Not because he suspected something had happened that shouldn't have. He was a careful man and his instincts even exhausted. Even offguard were the instincts of someone who had never once in his life been a kind of man who took advantage of of a situation. But because there was a gap, a seam in his memory where the night had stitched itself back together without him. And he was standing in the room of the most powerful woman he'd ever met.
And she was somewhere in this apartment and she had left him a glass of water and a note signed with a single letter. Don't leave without coffee. He heard the door. It opened quietly. Good hinges.
Of course, this was that kind of place. And Amelia Whitmore walked in holding two mugs like it was the most natural thing in the world. She was wearing dark slacks and a loose gray top, hair down around her shoulders in a way he had never once seen it at the office. No blazer, no armor. She looked and Marcus registered this with a strange jolt he couldn't immediately name like a person.
Not a CEO, not an executive portrait, a person 32 years old carrying coffee in her own home on a Friday morning. She looked at him standing there with his shoes in his hands and she smiled. Good morning, honey. The word honey landed in the room like a stone in still water. Marcus opened his mouth, closed it.
Gint. Amelia set one of the mugs on the nightstand beside the water glass, and sat in the chair, the one his jacket had been folded over. He noticed it was now on the back of the door and crossed one knee over the other with the easy authority of a woman in her own space. "Before you say whatever you're about to say," she said. "Nothing happened," he breathed.
"I know what you're thinking," she continued. And her voice had that quality he'd heard from her in meetings precise calibrated, but underneath it was something else. Something that sounded almost like amusement. And I want to be clear that I'm not offended. You woke up in a strange room and I understand that the first order of business is damage control.
Ms. Whitmore. We've been on a rooftop together until 11:30 drinking the company's wine. I think you can call me Amelia. Amelia.
The name felt strange in his mouth. Too familiar. Three years of Miss Whitmore had built a groove he didn't know how to step out of. "What happened last night?" She picked up her own mug, took a sip unhurried. "You were exhausted," she said.
"More than I realized until we were the last two people in the room. You said you were going to call a car and then you sat down on one of the couches near the exit. And I'm fairly certain you were asleep before you could open the app." A pause. I asked the hotel staff to bring you up to my suite. You barely woke up enough to walk through the door.