Interests of Conflict

My eyes snap open.

And I immediately tense when the arm resting on my hip moves — slow and deliberate — up and around my waist, pulling me backward into a body that is warm and hard and very much there.

I go completely still.

What the hell?

How much did I actually have to drink last night? Because this right here — waking up pressed against a stranger's very firm, very muscular body — is exactly why I don't do sweet, fruity drinks. They're sneaky. They slide down like juice and then they have you going home with some random, albeit clearly in-shape, man. I can tell by the arm currently wrapped around my waist. That arm has no business being that defined at whatever age this man is.

Okay, Jacqueline. Think. How are you going to get out of this one?

I make my decision fast. I slide myself toward the edge of the bed in slow, careful inches, holding my breath with every movement, and then I use my arm to soften the drop. I land with a quiet thump onto what turns out to be a generous pile of pillows and a comforter that someone — me, probably, in whatever state I was in last night — had apparently dragged off the bed. Small mercies. I don't move for a moment, just lie there on the floor listening. A deep rumble comes from above me, and from my position I peek over the edge of the mattress to watch my host shift in his sleep without waking.

And from this particular vantage point, he is not a bad-looking man at all.

Dark, wavy hair generously threaded with silver, longer on top and tapered short on the sides in a cut that manages to look both polished and effortless. A beard, more salt than pepper, trimmed low and lined up with the kind of precision that suggested he took his grooming seriously. His mouth is wide, the bottom lip smooth and full and exactly the kind of mouth I have always appreciated. The top only slightly thinner. Strong, thick eyebrows over eyes I unfortunately cannot recall the color of, because his eyes are closed and I am crouched on this man's floor like a thief in my own mess of a situation.

He mumbles something and rolls onto his back, and that is all the motivation I need.

I get moving. On my hands and knees across the hardwood floor, collecting evidence of last night like a woman at a crime scene. My bra is somehow on the lampshade. I retrieve it without comment. My panties are a few feet away near the foot of the bed. My silk blouse is draped over the arm of a chair in the corner, and my skirt is bunched near the closet door. I find one pump immediately. The other one is somewhere under the bed, and I am stretched out flat on my stomach, bare behind in the air, trying to fish it out quietly when I hear him clear his throat.

"Mio Dio." His voice is low, rough with sleep, and unmistakably amused. "Now that's a sight you don't wake up to every day."

I close my eyes. Humiliation washes over me in a full, warm wave.

I back out from under the bed, sit up on my haunches, and face him.

Green. His eyes are a stunning, deep emerald green, bright even in the morning light filtering through the curtains, and right now they are sparkling with the kind of amusement that a man has no business displaying before eight in the morning.

"Yes, well," I say, pushing my hair out of my face and clutching my collected items to my chest, "it's not a position I'm in every day either. I don't typically crawl around on my hands and knees in a stranger's bedroom."

The corner of his mouth lifts. His voice carries a slight Italian accent, warm and unhurried. "You were on your hands and knees last night, dolcezza. You didn't seem to mind then."

The heat that floods my face is immediate and total. I scramble to my feet as fast as my fifty-year-old knees will allow, which is not as fast as I would like. The room tilts just slightly — a gentle but pointed reminder that I should have stopped at one drink, two at the absolute maximum.

He sits up and leans back against the headboard, watching me with that infuriatingly relaxed expression. His hair is mussed, his jaw shadowed, one arm bent with his hand pillowed behind his head, bicep flexed, and he looks entirely too comfortable with this situation. I'm still holding my clothing against my chest like I'm shielding myself from him, which I suppose I am.

My heel is still missing.

I stare at him. He stares back. His smirk grows.

I turn my back to him and get dressed.

"Oh, why be shy now, cara?" he says behind me, and the amusement in his voice is barely contained. "You were every kind of bold and sassy last night. At the party. In the car. Definitely when I brought you home."

I button my silk blouse with my nose in the air. "I have absolutely no recollection of last night," I inform him coolly, "and if you'll excuse me, I will get out of your hair and be on my way."

And then the realization hits me like a slow, creeping catastrophe.

My purse. My phone. I have no idea where either of them are. More importantly, I have no idea where I am. I don't know this man's address. I can't call a ride share without my phone, and I can't direct a driver without an address, and I am standing in a stranger's bedroom in a wrinkled silk blouse with one shoe on and one shoe off and absolutely no plan.

I bow my head briefly and stare at the floor.

"Looking for your purse?" His voice carries that same steady, quiet amusement, but something else too — understanding, which somehow makes it worse. "I believe you left it in the front foyer. When we came through the door, you—"

"I did not," I cut him off before he can finish the sentence.

He pauses. Then, with infinite patience: "If you say so, dolcezza."

I don't actually know what I did. That's the honest truth of it. My memory of last night after the third drink is impressionistic at best — flashes of music, laughter, the warm smell of a crowded room, and then a vague sense of feeling more alive than I have in years. Five years, to be exact. Five years since my divorce, five years of keeping every wall firmly in place, and apparently it took one night at Henri's launch party and one too many fruity cocktails to dismantle all of that in spectacular fashion.

He moves to get out of bed, pushing the sheet aside. "Just give me a moment to get dressed and I'll drive you back to your car. You came home with me in mine."

"No," I say, hand up like I'm directing traffic. "That's okay. I'll call a ride share. Just text me the address, please and thank you."

I recite my number without looking at him. That is a deliberate choice, because I know he's naked under those sheets and I do not need that particular visual burned into my morning. I have enough to deal with.

He just chuckles.

Then he swings his legs off the side of the bed and stands up, and he stretches, and he is fully, completely, unapologetically naked.

