I woke in a bleary painful bubble. My mouth felt dryer than the Sahara Desert and my dry, chalky feeling skin and eyes, made it clear that I hadn't taken off my make up before I passed out. Groaning, I turned around in my rather small bed and slammed straight into a hard chest. Looking up slowly, one inch at a time, I took in the running shorts, the t-shirt and the face, all of which belonged to Jamie. I yelped, a high pitched noise which I had never made before, and if I was honest, I'm not sure I could again. I pulled back the covers to reveal that I was still in my boob tube mini dress and I breathed a sigh of relief. I mean, it's not like I didn't trust Jamie, and thought that he had done something to me while I was high and drunk, but I wouldn't put it past drunk me to strip in front of him.
Thankfully, I was in the same state I had been leaving Sloane's house, and I barely remembered the ride home in her town car. Where we drinking champagne in the car? That sounds about right, and in a flood of flashing images I had a memory of Sloane in a top hat and thick fur coat, it was 'faux fur, I love animals more than people' Sloane had assured me.
Groaning, I threw my hands up onto my throbbing head and fell back onto my pillow. Jamie made small snuffling noises in his sleep, and I turned slowly again to look at him. He looked like a figure out of a painting, a Henry Scot Tuke portrait, with his strong bone structure, golden skin and hair.
I watched him breathe for a couple of minutes, his messy hair and straight brows giving him an air of innocence that he didn't have while awake. Lifting my hand, I pushed back some of those golden blonde strands, showing a strong high forehead and highlighting his strong, straight nose. I sighed heavily, the sort of sigh which escapes your lips while looking at something beautiful.
Jamie moved in sleep and groaned at the sound of my sigh. He reached, pulling me close, one hand wrapped around my hip, our groins pressed up against each other, and my face in his neck. I inhaled softly, smelling the signature scent of Jamie, a heady mix of mint and spice. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe normally, but my heart was hammering in my chest like a jack hammer, so loud in my ears that I found it hard to believe that Jamie couldn't hear it.
In the low sunlight of my room, I focused on the feel of his hands, of the warmth breeze of his breath on my hair, and I closed my eyes, feeling safe and comforted.
Roughly around an hour later, my phone woke me again, the shrill calls coming from my small clutch handbag which had been deposited in the corner of the room. Jamie stirred, flicking one silver eye open, looking very disgruntled and annoyed.
'What the hell is that?'He asked, yawning deeply with sleep.
'My phone.' I muttered in explanation, jumping up and out of my bed and over to my bag, silencing the incoming call from Sloane. All the sudden movements had only highlighted the effects of this truly astronomical hangover, and I staggered over to the bed, and threw myself down on it dramatically. 'I'm never drinking again.' I moaned.
Jamie laughed, leaning up on one elbow and looking down at me, spread out sideways on my small bed, resting my head on his knee. Leaning down, he patted my head in empathy.
'I've heard you declare that at least five times now.' He said, another wracking yawn tingeing his voice.
I didn't look up at him, too worried about the pain in my head to even ogle Jamie, which should tell you how bad it was. There was a horrendous smell in my room, one which smelled like a brewery mixed with stale cigarette butts and I sniffed loudly, whining when through some experimental sniffs, I realised it was me.
'I stink.' I said simply, and wanted the earth's crust to open and swallow me whole. Why did this have to happen to me? All I wanted was to go out and not think about Jamie for one night, and I had ended up calling him, telling him I thought he was handsome and then woke up in his arms.
Jamie's face filled my vision, his head hanging upside down over mine, a huge mischievous grin firmly on display. 'Right now? Or in general?' He asked, and I couldn't do much more than glare at him, through narrowed eyes.
He chuckled and stood up, stretching his long, toned limbs. I almost panted when I realised that he was standing over me, giving me a long view up his body and to his face.
How could I find this sexy? My body felt like it had been mouldering from the inside out all night, and that there were a family of bats living in my head. The scenario suddenly reminded me of the saying, 'the mind is willing, but the body is weak', and I tried to swallow with my dry mouth.
'Water, please, for the love of god, get me water.' I said, feeling like the inside of my mouth was textured like an extremely dry towel.
I heard Jamie stomp off down the cottages stairs, taking them two of three steps at a time like he usually did, and within seconds, he was handing me a large glass of water in a pint glass. Sitting up, I gulped down the whole glass in a matter of seconds.
