Her brown eyes were enough to melt him. His grin broadened. “I bet you’re not as cool and heartless as you’re making out right now.”
“Let’s just get you to bed.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“You know what I mean, Agent Rawlings,” she said, starchy.
“Brody and Heather have gone to the wedding hotel. I’m at your mercy. Brody would have left me under the booth. Nowhere near as fun as having you put me to bed.”
She sighed. “What’s your room number?”
“Crisp and efficient, aren’t you, Charlotte Bennett?” He pointed vaguely. “It’s the second door on the right.”
“Key?”
“I can manage the key.”
“Actually, I’m not sure you can, and I suspect you aren’t sure, either.”
He decided he must look even worse than he felt. He reached into his jacket for the old-fashioned key and handed it to her. She nudged him down the hall, but he was more awake, or at least more alert. Maybe it was having a wall next to him should he collapse, or maybe mounting the stairs had perked him up. Whatever the case, they arrived at his door without incident.
“Where’s your room?” he asked her.
“Down the hall.”
“Do we have connecting doors?”
“No. There’s a room between us.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t know if you’re teasing or just making small talk in an awkward situation, but it doesn’t matter. Two seconds and you’ll be in your room and can get some rest before tomorrow. I don’t want you to make a scene.”
She shoved his key in the lock. One try and she had the door open.
“Efficient,” Greg said.
She tucked the key into his jacket pocket and held the door open. “In you go, Agent Rawlings.”
“Greg. Gregory is fine, too. So is Agent Rawlings, but it’s too formal now that you’re in my hotel room.”
“I’m not in your hotel room.”
“Right. It’s a pub that lets rooms. It’s not a real hotel or even a B and B or an inn.”
“I’m not in your room, period.”
He felt a wave of fatigue and forced himself to stay upright. He attempted a grin. “You’re not going to make sure I get to bed without collapsing?”
“Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll wait outside the door, and if I hear a thud and think you hit your head or otherwise hurt yourself, I’ll call for an ambulance.”
Greg stood straight, leveling his gaze on her. “I’ll be fine, Charlotte. I’m not sick or drunk. Thanks for your help.”
The pink returned to her cheeks. “You’re exhausted,” she said finally. “Get some sleep. See you at the wedding.”
“How’s your maid-of-honor dress?”
She ignored him and left, shutting the door quickly—not in his face but it was close.
Greg managed to make it to the bed before he collapsed.
No thud for Charlotte to call backup.
* * *
Charlotte didn’t breathe normally again until she reached her room, shut the door and kicked off her shoes. She didn’t know how she’d made it up the stairs in them. Her feet ached. Adrenaline had undoubtedly helped keep her from feeling any pain.
She stared at the locked door next to the closet door. She’d lied. Her room did adjoin Greg’s room, and it did have a connecting door—inaccessible by either one of them without the key. There’d been no point in telling him and getting his imagination fired up. He needed sleep, and so did she, if for different reasons.
Her room was adorable, decorated with warm fabrics and simple furnishings. A small window looked out on the village street, dark and quiet now. She didn’t hear any noise from the pub below her. She supposed the barman would have dealt with Greg if she’d left him in the booth. Presumably, she’d see him at the wedding tomorrow, and then that would be that. They’d be on their separate ways.
She peeled off her dress. Her maid-of-honor dress was at the wedding hotel. She appreciated Samantha’s asking her to be her maid of honor and didn’t regret saying yes—but she’d come close to saying no. Unsaid between them had been the reasons why. “You’re who I want as my maid of honor, Charlotte,” Samantha had told her. “You’re as close to a sister as I have, and you’re my best friend, but I’ll understand if you just want to be a guest.”
“Thank you, Sam. I’m honored. I’d love to be your maid of honor.”
Charlotte had meant every word, but she also knew it wouldn’t be easy to walk down that aisle tomorrow without memories bubbling up. She’d just have to work at stifling them. It wasn’t her wedding. It was Samantha and Justin’s wedding, and Charlotte wanted to do her part to make it a wonderful day for them.
She washed up, slipped into her nightgown and crawled under the cozy duvet in the double bed. She listened, but she didn’t hear anything from the adjoining room. Greg Rawlings was similar to other alpha types she knew in her work. While she appreciated the training and dedication that no doubt went into his job as a DS agent, she was well aware that even tough guys bled, got sick and messed up. The problem wasn’t that she wanted to believe they were indestructible. They wanted to believe it.
She shut her eyes, giving in to her own fatigue. Even after her long day, she had no sign of a headache.
Progress.
But she didn’t want to make too much of it, and she knew getting rid of her headaches didn’t mean she’d ever dive again.
She put that thought out of her mind and pictured Greg instead, half-asleep, genuinely exhausted and yet still capable of teasing—and, no doubt, of getting himself to his room.
She put him out of her mind, too. She’d done her bit for him, but Greg Rawlings was a fit, capable man.
The Diplomatic Security agent in the next room wasn’t her problem.
Greg managed to take a shower, pull on jeans and a sweatshirt, and tie on a pair of running shoes when he woke up at oh dark thirty. He’d been wiped out when he’d arrived in London yesterday. Mop-the-floor-with-him exhausted after months of nonstop, high-intensity, high-stress work. Not an excuse for passing out in an English pub, but no harm, no foul.
As he started down the steep stairs, he remembered more of his encounter with Charlotte Bennett last night than he wanted to remember.
“Should have had more to drink.”
Breakfast was set up in the same room as last night’s party. Eric Sloan, a police officer and the eldest of the Sloan siblings, invited Greg to join him. Greg had met him briefly in February. Eric resembled the rest of the Sloans: dark haired, blue eyed, strong. Straightforward. Another Sloan trait. It was still the middle of the night back home in New England, but Eric looked wide-awake. Probably used to odd hours. He, too, had on jeans and a sweatshirt.
Greg sat at Eric’s table by a partially open window, exchanged a couple of pleasantries, ordered coffee and then got up again and went to the cold buffet table.
He returned with Weetabix and cut fruit. “I’ve never had Weetabix,” he said. “Have you?”
Eric shrugged. “It’s like Shredded Wheat?”