My jaw drops.

The man is beautiful. There is no other word for it. Broad shoulders with clearly defined muscle, the kind built from actual use rather than performance. His chest is a work of art — dusted with dark hair that traces a trail south toward an impressive manhood that seems to take notice of my staring and begins to show it.

My eyes snap up to his face.

His eyes have gone dark, the green deepening into something molten and intent.

"You keep looking at me like that, dolcezza," he says, low and unhurried, "and I will have to think you don't really want to leave. That maybe you want a reminder of last night, yes?"

My head snaps back.

"Put some clothes on!" I snap, and I walk — I absolutely do not flee, I walk with great purpose and dignity — out of the bedroom door.

His laughter follows me down the hall, deep and rich and far too pleased with itself.

I find the front foyer without too much trouble. The house is large, clean lines and warm wood and expansive windows overlooking what I can now see is water — Lake Washington, maybe, the morning light playing off the surface in long, silver ribbons. Under different circumstances I might stop to appreciate it. Under these circumstances, I spot my purse on the entry table and dive for it like a lifeline.

I pull out my phone and see a text already waiting from an unsaved number. His address. He had texted it before I even asked again.

I schedule the ride share, and then I stand in the foyer with my arms crossed and my eyes fixed on the front door, willing the car to arrive faster than the estimated four minutes promised by the app.

He appears two minutes later. Barefoot. Gray sweatpants that sit low on his hips, a black ribbed tank top that leaves his arms and shoulders on full display, hair still mussed from sleep. He looks like something a very creative person dreamed up specifically to ruin a woman's morning resolve.

I stare at him for three full seconds before I remember myself.

He stops in the hallway and stares back, and something shifts in his expression — the amusement softening around the edges, something more serious moving underneath it.

"Dolcezza, you—"

"There's my ride!" I announce, because the car has just pulled up outside in what I choose to believe is divine intervention. "Thank you for — an evening."

It is the best I can do under the circumstances. I push out the front door before he can respond.

I do glance back once, from the bottom of the porch steps. He is standing in the doorway with one hand braced against the frame, watching me go. His expression is unreadable now, the humor gone and replaced with something quieter that I don't have the time or the emotional bandwidth to examine.

I climb into the back seat of the car.

"You okay, ma'am?" The young driver glances at me in the rearview mirror with visible concern, and I realize how this must look — a woman in yesterday's wrinkled clothes, one slightly scuffed pump, hair in open rebellion without its silk bonnet, breathing like she just escaped something.

My hands are actually shaking. I press them flat against my thighs and drag in a slow breath.

"I'm fine," I say. "I just need to get to my car."

He says nothing more. He earns his five stars in that moment.

As we pull away from the house, I lean my head back and close my eyes. The water is still visible through the window for another block or two, glittering in the early morning light, and somewhere back in that house a man with emerald green eyes and a smile like a slow-burning dare is probably standing in his kitchen making espresso, perfectly unbothered.

And I never got his name.

That lands with a quiet thud somewhere in my chest. Not guilt, exactly. Not regret. Just the strange, slightly hollow awareness that I walked out of that house — fled out of that house — and I don't even know what to call him. He doesn't know what to call me. We are two complete strangers who spent the night tangled together, and now we are nothing, and the morning sun is making everything feel a little too clear.

Five years of iron-clad discipline, and I unraveled it all in one night over fruity cocktails at my best friend's launch party.

I press my fingertips to my forehead and make a sound that is somewhere between a groan and a laugh.

The driver, to his eternal credit, keeps his eyes on the road.

Back at the venue parking lot, I thank him, confirm his five-star rating, and slide out of the car. My own car sits where I left it last night, patient and unjudging. I deactivate the locks on the driver's door and drop into the seat, gripping the wheel for a moment before I go anywhere.

Then I pull out my phone and call Henrietta.

She answers before the second ring with the energy of a woman who has been waiting.

"Why, you dirty old hoe!" she cackles, and I can picture her perfectly — feather mules on the glass desk, silk pajamas, mimosa in hand, relaxed hair smooth and gleaming — absolutely delighted with herself.

"Stop name-calling," I snap, putting the car in reverse, "and tell me what happened last night and why none of you stopped me."

"Girl, please." Her scoff is theatrical. "There was no stopping you. I knew it was a wrap the second you started going on about that interview with the sex therapist. Something about the length of a man's hand being equal to—"

"Henri."

"—his—"

"Henri."

"That man was taking you home, baby. It was already written."

I groan so deeply it comes from somewhere near my spine. "You, Lou, and Andi let me leave with a complete stranger. What happened to Chicks Before Dicks? He could have been dangerous. He could have been a serial killer, or a con artist, or a—"

"A butterfly catcher?" Henri offers, perfectly deadpan.

I pause. "I was going to say something worse but yes, my point stands. I don't even know his name, Henri. I left without asking his name."

There is a beat of silence. Then she makes a sound — half gasp, half delight — that tells me she finds this significantly more entertaining than she should.

"Honey," she says, voice dropping into that warm, dramatic alto she saves for her best material, "the man carried you out like you weighed absolutely nothing. It was romantic. Every woman in that room practically melted into the floor. Waitstaff had to come around with towels."

"Oh my God." I press a hand over my eyes at a red light. "Kill me now."

"You're welcome," Henri says warmly. "Now tell me everything."

I pull onto the highway toward home, the morning sun cutting long and bright across the windshield, and I decide that everything is going to require significantly more coffee than I currently have access to.

But somewhere behind me, on the shore of Lake Washington, a man with emerald green eyes is standing in a house I will never find again — and he doesn't know my name either.