“There was a mess that needed cleaning up in the communal room, sir.” He looks wary as he tells me, and guilt flares inside. Someone else suffering the consequences of my poor decisions. I should clear up that mess too.

Paulo disappears to find Rosa, and I continue with my search. I’m not familiar with the cleaning closet and isn’t that fucking obvious now. I can’t find shit. “Fuck’s sake,” I mutter.

“Since when have you become Mr. Domestic?”

I look over my shoulder and find Sarah. “Still talking to me, then?” I ask, returning to my search. “Where the fuck is the antibacterial stuff around here?”

Sarah nudges me out of the way and pulls down a bottle from the top shelf. “Need to cleanse yourself?” she asks, handing me the bottle.

She’s about as funny as the vomit all over the carpet outside my office. “Bite me,” I snap, squirting a bit in her hair before stalking off.

“Mr. Ward,” Rosa says, hurrying through the kitchens toward me. “Let me, let me.”

“It’s fine, Rosa. I can deal with it. You should get off home.”

She snatches the bottle from my hand, giving me a fierce look. “I do,” she snaps, her Spanish accent thick, “my job.” She magics a bucket from nowhere and starts filling it with hot, soapy water.

I turn to Sarah. “Give Rosa a raise.”

“Fine. Where’s the loony bitch?”

“In my office.”

“Do you want me to put her in your suite?”

I frown. “No. I don’t want anyone in my suite ever again.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t, Sarah.” I walk away. “She can stay on the couch in my office until she’s sober.” Then we’ll be having some serious words. This ends now.

John is outside my office admiring the pile of puke when I get back. “I’m getting it sorted,” I growl, taking the door handle, keen to escape before I have more brutal—truthful—words thrown at me.

“Jesse.”

“What?” I don’t face him.

“Have you thought this through?”

“I’ve thought of nothing else, John,” I assure him. “Trust me, she’s on my mind constantly.”

I feel his hand meet my shoulder, and I look out the corner of my eye, seeing his big fingers gripping me lightly. “I hope she can accept you.”

“She has to,” I say, turning to face him. “Because what’s the alternative?” He knows what the alternative is. It’s alcohol and wasting my life away with meaningless woman after meaningless woman. Looking as pathetic as Coral. Hopeless. Irreparable.

“A woman more on your wavelength, perhaps?” His words are too soft for such a big, mean-looking bastard.

“On my wavelength?” I ask on a laugh. “You mean like Sarah was to Uncle Carmichael? Because that turned out well, didn’t it?”