Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) - By Elizabeth Ruston Page 0,39
the Thanksgiving weekend.
As soon as she signed for her breakfast, she took a cup of hot tea and a piece of dry toast with her into the bathroom. She needed a shower badly. Her hair looked like someone’s beginning attempts at dreadlocks, and her skin felt coated with a layer of dried sweat from the fever she knew had finally gone away. She ducked out of the Utah sweatshirt Joe bought her and pulled off the matching sweatpants. They had been perfect sleepwear the night before, but now she wanted the feeling of clean clothes against a clean body.
A fresh hotel robe hung from the back of the bathroom door. She didn’t remember putting it there, and wondered if Joe had, since housekeeping hadn’t been in there for days. Joe kept the Do Not Disturb sign on Sarah’s door, and she agreed with that, since she didn’t want to pass along the flu to some poor worker like her mother, who would then have to spend her holiday flat out in bed instead of relaxing with her family.
Sarah thought again of Joe saying he had cleaned up after her. It had to be true. She knew the Monday morning explosions left splatters everywhere. Now there was no evidence of it. Why would a man—any man—do that? And how was she supposed to feel about Burke going so above and beyond the call of duty? Especially since it wasn’t his duty to take care of her at all.
Sarah took another bite of toast and drank half a cup of tea. She wanted to take it slowly, to give her stomach time to settle with each new addition. But so far, everything felt fine.
She stood under the hot water for a long time. Shaved her legs and armpits, both of which had grown stubbly in the last few days. She washed her hair with the special shampoo she brought from home, rubbed conditioner into the ends, let the rough curls slip through her fingers as she separated them and sorted them out. She felt well enough that she thought she could bear standing at the sink for half an hour or so while she blow-dried her hair straight. She wouldn’t bother with the hair iron—that sounded like far too much effort at the moment—but at least she could do the minimum to bring her mop back under control.
She came back out of the bathroom wearing the hotel robe and toweling off her hair. She found Burke sitting on the couch working on his laptop.
Sarah glanced over at her own laptop, still open on the bed. She casually walked toward it.
“I like how you just come and go as you please,” she said.
“You haven’t seemed to mind it.”
“I assume that’s my room key you’re using?”
“Didn’t think you’d need it. But I can see you’re feeling better.”
“I am,” she answered as she closed the lid on her laptop.
When she turned around, Joe was looking at her.
There was no mistaking the anger in his eyes.
“You don’t really think I’d do that, do you?” he asked her.
Sarah thought of the documents she’d been reading and left open on her screen when she went to take a shower. But the idea that Joe would sneak a look while he heard the water running didn’t actually ring true. He had plenty of opportunities over the past few days to go through all of Sarah’s files if he wanted, and to read anything on her laptop since she hadn’t bothered to password-protect it, but Sarah couldn’t believe he would do that. Joe Burke might be a lot of things, but unethical wasn’t one of them.
“No,” Sarah admitted, feeling slightly ashamed of herself, “I don’t.”
Joe held her gaze for a moment more, then nodded and went back to work. But Sarah could still feel the tension in the air.
“I am feeling better,” she said, hoping to shift things back to normal. “I looked up the schedules, and there’s a nonstop tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. I think I’ll book it.”
“Good,” Joe said. “I will, too.”
“You don’t . . . have to stay today if you don’t want to,” Sarah said. “I’m sure you have plans tomorrow for Thanksgiving.”
“I doubt I’ll be able to get a flight out at this point,” Joe said. “It’ll be easier to go in the morning. Fewer people traveling.”
“Right,” Sarah said. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“I try to be right,” Joe said almost automatically.
Sarah knew she should say more: thank him for everything he’d done. But she