'Thank you.' I muttered gratefully, pulling myself into sitting position and pulling off the dress.
I heard Jamie splutter in shock, and I fixed him with a narrow eyed angry stare. 'You saw me in a bikini yesterday Jamie, it's practically the same thing.' I said gesturing to my strapless black bra and matching black lace pants.
Jamie held his hands up in surrender and rushed to help me undo the clasp of my fairy necklace, which I struggled with and I sank back in bed once again, breathing heavily as though I had run a marathon.
'I need a bath.' I said, sniffing my arm and grimacing.
Jamie smiled slowly, 'Need a hand?' He offered waggling his fingers, and I could at most smile at him.
'Normally, I would throw something at you for saying that, but I'm so hung over that I'm actually considering it.' I replied in a quiet voice, even talking was painful.
Jamie swallowed audibly and I laughed, even though it hurt. 'Ok Romeo, help me into the bathroom.' I said, holding out one arm for him to take.
Wordlessly, he pulled me up to standing position and I staggered to the bathroom, turning on the hot water in my bath and reaching up to undo my bra. It was only then that I remembered that Jamie was still in the room, again another testament to how hung over I was, and I turned to look at him over my shoulder.
'Jamie, could you wait outside the door, and talk to me?' I asked, not feeling well enough to do a wiggle and strip tease, and Jamie nodded, tearing his eyes away from my bare back and backside suddenly, and scratching his head.
He spun around on his heel and marched towards the door, sitting to the right of the entrance to the bathroom and with his back against the doorway. My bath was to the right of the door, so Jamie and I would be sitting with our backs to the same wall. I pulled off my underwear and submerged myself in the bath, only stopping the water when it hit chin level.
'What happened last night?' I asked, soaping up my hair with my coconut shampoo.
'All I know was that I was out for a run, and I happened to pass the main gate and see your friend Sloane arguing with Tom, the guard on gate duty with all her obvious skill.' He sounded admiring and, I fought a jealous wave.
'She is magnificent.' I said in reply, striving to keep my tone light.
'No, what was magnificent was her challenging a thirty year old, six foot five, retired army captain to an arm wrestle to get you inside. Tom seemed less interested in arm wrestling, than actually wrestling Sloane, preferably naked I'd assume.' Jamie's voice was tinged with laughter, and I grinned, giggling along.
'She then interrupted her argument when she caught sight of me through the trees, with alarmingly good night vision by the way, and shouted for the 'Prince man' to come and make Tom open the door. Tom nearly had a heart attack when I came out through the trees, but he opened the door easy enough, and Sloane deposited you into my arms. She then kept smiling at me, threatened to cut my balls off and said that I needed to talk to my parents, as she would be ordering one of me to be her, and I quote her, 'Christmas Present'. Meeting her feels like being in a car accident and waking up not remembering what happened.'
We both laughed before falling silent for a moment, and I wondered if we were thinking of the same thing. I was thinking that after seeing Sloane, there was no way that Jamie would be interested in me. I was thinking that if they ended up together, that my heart would break into a million pieces.
Eventually, I broke the silence, harking back to the beginning of his recollection. 'You must have been up very early.' I said frowning and thinking about what time we had set off for the estate. It had been half past one in the morning when we had left Sloane's house, and I vaguely remember picking up some hitch hiker, and there being a bunny in the car, but that could still be the space cake hitting my system.
'I couldn't sleep, so I decided to start my run early that morning.' Jamie replied sounding a little self conscious and I couldn't figure out why exactly.
'Was that my fault?' I asked, meaning was my phone call the reason for his interrupted sleep, but I quickly figured out that it could have been construed that I was asking if thoughts of me had been keeping him awake.
'Yes.' Was Jamie's simple reply, and to my shame, I was too much of a chicken to ask which one he was saying yes to.
The comfortable familiar silence filled the gap between where we sat, as if we were both lost in thought. A sudden memory from the night before and I groaned.
'Did you just remember something from your big night out?' Jamie asked, and I briefly submerged my head under the water, letting out a scream. Trust Jamie to know me in and out.
'I'm just recollecting meeting Liam and his very pleasant girlfriend at Sloane's party last night.'
Jamie winced, the sound carrying into the bathroom. 'Whatever happened between you two?'
