Check-in is efficient. The woman behind the desk is friendly and professional, and she gives me two key cards and directions to the conference wing and the ballroom where the gala is tomorrow night. I nod and take the keys and head for the elevator with Ray trailing behind me carrying both bags, becauseapparently that's just what he does now and I've stopped fighting it.
The suite is on the fourth floor. I swipe the key card, push the door open, and stop.
It's beautiful. A sitting area with leather armchairs and a gas fireplace. A kitchenette. A balcony overlooking the mountains. And in the center of the room, dominating the space like a declaration of war, one enormous king-sized bed with a white duvet and approximately nine hundred pillows.
One bed.
"Huh," Ray says behind me.
"No." I walk in and set my key card on the counter and stare at the bed like it personally offended me. "No, this isn't right. I booked a suite. Suites have separate sleeping areas."
"I think this is the suite." Ray walks past me and sets the bags down by the closet. He looks at the bed, looks at the sitting area, looks at the bed again. "There's a couch. I can take the couch."
"The couch is five feet long and you're six-one."
"I've slept on worse."
"That's not the point." I pull out my phone and dial the front desk. It rings twice before someone picks up.
"Front desk, how can I help you?"
"Hi, this is Miles Covington in room 412. There seems to be an error with our room. We were expecting a suite with two beds or a separate sleeping area."
"Let me check on that for you, Mr. Covington." A pause. Typing. "I'm showing that room 412 is a king suite, which is what was booked for your party. Unfortunately, with the conference, we're at full capacity this weekend. I don't have any rooms with double beds available."
"Nothing? You're completely full?"
"I'm afraid so. I can have a rollaway cot sent up if that would help?"
I look at the room. There's barely enough floor space for a rollaway between the bed and the fireplace. It would be like sleeping in a trench. "That won't be necessary. Thank you."
I hang up and stand there with my phone in my grip, staring at the bed.
"So," Ray says. He's sitting on the edge of it now, testing the mattress, because of course he is. "One bed."
"I'm aware."
"It's a big bed. It's a really big bed, actually. We could both sleep in it and not even touch."
The word touch hangs in the air between us, and I see the exact moment Ray realizes what he said. His face cycles through multiple expressions and then he clears his throat.
"I just mean it's not a big deal," he says. "We're both adults. We can share a bed."
The casual way he says it snaps the last thread holding me together — the implication that what happened on the plane was just two adults being adults, or the fact that he's sitting on the bed we're going to share tonight looking relaxed and loose while I'm standing here with my pulse hammering and my shoulder throbbing and my entire life feeling like it's made of wet paper.
"We're not both adults sharing a bed," I say, and my voice comes out sharper than I want it to. "You're my assistant. I'm your boss. We're at a work conference where my career is on the line, and we are not going to—" I stop myself. Close my eyes. Breathe. "This is a professional trip. What happened on the plane was a mistake, and it's not going to happen again. Do you understand?"
The room is very quiet. The fireplace clicks and hums.
Ray looks at me for a long time. He doesn't look hurt, exactly. He looks like he's seeing what I'm trying to hide and deciding whether to point it out.
"Yeah," he says finally. "I understand."
"Good."
"It was just a bed, Miles. That's all I was talking about."
He says it gently, and the gentleness makes it worse, because he's right. He was talking about the bed. I'm the one who made it about the plane. I'm the one who just admitted, out loud, that I can't share it with him without it being a problem.