Chapter 9

**Lily**

I woke up to an insane loud banging on my door, but my eyes really did not want to open. I tried to lift my head off my pillow, and I groaned loudly, my head falling back down on my pillow. What the hell does who want from me at this ungodly early hour?!

“Lily! We know you are in there! Open up!”, I heard a female voice shouting while the banging continued. It took my head too long to recognize Norah’s voice. I also knew she was not going to stop until I opened the door for her. So, groaning and with much effort, I swung my legs out of the bed. I marched to the door to open it, and without looking I went back to bed and crawled beneath the covers again.

Unfortunately, Norah was right on my heels and immediately tore the covers from me again. “It is 2PM Lils, time to face the world and share the tea. Emma will be here in 10 minutes. So, if you want to take a shower, now is the time.”

She opened the curtains and window for fresh air. “I do recommend the shower, you stink and look terrible.”, Norah laughed. I groaned again, but reluctantly took her suggestion.

“You still look hung over, but at least you don’t stink anymore.”, Norah laughed at me when I finally joined her and Emma in my living room. “Yeah, yeah. Enough with the insults.”, I retorted, gently massaging my temples. “Here, eat this.”, Emma said, and handed me some yoghurt and fruit, and I gladly took it.

“So, what happened to you?”, she asked. “Champagne.”, I grunted. Emma and Norah just laughed and doubled over. Champagne is my arch enemy. I like it too much; it makes me feel not too drunk and in control when I’m already wasted. To top it off, it gives me the absolute worst hangover ever. This one being top 3 material for sure.

“So, do you remember anything about the party?”, Norah giggled. Apparently, this was so funny to her she couldn’t stop laughing. “Parts of it.”, I answered, focusing on the yoghurt. Norah caught another fit of giggles, making me feel a tad embarrassed for losing control yesterday.

“So? Share!”, Emma said. I sighed knowing how they would react to everything that had happened. “Yeah. How did you get invited to such a party in the first place?”, Norah asked curiously. I had managed to evade the topic when we went shopping for a dress, but looking at Norah’s narrowed eyes, she is determined to get the full story now. “Like I said, Noah invited me.”, I said. “Yeah, yeah. How did he make you say yes? You have always been saying that dating your boss feels wrong.”, Norah argued.

Knowing that they always figured it out when I was lying, I took a deep breath and told them what happened between Noah and me. When I finished, I saw Norah’s eyes beaming with pride, which made me chuckle. “Please tell me you had sex with Noah at the party.”, Norah asked excitedly. “No, I told him he wouldn’t be more to me than a friend.”, I answered, wincing at the memory. “A friend with benefit, then?”, Norah tried. I shook my head.

“Then what happened?”, she asked as if it was a fictional story, and not my life they wanted to know about. So, I shared about dancing with Tommaso. Norah’s eyes started to shine again. “He sent you the flowers, right?”, she probed. I nodded. “Yes,” she shouted like she had just scored a goal. “So, anything happened between you two that wasn’t PG-13?”, she asked. I shook my head again. It was as if Norah just deflated. What the hell did I not do for her to be this invested in my sex life?

“So, nothing happened at all?”, she asked, her voice sounding very small and slightly disappointed. “Just why are you pushing me so hard to have sex?”, I asked. I’m not angry at her, but more hurt, I guess. “I want you to be happy, to lose control every now I then. I want you to meet someone who you feel safe with to lose control with. You know, live a little and find joy, love, orgasms, whatever. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you with someone and you are such a control freak…”, Norah said caringly.

“Mr blue eyes was there as well.”, I whisper. “From the club?”, Emma asked slightly shocked. I nodded. “Was he really as hot as you remember?”, she asked. “He is. He is also an asshole though.”, I shared. I told them about the incident with the waiter and how he had me dance with him so he could apologize. “And then when I was about to leave, he kissed me.”, I said. Norah was doing a full-on victory dance. “Lick a peck?”, she asked. “No, it got a bit steamier than that.”, I tried to remember what exactly had happened. “Well, that explains the hickey in your neck.”, Emma stated. “Wait? He did what?”, I shrieked and scrambled to get to a mirror to find a big, red hickey in my neck. “That fucking asshole!”, I muttered.

I had been agitated the rest of the weekend. Champagne never served me well, but I always forgot about the aftermath when someone presented me with a glass. I guess it is humane to like the things that are bad for you. Talking about things that are bad for me: the fucking asshole with mesmerizing blue eyes. God, this asshole knew how to kiss a woman.

The kiss, or rather, the make-out session had been on my mind ever since it happened. And every time I thought about it, it got me hornier than I already was. The mix of being agitated and horny made me annoyed and on edge. It really was not a nice place to be, especially not if you also combine it with a hangover the size of the continent. I had been trying several times to relieve myself of the horniness, but the feeling didn’t go away. No matter how many times I made myself come. You see, the problem is that when I make myself come, I am reliving the make-out session we had and the feeling comes back at double the force.

I also tried running and physically exhausting myself in ways that had nothing to do with sex to get rid of my sour mood. While I enjoyed the run while I was at it, it stopped the moment I was done running. So, I guess there is just nothing I can do other than embrace it. So, if you see me pulling punches it is because of being hungover and horny.

Finding something to occupy me until the day passes is proving to be difficult. I tried watching Netflix, but I didn’t find anything I liked. I tried reading, but the book was boring. I tried cooking, but I couldn’t find anything that I liked. So, I took out my laptop to see if I could find any photos that were taken at the gala yesterday. I was just going to cyberstalk the reason of my horniness!

I spent quite some time browsing through the photos of yesterday, and I see myself with Noah, and I find a photo of me dancing with Tommaso, which I downloaded to send to Emma and Norah. I think they will appreciate that. But I don’t find a trace of mr Blue eyes. Not one photo captured him, not even in the background somewhere! Like he was some kind of ghost! Yet I have the hickey to prove last night was very real. So now I’m in this mood, and I don’t even have a picture to channel my mood at. This makes my frustration complete.

The problem with me is that the combination of horniness, hangover and frustration makes me do things without thinking that I really shouldn’t do. And these things I generally regret the next day.

This is how I’m suddenly going through my mom’s transactions again, feeding to the frustration. It clouds my rational me even more. Somewhere I knew this was the worst thing to do with the mood I was having today, but I really didn’t pay one bit of attention to it.

Before I knew it, I had opened the bank’s database, and I was putting in the data from the transactions to see if it came up with any results. And it did! So that made me do it again and again and again. I found so many new leads and new information. I even found links to marked accounts, which we already knew were related to criminals. I was adding ecstasy to my current mood! I just made screen shots of all that I found, because I didn’t feel like writing it down. Like it was beneath me. I don’t know how long I did this for, and how much I really found.

The only thing I remember now, Monday morning, is: what the hell did I do? Did I really risk my career over this?!