I sighed, where to begin? 'We started going out about a year ago at school. I liked him, he was very popular, but he never treated me like an outcast because I wasn't rich, or titled. That was, until we got together and eventually it seemed like everything I did annoyed him or reminded him that we were 'different breeds', that's his words, not mine.' I lowered my head in shame, blisteringly angry with myself for staying with him for as long as I had.
'You are different breeds, and yours is significantly superior to that shitbags's.' Jamie said, his voice soft with sympathy, but with a burning rage simmering underneath.
'What about you? Did I miss any spectacularly bad exes?' I asked, curious about the three years we had been apart. Jamie had always kept that aspect of his life private, even from me. When he got his first girlfriend I had to hear about it through Andrew. Even when he called me at school, and listened unhappily to me wax lyrical about Liam, he never spoke about his own love life.
Jamie let out a short, humourless laugh. 'Which one? There was Tabitha, who was so obsessed with being married that she bought herself a ring and started leaving it in my underwear drawer, under Cash's saddle, in my shower- you name it. There was also Clarissa, who threatened to kill my mother's dogs if I broke up with her.'
Queen Sophia's exquisitely bred and trained German Pointers were her pride and joy. Jamie had often joked about his mother loving her dogs more than him, and definitely more than Richard.
'Ouch.' I replied simply, shocked that Jamie was talking so openly about this. 'How did I never hear about this?'
I could practically see Jamie in my mind's eye, scratching his golden blonde curls back from his forehead, making the face that he uses when he's not sure how to explain something.
'I didn't want to worry you. None of the girls I went out with were ever going to end up being serious, and I didn't want to introduce you to someone who could potentially make your life hard.' Jamie spoke slowly, as if trying to insure that he was choosing the perfect words.
'I get that, but you shouldn't have to suffer alone.' I said, rubbing conditioner into the ends of my long hair. My bathwater was now considerably cooling, and I wouldn't be able to seek refuge in it for much longer, but I didn't want to leave the momentum of truthful sharing that Jamie and I had right then.
'It was ok, I had Andrew. Besides, you had enough on your plate, like I said; none of these girls were serious.' Jamie's voice was soft and though I tried to avoid asking the obvious question, the words shot out through my mouth like a flume of smoke.
'How did you know that none of them were serious?'
Love is a tricky thing, especially when you're young. For at least six months, I imaged Liam and I, to be together forever, raising curly brown haired children in the countryside. That was until I found out he was a massive cheater and a terrible person.
There was radio silence from Jamie, and I rolled over, peaking over the edge of my bath to see if he was still there. One shoulder was pressed against the doorway, his golden hair pressed against the wood near the door hinge.
'Because, I always knew who I was going to end up with.' He replied simply, looking over his shoulder at me.
For a second, we stared at each other. It must have looked ridiculous. The Crown Prince of England sitting outside the maid's tatty, small bathroom, looking at her small, pale face peaking over the edge of the bath, but for that second, none of that mattered. Nothing mattered. It was as though the world had stopped spinning, and I realised I had been holding my breath.
I let it out in one long gust, and Jamie searched my face, catching my eyes with his molten gaze, tracing the line of my nose and stopping to lingeringly map out the shape of my lips with his stare.
I wasn't exactly sure of what to do; I knew that my breath was coming in quick bursts, which if I'm honest, were more like pants. I knew that there were parts of me in the rapidly cooling water which felt like they were on fire, and were reacting in a much more dramatic way from just Jamie's stare, than all of Liam's touches.
Jamie was still staring, but he had began to stand slowly, looking mesmerizingly beautiful, a figure of tall, lean masculinity, a fire which threatened to burn all around it. I stared up at him, still not sure what to do, I knew I was over thinking things, but I didn't seem to be able to stop. I wasn't brazenly confident enough to just stand up, and reveal myself to him. I shivered, but it wasn't because I was cold.
A shrill ringing sang out from my bedroom, and I would bet all of my meagre life savings, that it was Sloane. Jamie and I didn't move, still staring wordlessly at each other, and the phone stopped ringing, for about five seconds before starting again.
I shook my head, as if wakening from a day dream, and I smiled shortly at Jamie. 'She's just going to keep ringing if I don't answer.'
Jamie nodded firmly, scrubbing his mouth with his hand, rubbing his fingers over his stubbled jaw. He disappeared for a minute, before returning with my phone. He stood at the door, unsure how to go about giving my phone to me, I gestured for him to turn around with my finger, and he spun around on the spot so quickly, he thwacked his head off the wall behind him.
