“You what?” Sarah goggled disbelievingly from my laptop five minutes later. I’d filled her in on what happened, but I’d used a code word for Andrew on the very slim chance that some crazy hacker was listening in on my chat sessions. She’d immediately known who and what I was talking about, and I daresay I’d never seen her look more surprised.
I could only grin like a Cheshire cat. “I know.”
“When you fumbled that ball in New York it never occurred to me that you’d be able to pick it up again.”
“I know.”
“This is incredible!” Sarah seemed to be more excited than me.
“Obviously,” I finally remembered to say, “you can’t tell anyone about this.”
Sarah nodded. “Good point.” She turned around. “Get out.”
“What?” a male voice asked from off-camera.
“I’ve got to talk to my friend.”
I tried not to stare as a half-naked man wandered across the background of the onscreen image. “Hope I didn’t call at a bad time.”
Sarah shook her head. “I don’t think he had another in him anyway. Now, back on you, I want to know every… actually, no, broad strokes first. In one word; describe it.”
So many words went through my head, it’d been the sort of evening that made me grasp for superlatives, but when asked for one word there was only one that would do. “Beautiful.”
Sarah shrugged. “I think you may be talking about a different ‘it’ to me. Although not necessarily. But we can circle back to that. I mean, I know you didn’t have a tape measure on you, but a general description will do.”
“I’ve missed you,” I said, grinning.
“Not tonight, I bet.”
“Maybe not…”
“Now,” Sarah picked up her laptop and moved it so she could relax in a comfortable chair. “One second.” She hopped up and returned with a large glass of wine. “Right, now, tell me everything. And I mean everything. I want the full blow by blow, so to speak. Omit no detail, however filthy. In fact, focus on the filthy.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Spoilsport.”
I shrugged. “I just don’t want to make you jealous.”
Sarah leaned eagerly forward. “He was that good, was he?”
I grinned. “Better.”
Through wheedling and teasing and prying and cajoling, Sarah managed to extract a few more details about the experience out of me, who after tussling between ladylike discretion and a desire to brag about how amazing my night had been, settled for a happy middle-ground between the two.
“So now you’re the prince’s plaything,” Sarah said when she’d got all the specifics she was going to get out of me. “Bit of a cliché though, eh? The prince and the maid.”
“It’s not like that,” I insisted, although a persistent voice at the back of my mind wondered…could it be like that?
Sarah sighed, and for the first time seemed serious. “Look, Keira, I can tell you’re excited and I don’t blame you, and I don’t want to be a wet blanket but…maybe take it easy? You met the guy and he lied to you to get you into bed. You met him again and he acted in a way that couldn’t be called romantic. Then you met him again, had one nice—albeit brief—conversation, and you had sex in a changing room. You take those events in isolation and this does not sound like the sort of man you’re looking for. It sounds like the sort of man I’m looking for. Trust me, I’ve been with my share of guys like that.”
“I guess.”
“Trust me, I’m not saying this to put a downer on your night. My point is: okay, maybe he’s changed, maybe he’s not the guy we know from all the papers and magazines and dodgy photos on Twitter. But nothing you’ve described to me completely convinces me of that.”
“If you’d just heard what he said…” I began.
“Guys will say anything to get laid,” Sarah said bluntly with a deal of authority. “I’m not saying he’s definitely using you. For all I know he’s completely on the same level and this is just the perfect little love story. I’m just saying, that doesn’t happen very often, so tread carefully and don’t get your hopes up.”
It was good advice, and it came from a good place, and I had to admit that in the darkest recesses of my mind, I’d been wondering the same sort of thing ever since I’d started to make my way home. And not just that.
“I don’t know what to do next,” I admitted. “I mean…I’m having an affair with the boss. That’s just not me, it’s more…”