“An’ don’t humor me, either,” she mumbled. “Oh, now, what’s this happy crappy?” Because now she was being undressed and helped off the bed. “Look, stop this! Isn’t there an ice bucket or a hammer or something in here? All you have to do is hit me in the head really hard, and my problems will be over.”

“You’ll feel better in twenty-four hours!” the woman in red screamed.

“Jesus, do I have to get out the hand puppets so you people understand? Not so loud! And I’ll be dead—dead—in twenty-four hours, thank you very much, and—where are we going?”

The bathroom. Specifically, the bathtub. She started to protest that a change of temperature in her state would kill her, but the lukewarm water felt so blissful she stopped in mid-squawk.

And that was all. For a very long time.

Giselle woke up and knew two things at once: 1) she would burst if she didn’t get to a bathroom within seconds and 2) she was ravenous.

She stumbled through the darkness into the bathroom, availed herself of the facilities for what felt like half a day, and brushed her teeth with the new toothbrush she found on the counter.

While she swished and gargled and spat, the day’s humiliating events came back to her. Working the bell, meeting Alec, being wined and dined—and God, he’d been flirting with her!—then throwing up on him (groan) and the table tipping away from her.

Everything after that was, as they say, a blur. Mercifully so. She wondered where Alec was. She wondered where she was.

She stepped back into the hotel room—Alec’s hotel room—and stole to the window. She saw an astonishing view of the New England Aquarium and, beyond that, Boston harbor. It was very late—after midnight but well before dawn; the sky was utterly black, but there was little traffic moving.

So she was on the wharf, then. Probably the Longwharf Marriott. She’d often wondered, walking by, what it would be like to stay there with someone glorious.

Well, now she knew.

She turned to look for the light and saw Alec for the first time. He was sitting in the chair by the door, watching her. His eyes gleamed at her from the near dark.

She screamed and would have fallen out the window if it had been open. As it was, she rapped her head a good one on the glass.

“Yes, a typical date in nearly every respect,” he said by way of greeting.

“And a good evening to you, too, dammit!”

“Morning, actually.”

“You scared the crap out of me.” When she’d first seen him—it was a trick of the light, obviously—but his eyes had…well, had seemed to gleam in the dark, the way a cat’s did at night. Very off-putting, to say the least. “Your eyes—Jesus!”