'Oww.' I heard him mutter, and rub his forehead with his hands.
Smiling, I pulled my large bath towel off the rack, and wrapped myself from shoulder to the tips of my toes in the soft fabric, wearing it as if it were a cloak of protection. I walked over to Jamie, my damp hair making my head feel cool, and honestly, it was probably exactly what I needed. I walked over to a still turned around Jamie, and rested my hand very gently on the middle of his back.
He breathed in suddenly then, as if he had been holding it in and turned slowly, one hand out to give me my phone. I took my phone in his, my breath hitching when his finger ran down my palm, making it feel as though I had just been branded.
'I better go.' Jamie said, with an unreadable expression on his face.
I nodded, 'I'll see you later. I'm on late duty today.' I replied, with a small smile, which Jamie readily returned, leaning down to kiss me on the forehead. When his lips pressed down on me, I leaned in, breathing his crisp minty smell, closing my eyes, which was then interrupted by Sloane calling me, again.
I looked down at my phone, and pushed left to pick up Sloane's call.
'What?' I asked trying not to sound terse with her, it wasn't her fault that she interrupted me eye fucking my best friend. Jamie gave me a quick wave and jumped down the stairs of the cottage, and within seconds, I heard the door click closed.
'Well someone's cheery today. Who pissed in your cornflakes princess?' Sloane asked, sounding as bright and as chipper as ever.
'Sorry, I'm just super hung over.' I said, walking into my bedroom and flinging myself down heavily on my bed.
'I'm not surprised. I try to warn you in the car not to drink that bottle of hooch, but you literally cried until I gave it back to you.'
'Wait, I was drinking in the car?' I couldn't remember much from the car, only that I had had a ridiculous dream about bunnies and hitch hikers.
'Yeah, you stole Ritchie's bottle of hooch. He was pretty cool about it all in all, I think you won him over by singing Cher's 'do you believe' at him.'
'Wait, who's Ritchie?' I asked getting very vague flashbacks of a twenty something year old man in the town car and serenading him with catchy electro pop.
I heard a hissing meow of a cat in the background, and a high pitched scream. 'Laurie, I told you not to touch her.' Sloane said to her most recent one night stand, and I heard her reply with a crying wail. Sloane cut across the woman's pained cries with a loving coo directed at the fluffy agent of death, Ratchet Face.
'Sloane.' I said, as a gentle reminder to tell her to continue with her recollection of the previous night, and to stop babying the most evil cat in the world.
'Oh yeah, he just this random man that we picked up in London, we dropped him off just before we got to the palace. He's touring the country with his rabbit, Roger.' Sloane's breezy voice talked about picking up a strange man as if she were discussing something so banal, like the different shades of white paint.
I rolled my eyes. I wasn't even going to question why, knowing Sloane like I did, I doubted I would get any answers.
'So, I heard you met Jamie.' I said simply, lying back on my bed and staring up at the glow in the dark stars which still decorated the ceiling in my room.
I heard Sloane's playful growl come down the line. 'He is so much better looking in the flesh, if that's at all possible. Those eyes, that hair, that jaw. Swoon. I can see why you're smitten.' Sloane said her voice light and teasing and once again I felt the unfamiliar burn of jealousy in my chest.
'I'm not smitten.' My tone was defensive, and straight away I felt guilty for jumping down her throat, but Sloane just laughed, a husky honeyed sound with her seductive voice.
'Oh I see- it's like that is it? It's not like you called Jamie at my party when you were drunk and paranoid, something you never did with Liam, by the way, and you definitely didn't talk about him all the way home, or look at him like a deer in headlights, when he came storming out of the dark woods and swung you into his arms, officer and a gentleman style.'
My cheeks burned as Sloane recollected the night with alarming precision. That was her party trick, she could get absolutely tanked on anything and everything, yet remember everything that happened, her recollections while sober where nowhere near as good as her drunken memory.
'And then, there was the kiss.' I stopped breathing for a second.
'Kiss?' My voice was barely more than a whisper.
'I don't even know if you could call it a kiss, it was like watching a volcano erupting, or a bush fire. I can picture it all now, you all small in Jamie's large, muscular arms, staring up at him like he hung the moon, blinking those huge doe eyes of yours. Honestly, if I put my hand in between your two gazes, it would have caught on fire.' Sloane gushed, and I groaned.
