I draw my lower lip between my teeth. This place definitely needs some personal touches. I feel like I’m staying in a hotel room. I pop open the door to the bathroom, finding a supply of fluffy white towels. The wallpaper is gray with a white floral print.
I take a picture and send it to Hadleigh with a note:
Look at the towels I get to use. Along with white sheets on the bed.
I grin. She always brings her own linens everywhere she goes—like a whole suitcase full of them. She’s the biggest germophobe I’ve ever met. In fact, if she were here right now?She’d be whipping out her antibacterial wipes and going over every surface that I might possibly touch.
Hadleigh Vanderburg is typing …
OMG NO. Please go buy fresh linens! Who knows what bodies those towels touched!!!
I burst out laughing and reply:
Hadleigh. They’ve been WASHED and DRIED. I’m sure anything disgusting has been killed.
She texts back:
You are making my matcha latte churn in my stomach.
I smile, then go get my suitcases and begin unpacking them. It still seems like I’ve checked in to a hotel instead of coming home, so it’s an odd feeling. I’ll get some decor pieces to try and make the space feel like mine, even if it’s with furniture and colors I wouldn’t pick out for myself. After I’ve got things put away, I take a long, hot shower that feels so good after a long flight.
I wrap myself up in a towel—unlike Hadleigh, I have no mortal fear of germs embedded in it—and open the closet door, trying to decide what to wear for this dinner/tour of London. Like how is he going to pull this off? Private dining rooms? Entering the restaurant through the back door? Will he wear a disguise? I mean, he’s Caleb Collings. People know who he is. And some people even know who I am. I don’t see how he’s going to do this, but I also know Caleb wouldn’t suggest anything that would put us at risk.
I flick through my clothing and decide to wear a pair of jeans and a strapless white peplum top with black polka dots on it. I turn on some music on my Spotify playlist—opting for some pop—and finish getting ready. Just as I’ve put on a swipe of peachy lip gloss, my phone vibrates on the countertop. I glance down and see that it’s Caleb:
Isla—normally I would come up to get you, but I won’t for obvious reasons. There’s a black Collings Motors SUV out front with blacked-out windows. My driver, Peter, is going to wait outside the car. Can’t wait to see you.
I grin and text him back:
I’m excited to see you, too. Although it’s a bit weird that one of the most famous drivers in the world isn’t going to drive me on our date, LOL.
Caleb Collings is typing …
Oh, one day I will—and you’ll need a crash helmet and to hang on for dear life when I take you on a hot lap.
Ooh, a hot lap! On some race weekends, guests are offered hot laps on the track in a sports car, driven by a professional driver. Sometimes they’re former race drivers, but every once in a while, a current driver will do it.
And I can’t imagine anything hotter than having Caleb drive me around the track.
I drop my phone in my purse and head out the door. Once I’m downstairs, I see the super-expensive SUV waiting for me, a driver standing at the back passenger door.
“Ms. Foley,” he says, opening the door. I find Caleb waiting inside for me.
With a picnic basket sitting down on the floor by his feet.
SWOON!
I take my seat, and Peter shuts the door behind me. I immediately drink him in. The dark hair. Strong jawline. The full, sensual lips and icy-blue eyes fringed by long inky eyelashes. He smells divine, that crisp citrus scent mingling with soap, and he’s wearing a black T-shirt. Caleb has some black corded necklaces around his sexy, muscled neck, and the familiar black and silver bracelets on his wrist.
He’s so damn hot.
I notice his eyes are flickering over me. The look of joy in his eyes—actually, the joy that has spread across his gorgeous face—is telling.
I know what is in his heart.
And it’s the exact same thing that is in mine.
The first thing Caleb does is reach for me, sliding a hand underneath my hair, his fingers cradling the back of my head. “Christ, Isla, I’ve missed you,” he says, drawing me closer. “So bloody much.”