A Risky Business #SYTYCW15 #CarinaPress

Chapter Five

Damien's LA apartment – the morning after the night before ...

*Kate*

I yawned lazily and stretched, plumped the pillow underneath me and turned over. I felt so thirsty, but I wasn't quite ready to wake up properly. I tried burrowing further under the covers, hoping to be able to fall back into a snooze for a little while longer, but something felt wrong. I wasn't comfortable. I tried to ignore it, tried willing myself back to sleep, but it was no good. I cautiously opened one eye.

I seemed to still be wearing all my jewellery, no wonder I was uncomfortable. Chunky turquoise jewellery is really not meant to be worn in bed. I must have been tired last night! Oh crap, if I haven't taken my jewellery off I bet I haven't taken my makeup off. I hate panda eyes. And it's probably all over my pillow. I opened my other eye to have a quick look and stared at an unfamiliar pillow case. The unfamiliar pillow case was on an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. What the ....?

I sat up, confused, but also relieved to find that I was still in my little black dress. And that there was no one beside me. A quick check under the covers confirmed that, yes, all underwear was also still present and correct. I had another look around the room. Maybe it wasn't as unfamiliar as I first thought. I have been here before, yesterday in fact. But what the hell was I doing here now?

I swung my legs round so that I was sitting on the edge of the bed and spotted my shoes which had been left neatly on the floor. Unfortunately this sudden movement proved to be a bit too much a bit too soon and the room began to spin violently in front of me. I grabbed the glass of water that had been placed on the bedside table and took a couple of sips which seemed to help a little. I groaned to myself, admitted defeat and leant back against the mascara stained pillows.

I'd closed my eyes again, but began to hear movement from the other side of the room. After a few moments I could sense someone approaching. I risked opening one eye again.

"Morning!" said Damien, cheerily.

"Morning," I agreed. "Would you mind speaking a little more softly please?"

"Oh dear," he said, if anything slightly louder than before. "Are you not feeling any better?"

"I thought I was alright, but then I felt a bit dizzy when I tried to get up. What happened?"

He stared at me for a while, as if deciding exactly what information he should provide.

Eventually he settled on,

"Well, in my medical opinion, I would suggest that you either had something to eat that disagreed with you terribly, or you had one glass of wine too many."

"Oh," I said. "And which of the two would you say it was? In your medical opinion, of course?"

"If I was pushed, sweetheart, I would probably go with the wine. Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," I said. "How embarrassing. But how did I end up here?"

"You wanted to go for a walk along the beach," he explained. "But then you, erm, took a turn for the worse, shall we say. You were pretty unsteady on your feet so I carried you. My place was much closer than your hotel so I made the call to bring you here. I slept on the chair over there," he added, almost as an afterthought.

"I know you did," I said, trying to muster up a weak smile for him. "Thank you for looking after me."

"You're welcome Princess. That's what I'm trained for ... remember. Well, you know, looking after people anyway. We talked about this last night."