'Wait, did I kiss him, or did he kiss me?' My voice was high and squeaky, sounding more like a quickly deflating balloon than my normal low pitch.
Sloane chuckled under her breath. 'It was a mixture of both. You pulled his head down, and he followed, so technically you both were to blame. It was pretty sexy, if you weren't like a sister to me, I'd have jumped in.' I honestly didn't doubt it, Sloane, like Andrew had a healthy and proactive opinion surrounding sex. If Sloane wanted to do it, she would, regardless of gender. When a rag of a newspaper ran an article stating that she was easy, and a whore, Sloane rang up the 'journalist' responsible, and asked her would she say the same about a man in the same situation.
'Alright, calm down.' I said simply, too shocked to even touch upon the whole Sloane potential threesome thing. 'I can't believe he didn't say something this morning.'
'How did you see him this morning?' Sloane asked her voice eluding something less than honourable happening between us.
'Calm down you hussy, I woke up fully clothed. I was in no state to even contemplate that last night.' I said, and now that I was soberer, I did contemplate it. I imagined what could have happened if I hadn't been as drunk as a sailor on leave.
Things were getting hot and heavy in my mind when Sloane spoke again.
'He's a good guy, Tess. Literally, the whole time he looked at you if you were the most precious thing in the world. I think initially, he came over to the car because he heard me arguing with that absolute wanker of a guard, but the minute he saw that you were with me, he would have broken those gates down with his bare hands to get to you.'
I stopped listening then, barely registering Sloane discussing the bang-ability of Tom, the guard on duty last night. I was so shell shocked, that I couldn't even conjure up Tom's face in my mind, and I had known him for at least five years. I relentlessly checked my fuzzy memory, trying to recollect anything. I couldn't, and that disappointed me more than anything, truly, I think not remembering this kiss was more devastating than realising that Liam had cheated on me.
'I cannot believe we kissed.' I said my voice still sounding incredibly shocked. I had interrupted whatever monologue Sloane had been waxing on about, and I heard her laugh.
'You smooched, there was even tongue. You were in his arms like an actual fairy princess. I'm not a romantic, but fuck me, if that ever happened, ideally I'd be over thirty five, having gained success as a singer under my own merit and having already slept with all the beautiful people, I would just lie down and die of happiness. I mean, again, ideally he would be into and open relationship, be some kind of rugged man who had never even heard of my dad, or-'
'Sloane.' I cut off one of my best friend's waffle with her name said in a choked voice.
'Sorry, I just realised that I definitely was not helping just there. Look, you like him, he obviously adores you, so I don't understand why either of you are holding back.'
I sighed, remembering that my wet, unbrushed hair was rapidly drying and if I didn't brush it soon, it would turn into a frizzy mess. Picking up my brush on my dresser, I attacked my curling long hair with all the frustrated aggression that I felt.
'Sloane, I'm a maid, I'm penniless and I have no title. Also, the media would have a field day if the future King of England married the housekeeper. No scratch that, I'm not even high enough to be a housekeeper, I'm just a maid. Plus, how will I ever get my foot in the door and be taken seriously as a designer, when it eventually comes out that I'm the maid who slept with a prince. I'll never live a normal life.'
I heard Sloane blow out a raspberry between her lips. 'What if it doesn't come out?' She asked, and her voice was deadly serious now. I heard her lover call out her name, and I could just imagine her now, pointing a terse finger asking for one minute, in a no nonsense way. She was also highly likely to be sick of them already.
I tried to think of a reason why, and I faltered, unable to say why. It took me too tries to say something. 'Because, being with Jamie in that way and ruining our friendship forever may be the worst thing I can think of.' I said simply. I wasn't saying that I was madly in love with him or anything. I loved him, yes; I loved him in a way that no one else would ever match up. I loved him because I yearned to talk to him all the time, if anything happened; he was the first one I would turn to.
And if being with him ruined that, that steady dependable friendship, I would feel as though something in me was irreparably broken.
Sloane whistled lowly under her breath, and the line went silent for a minute. 'Sometimes, you just have to take a blind leap and hope it all works out for the best.'
I let out a short, laugh. 'Sloane, you once made your boyfriend eat the flowers he bought you for Valentine's Day. I have literally seen you make men cry because they have been romantic. What about Todd? Who took you on that boat ride in Stratford-Upon-Avon, and you called him a 'big girl's blouse, who had nipples the size and shape of a fifty pence piece', and he jumped out of the boat in protest?'
