wall with containers of pad thai and green curry spread between us and the silence was so thick I could barely breathe through it.
"Want to talk about what happened?" Derek asked.
"No."
"Want to talk about anything else?" He pushed on.
I poked at my noodles and the champagne buzz was fading into a dull headache and the crushing weight of reality. "Not particularly."
"This is going to be the longest weekend of my life if we don't communicate," he groaned.
I looked up at him and he'd changed out of his dress shirt into a plain white t-shirt that somehow made him look more human and less like a corporate robot. "What do you do for work?"
"Buy companies, break them apart, sell the pieces," he answered plainly.
"That sounds horrible."
"It pays well." His smile was sharp. "What about you?"
"Just graduated with a marketing degree."
"Congratulations,” he said, his voice light.
"Thanks though I'm not sure what good it'll do me now."
Derek paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. "Now?"
I almost spilled everything about Ryan and my professor and how my entire future had exploded in one awful moment but something about
"Just figuring out next steps."
We finished eating in relative quiet and Derek cleaned up the containers while I watched him move around the room with easy confidence like he belonged in expensive places like this and I wondered what it would be like to be that sure of yourself.
"Want to play cards?" Derek asked suddenly.
I glanced at the deck sitting next to my champagne bottle. "I don't really know how."
"I'll teach you poker."
Something in his tone made my pulse skip. "Okay."
Derek moved the small table right up to my pillow barrier so we could sit across from each other with the wall between us but the game connected us somehow.
"Five card draw," he explained while dealing. "Basic rules first."
I was terrible at poker and Derek won the first four hands without even trying while my face probably showed every emotion I felt.
“You’re easy to read,” he said, smirking. “Lip bite means you have good cards, and fidget means bluff.”
I dropped my cards, cheeks heating. “This is stupid.”
“Then let’s make it interesting. Strip poker.”
I should have laughed him off, but something in his voice made rebellion spark in my chest. “Fine. But when I win, you take the floor.”
His grin was dangerous. “Deal.”
The first few rounds were brutal, my socks, then my crop top. Derek, meanwhile, lounged across from me in just his shirt and pants, completely unfazed.
“This game is rigged.”
“You’re just bad at it,” he teased.
Then luck finally swung my way. Two pairs beat his kings, and I reached for my top, only for Derek’s hand to close around my wrist, warm and steady.
“Best of three,” he murmured, eyes locked on mine. “Winner takes everything.”
Something reckless in me answered before I could think. “You’re on.”
The final hand was agony. I had nothing, not even a pair. I bluffed hard, sliding my earrings into the pot. Derek studied me too long, waiting for my next move.
“All in,” I whispered, gesturing to my clothes.
His eyes flickered. “Anna—”
“Scared?”
He went all in too. We revealed the cards.
“Shit.”
He had a full house, I had nothing.
“You don’t have to—”
“I lost fair and square.” My fingers fumbled with the button of my jeans when Derek stood, closing the space between us until only my ridiculous pillow wall remained.
“Anna, stop.” His voice was low, rough.
“Why?” My throat tightened. “Rules are rules”
His expression softened, then shifted, eyes darkening with something I couldn't name. He leaned across the barrier, voice like a challenge.
“Want me to finish what I interrupted earlier?”
- Writer
