Page 55 of Mistletoe Mistake
Wilson laughed, unfazed by my reaction. "Oh, of course not, but we all heard it right from the guy's mouth. Her former fiancé, that is. You would have missed it all since you weren't here at the time, but did you know for a while there, after the show first aired, people were using her name as an insult?” He laughed again, as if any of what he’d said was remotely funny. “If someone failed to react to something, you'd say they were being a Gemma. There were some pretty funny memes. I'll have to send you some of them."
He completely failed to notice that I never cracked a smile, and Jackson quickly intervened and steered the conversation onto safer topics.
By the time the dinner ended, I'd reached two decisions. First, Wilson’s number would be deleted from my contact list immediately, and second, Gemma and I were definitely going shopping together for some of the new accessories I’d been exploring the night before.
Not online shopping, though.
If everyone thought they knew what Gemma was like in private, maybe the time had come to show them another side of her. I wouldn’t waste my time defending her to one ignorant man, but if we made a big enough splash, the whole country might notice. Maybe we needed to let them know exactly how sexy she could be.
~Gemma~
I left Cole's suite on Thursday morning with the full intention of heading straight to the pharmacy and picking up a morning-after pill, just in case. When I checked my birth control that morning, I found that there were indeed three more pills in the packet than there should have been, and I couldn’t be sure exactly which three days I had missed. Though it would probably be fine, better to be safe than sorry.
However, as soon as I stepped out of the lift in the hotel lobby, my phone rang with a call from the lawyer's office, wanting to review our contract with Stamer Hotels, and the only time they had available that day was in ten minutes, or mid-afternoon when we were already scheduled to meet with another client whose project was nearing completion. I didn't want to have to reschedule the other meeting if I could help it, so I agreed to meet the lawyers immediately. I could always run out to the pharmacy afterwards.
By the time the meeting with the lawyers finished, I was already running late for the day. I hurried straight to the office and spent the next several hours playing catch-up, even asking my assistant, Denise, to grab lunch for me so I wouldn’t have to waste any time going out myself. I did briefly toy with the idea of asking her to run to the pharmacy for me at the same time, but I didn't want to make her uncomfortable or open myself up to too many questions. She didn't know anything about Cole, and it wasn’t in her job description.
In the afternoon, Holly and I met with a few different clients, and before I knew it, people had started packing up for the day. I grabbed my coat, determined to take a quick break before coming back to continue the extra work that I'd wanted to do that evening, but I only made it as far as my office door before Holly appeared in front of me.
“Emergency, Gem.”
“Get in line. I need to go out for just a few minutes. Can it wait until I'm back?”
She bit her lip in uncertainty. “That depends. Morelli's on the phone for you.”
“You mean his office?”
Holly shook her head. “No. Signor Morelli himself.”
Damn it. I really couldn't keep him waiting. With a sigh, I put my coat away and sank back into my office chair to pick up the phone.
As I expected, he had called to check why he hadn't heard back from us about his latest project. We would have to tell him that we weren't available since we'd be busy working for Cole, but I couldn't share that until I had delivered the signed contract to Cole himself. For the time being, I had to try to put him off without sounding evasive.
When I finally got off the phone with him, Holly had brought in some takeaway for us for dinner and we reviewed the initial sketches that we'd made for Cole and Jackson for their London hotel. We were hoping to meet with them the next day to review both the contract and our initial ideas.
Eventually, Holly stretched her arms over her head and yawned. “Well, it's time for me to make a move. Not all of us are staying a few blocks from the office, you know.”
As I glanced up at the clock, my stomach sank. It was already after nine o'clock. I quickly tried to calculate in my head at roughly what time the night before Cole and I would have been playing our game. It probably would have been right around this time, and I knew that the morning-after pill worked best in the first 24 hours after sex. Maybe I could still make that window if I left immediately.
I wished Holly a hurried goodbye and raced to the nearest pharmacy, cursing my luck when I saw its darkened windows. It had closed hours ago. Pulling out my phone, I found the nearest 24-hour one, which was a cab ride away. When I finally got there, the girl at the counter handed over the box with a sympathetic smile.
“How effective is this?” I had never used one before. With Edwin, I had always been on top of my birth control pills, so I had never needed to.
“95% within the first 24 hours,” she told me in a reassuring tone.
I swallowed, resisting the urge to pull my phone out to check the time. I must have missed the 24 hours by now. “And after that?”
“Oh.” She suddenly looked a little less certain, which didn't help matters at all. “Around 85% in the first 48 hours, and around 60% before 72 hours.”
85% was still pretty good; not as good as 95%, but still pretty good. I thanked her and bought myself a bottle of water to take the pill right there in the store, before anything else could distract me.
By the time I got back to the Lytton, it had just passed ten and Cole had already returned, which surprised me. I had expected him to be out later with his friend.
He sat on the couch in the living room with his laptop, but he looked up and gave me his usual sexy smirk as I came in. “So, is my hotel ready yet?”
I didn't want to tell him that we'd decided to sign the contract since the decision didn’t belong solely to me. He could wait and find that out in the office with Holly, so I simply smiled back. “Not quite. I noticed you had some free time in your calendar for tomorrow afternoon, so I've booked you and Jackson to come see us to see some sketches. I hope that's okay.”
Cole's smile widened in genuine pleasure. “I'm looking forward to it.”
