‘Such as?’
‘Sweet,’ Layla said. ‘Some fruit. You choose for me. One other thing—can I get a joint from you?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, just some sweet milk to drink, then.’
Apart from when she had caught that cold from wearing damp clothes Layla had never spent a day in bed before, and she intended to enjoy it.
The maids delivered her food and Terrence, the butler, gave her a tutorial on the television’s remote control, and Layla lay in bed, still in Mikael’s shirt, dipping raspberries in white chocolate sauce and drinking milk laced with cinnamon and nutmeg while watching television.
It was fantastic!
She watched as the couple on the screen started kissing, and blew out her breath as she remembered her kiss last night with Mikael again.
She watched, eyes wide, as the man started to take off the woman’s top, and started to blush as he undid her bra.
Oh!
Layla knew that she should not be watching this, that she should turn it off, but she could not stop herself. She wanted some lemonade from the fridge. Usually she would use the phone to get Terrence to fetch it for her, but she did not want to be disturbed and so, with her eyes not leaving the screen, for the first time Layla fetched a drink for herself.
The couple were now on the bed, with a sheet over them, and Layla just about choked on her lemonade at the noises they were making. She reached for the phone—not to call down to the desk, though; instead she called Mikael.
‘I can’t speak now, Layla,’ he said. ‘I’m about to have a meeting with my client’s family.’
‘Just one question?’ she begged.
‘One.’
‘I am watching television and I think people are having sex in the middle of the day and they are not married to each other.’
‘You’re not watching television, then,’ he said. ‘You’ve put on the adult channel.’
God, he thought, another thing he’d have to have removed from her bill before her brother saw it.
‘Oh!’
He heard her gasp of disappointment. ‘Now they are putting on the thing where they try to make me thirsty again.’
‘That’s a commercial.’ He laughed. Okay, so she wasn’t on the adult channel. ‘Do you know the name of the show that you’re watching?’
Layla told him.
‘That’s what we call a soap,’ Mikael explained. ‘They’re not really having sex—they’re just acting.’
‘Well, it’s very good acting,’ Layla said. ‘She looks how I felt when you kissed me last night. Are they dressed beneath the sheet?’
‘I would think so.’
‘But I saw the top of his bottom.’
‘I have to go.’ Mikael hesitated as Wendy buzzed. ‘Hold on a moment, Layla.’