“Just put them back,” says Lorcan decisively.
“But where?” I look around the tables of smartly dressed beautiful people, all enjoying the band, oblivious to my agitation. “I don’t know whose key is whose, and I can’t find out without going to the front desk.”
“Here’s the plan,” says Lorcan decisively. “We’ll scatter them around the room like Easter eggs. Everyone’s watching the band. No one’ll notice.”
“But how will we know whose key is whose? They’re identical!”
“We’ll guess. We’ll use our psychic powers. I’ll take half,” he adds, and starts grabbing key cards out of the wallet.
Slowly, cautiously, we get to our feet. The lights are dim and the band is playing a Coldplay song, and no one turns a hair. Lorcan walks authoritatively toward the bar, leans slightly to his left, and deposits a key card on a bar table.
“Sorry,” I hear him say charmingly. “Lost my balance.”
Following his lead, I approach another group, pretend to look at a light fitting, and drop three cards down onto the mirrored surface of the table. The sound of them landing is covered by the band, and no one even notices.
Lorcan is planting cards on the main long bar, moving along quickly, deftly reaching between bar stools and behind backs.
“You dropped this, I think?” he says, as a girl turns a questioning face to him.
“Oh, thank you!” She takes the card from him, and my insides curdle. I am half appalled and half delighted at what feels like the most massive prank. There’s no way that’s the key to her room. There are going to be some very angry guests later on.…
Now Lorcan is up near the stage, leaning right over a blond lady and blatantly flipping a key card onto her table. He meets my eye and winks at me, and I want to laugh. I get rid of my remaining cards as quickly as I can and hurry back to Noah, who is now fully asleep. I summon a waiter and quickly scribble a signature on our bill, then hoist Noah into my arms and wait for Lorcan to join us.
“If I’m found out, my name will be mud,” I murmur.
“In Bulgaria,” points out Lorcan. “Population 7.5 million. That’s like your name being mud in Bogotá.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want my name to be mud in Bogotá either.”
“Why not? Maybe it is already. Have you been to Bogotá?”
“Yes, as it happens,” I inform him. “And I can tell you, my name is not mud there.”
“Maybe they were being polite.”
This conversation is so ridiculous, I can’t help smiling.
“Come on, then. Let’s escape before we get attacked by angry key holders.”
As we walk out of the bar, Lorcan holds out his arms.
“I’ll carry Noah if you like. He looks heavy.”
“Don’t worry.” I smile automatically. “I’m used to it.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s not heavy.”
“Well … OK.”
It feels odd, handing over Noah to Lorcan. But the truth is, I do have a dodgy shoulder and it is a bit of a relief. We reach our suite and Lorcan carries Noah straight to his bed. He’s so sound asleep, he doesn’t stir. I remove his shoes but nothing else. He can clean his teeth and put his pajamas on tomorrow night, if he wants to.
I turn off Noah’s light and head to the door, and for a moment Lorcan and I stand there together, for all the world like two parents.
“So,” says Lorcan at last, and a luscious anticipation starts to grow within me again. I can feel an internal limbering-up, that little dance of muscles yearning to be used. I’m doing better than Lottie on the shag front flashes through my mind, giving me a pinch of guilt—but only a small one. It’s all for the best. She can have another honeymoon, another time.
“Drink?” I say, not because I really want one but to prolong the moment. This suite is the perfect setting for a shag-fest, what with all the smoky, sexy mirrors and soft, sensual rugs and the (fake) open fire flickering in the grate. There are also several conveniently placed pieces of furniture, which I’ve already eyed up.
When I’ve poured Lorcan a whiskey, I sit down with my own glass of wine on an amazing creation of a chair. It’s made of deep-purple velvet, with wide rolltop arms and a deep seat and an erotic swoop to its back. I’m hoping that I strike quite a figure as I lean provocatively on one of the arms and allow my dress to ruck up. There’s a delectable, urgent pulsing deep inside me. But, still, I’m not going to hurry anything. We can talk first. (Or just stare at each other with desperate want. Also good.)
“I wonder what Ben and Lottie are up to.” Lorcan breaks the silence. “Presumably not …” He shrugs significantly.
“No.”
“Poor guys. Whatever you think, it’s the worst luck for them.”
“I guess,” I say noncommittally, and sip my wine.
“I mean, no sex on your honeymoon.”
“Terrible.” I nod. “Poor them.”
“And they’d waited, hadn’t they?” His face crinkles in remembrance. “Jesus. You’d think they’d shag in the loos and just have done with it.”
“They tried, but they got caught.”
“No way.” He looks at me, startled. “You serious?”
“At Heathrow. In the business-class lounge.”
Lorcan throws back his head and roars with laughter. “I’m going to rib Ben about that. So your sister fills you in on everything, does she? Even her sex life?”
“We’re pretty close.”
“Poor girl. Foiled even in the Heathrow loos. It’s the worst luck.”
I don’t answer at once. The wine I’m drinking is stronger than the stuff I drank downstairs and it’s going to my head. It’s tipping me over the edge. My head is a bit of a maelstrom. Lorcan keeps talking about “bad luck,” but he’s wrong. Luck has nothing to do with it. Ben and Lottie have not consummated their marriage because of me. Because of my power. And suddenly I feel the urge to share this with him.
“Not so much luck …” I let the word trail in the air and, sure enough, Lorcan picks up on it at once.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not chance that Ben and Lottie haven’t done it yet. It’s design. My design. I’ve been in charge of the whole thing.” I lean back proudly, feeling like the queen of remote-control honeymoon-fixing, all-powerful in my empress’s chair.
“What?” Lorcan looks so taken aback, I feel another twinge of pride.
“I have an agent helping me on the ground,” I clarify. “I issue commands, he carries them out.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Agent?”
“A member of staff at the hotel. He’s been making sure that Ben and Lottie don’t get it together till I get there. We’ve been acting as a team. And it’s worked! They haven’t.”
“But how— What—” He rubs his head, baffled. “I mean, how do you stop a couple from having sex?”
God, he’s slow.
“Easy. Mess with their beds, spike their drinks, stalk them everywhere they go … Then there was the peanut-oil massage—”
“That was you?” He looks thunderstruck.
“It was all me! I orchestrated everything!” I produce my phone and wave it at him. “It’s all in here. All the texts. All the instructions. I managed it all.”
There’s a long silence. I’m waiting for him to say how brilliant I am, but he looks stunned.
“You sabotaged your own sister’s honeymoon?” There’s something about his expression which makes me feel a little uneasy. Also the word “sabotaged.”
“It was the only way! What else was I supposed to do?” Something about this conversation is going wrong. I don’t like his expression, or mine. I know I appear defensive, which is not a good look. “You do understand I had to put a stop to it? Once they’ve consummated it, it’ll be too late for an annulment. So I had to do something. And this was the only way—”