Sloane laughed. 'I forgot about Todd, I wonder what he and his nipples are doing these days.'
I cackled along with her, feeling bad for Todd, but having the same 'he should have known better' mentality, that people have for drink drivers who crash.
'Besides Tess, you're a romantic girl. You love romance. When Liam tried to sell you his half arsed attempts, you took it gratefully, just happy to be the focus of romance. You loved every stupid, stolen bunch of wildflowers that he used to try and make you forget about him and Isobel, Grace, Francesca, Muffy even Gabby.'
She did have a point there.
I heard the plaintive cry of Sloane's one night stand down the phone again, this one sounded desperate, and she breathed out in frustrated agitation.
'I'm on the phone to my best friend. If you can't wait, you can leave.' Sloane hissed, and I heard some muffled arguing, as if her hand covered the receiver, before a sudden bang of a door slamming closed.
'Thank god she's gone. Why do I always pick the clingy hotties'? Where are the 'another notch on my belt' guys and gals?' Sloane laughed in relieved tittering giggles.
I rolled my eyes for what must have been the thirtieth time during the phone call. Sloane mesmerised people. Between her tall, curving slopes of a figure, sparkling golden amber eyes and wide, glinting smile, she was mischievous, spontaneous and charming. Sloane Parker was the sun, and all of these beautiful people were Icarus, they thought they could reach her, but before they knew it, they were lying crumpled on the ground.
Even teachers weren't immune, and I know for a fact that when we were in our final year, Sloane had slept with the trainee English teacher and he had given her an A for every test, to the degree that when she walked out of her A-levels with a D-, the school smelled a rat.
'Sloane, I'm not going to talk to you about your ample list of lovers. I have to get to work at some stage today.' I muttered, pulling on a pair of knickers while holding my phone up to my ear, which resulted in me falling and whacking my knee off the edge of my chest of drawers. I howled and swore down the line, and I heard Sloane whoop and cheer.
'Can we just get back to the kiss?' I asked through gritted teeth, vigorously rubbing my knee in a last ditch attempt to make the shooting pain go away.
'Well, all I can say is, Jamie swung you up into his arms, and you just stared at each other for at least fifteen seconds, before kissing so passionately, that I'm ruined forever, and then you stroked his face in wonder for another minute while he talked to the guard and me, and then you promptly fell asleep again. It was quite cute actually, you were snoring in his arms and-'.
'I don't snore.' I said defensively, cutting off Sloane, who laughed uproariously.
'Oh honey, I shared a room with you for three years, you sound like a broken tractor. You're lucky though, the tractor snore didn't start, and instead it was little purring snores, like a noise a kitten makes. Jamie kept smiling down at you and kissing you on the forehead.' Sloane actually sounded like she was swooning.
My face literally burned, I don't know if it was the sheer romance of the situation with my best friend, or if it was because apparently I sound like a broken chainsaw while asleep.
Either way, my mind was filled with imagining this kiss, and I could think of little else. I didn't listen to Sloane talk about her most recent fling, or about the in-depth discussion that she and Ratchet Face had had, when she had eaten another space cake.
'Tess!' Came Sloane's roaring voice down the phone and I jumped, promptly dropping it.
I waited a couple of seconds before picking up my inexpensive phone off the wooden floor. 'Sloane, I have to go, I've got some work to do here and then I'm on dinner duty.' I said and I heard her Sloane sigh down the line.
'You have to promise that you'll come out and play with me again, sooner rather than later.' I laughed in reply and hung up the phone, throwing it down heavily on my bed.
I dressed in my spare uniform; unable and unwilling to find my other one, which was hiding somewhere in a laundry pile around the house. It was tighter and slightly shorter than my newer black dress, falling around three inches around my knees. With the regulation black sheer tights and flat black shoes, it wouldn't be too noticeable, plus I seriously doubted that anyone would be looking at me. I tied my hair back in a long plait, gathering all my thick dark hair into one manageable pile and highlighting just how pale my face was.
Busying myself, I sat down on my designing table, pulling out the sheets of burgundy silk that I had ordered for my dress, and pulling over my dummy, I began to work on my dream dress, and pushed all thoughts of Jamie and our kiss out of my mind.
Well, most of the thoughts.
done "S