The Morning After the Night Before: Love & Lust in the city that never sleeps! by Nikki Logan Read Free Book Online Page B

evening to pan out.’
    â€˜You and me both, Poppy.’
    â€˜I can totally see it,’ Tori announced. ‘He was too cute. And that accent…sigh.’
    â€˜If I didn’t know how clever you were, Toz, I’d be shaking my head now.’
    â€˜What?’ She shrugged. ‘I just appreciate pretty things. So, was he purely ornamental or was he any good?’
    Insane heat flooded up from under Izzy’s T-shirt.
    â€˜We’ll take that as a yes.’ Poppy grinned.
    â€˜I’m not comfortable talking about this.’
    â€˜You started it,’ Poppy pointed out reasonably.
    â€˜I mean I’m not comfortable talking about the…details.’
    â€˜I’m sure Prince Harry isn’t similarly constrained this morning.’
    No. He wouldn’t be. Something told her one-night stands came much more naturally to him.
    â€˜Look at it this way, Iz,’ Tori started. ‘Do you have feelings for him?’
    â€˜Not good ones,’ she muttered.
    â€˜Did he treat you well when you were his employee?’
    He’d treated her with the same under-informed judgement she’d battled all her youth. ‘Not overly.’
    â€˜Did he ever donate a kidney to you?’
    An eyebrow lift was better than an answer. Not that Tori was waiting for one.
    â€˜And do you ever plan on seeing him again?’
    â€˜Absolutely not.’
    â€˜Then you owe him nothing, least of all your confidence.’
    And that was why Izzy had been Tori’s friend since sixth form, when she’d first arrived at Trenton as a scholarship entry. Unassailable logic, no matter how disguised beneath the crazy hair.
    â€˜I guess not.’
    â€˜So spill!’
    She glanced between her two best friends, opened her mouth for a mute heartbeat and then just let the words tumble. All about how good Harry had been. All about how feminine she’d felt when she was in his arms and how forbiddenit all was. How she should have done the whole one-night-stand thing long before now, and how she would categorically not be doing it again. About how she was still secretly thrumming from his touch and more than a little sore in more than a few places.
    About what a jerk he was.
    The girls listened intently, exclaimed or squeezed her arm in the right places and generally fulfilled their obligations under the universal BFF contract.
    â€˜So Mitchell sucks in the office but rocks it in bed,’ Tori summarised.
    â€˜Pretty much.’
    â€˜Well, context is everything,’ Poppy rationalised. ‘And clearly he comes into his own one-on-one.’
    My wordy lordy, yes.
    Until he spoke.
    Ignite’s maître d’, Marco, swung by their table to check on their breakfasts and chatted for a few moments. But the impatience stamped clearly on their three faces soon sent him drifting professionally off to be charming to someone else.
    â€˜So…I saw a few half-hearted circles in thepositions vacant section of yesterday’s paper,’ Poppy nudged. ‘Anything interesting?’
    â€˜Plenty of jobs if I want to do the same thing I’ve been doing for years.’
    â€˜And you don’t?’
    Nope. Not even a little bit. ‘Time for something new.’
    â€˜Out of finance?’
    â€˜I still love numbers but…not in finance, if you get my meaning.’
    â€˜I totally do,’ Tori sighed. ‘I’m the queen of in but not in.’
    Izzy and Poppy exchanged a worried glance. But Tori would talk about Mark when she was ready. And the rapid way she kept the conversation galloping onwards said that she wasn’t yet.
    She sat up straighter, as if that would help the unwanted attention slide right off her, and spoke. ‘What did you imagine yourself doing when you were a kid?’
    Izzy didn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about her childhood. When she did it tended to bubble over with PTSD memories of her parents’ water-saving