Chapter 28 28
Harmony's POV
The first thing I remembered when I opened my eyes was Roman Foster, which was totally not a good sign.
With a gasp on my lips, I sprang up, putting the pieces of last night back together one by one. I remembered the party and the kids, and everything after the kiss. Every single damn embarrassing detail.
I turned over, and the other side of the bed was empty. Roman was already gone, which meant I didn't have to deal with the awkwardness of waking up next to him, and I was grateful for that small mercy. I slipped out of bed and found my white dress and underwear pooled at the foot of the bed. One foot of my sneakers was on its side at the door, and I was pretty sure the other foot was somewhere in the living room. My face went warm before I could stop it.
"Jesus Christ!" I whispered. Evidence of what we had done last night was scattered everywhere.
I dropped the clothes into the laundry basket, and grabbed the large shirt hanging on the back of my door.
I checked my phone and saw that I had just under an hour before my morning shift at the clinic, with afternoon classes to follow. I needed coffee before any of that could happen, so I shuffled out of my room and headed for the kitchen.
And Roman Foster was standing at my window.
He was shirtless, holding a paper coffee cup, and looking out at the street below. He turned around when he heard me, and smiled at me. Then he held out a second cup.
"Morning," he said. "You didn't have a coffee machine, so I went to the corner to get some for you. Drink it while it's hot."
I stared at the cup skeptically before finally accepting it. "Why are you still here?"
"Nowhere urgent to be," he replied, leaning back against the counter.
"What about your nurse? Your apartment? Your entire life that exists somewhere that is not my kitchen?" I asked, slowly growing annoyed. "Don't you have places to be?"
"Are you really that eager to see me leave, Sinclair?" Roman asked with a teasing tone in his voice. Yes, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, but I didn't.
"Sarah has been calling since seven." He sipped his coffee, totally nonplussed. "I'll deal with it."
I wrapped both hands around my warm coffee cup, drank from it and tried to organize my thoughts.
"How's the knee?" I asked, because it was safer than anything else I could think to say.
"It is much better," he replied. "Miles and I are planning to get back on the ice this week to exercise it a little bit. Just light stuff."
"Behind Coach Bailey's back?"
"The second match of the season is Saturday. I'm not sitting it out." Roman protested.
I didn't say anything to that, because this really was not the moment to be his physiotherapist.
Roman was watching me. "You're very quiet."
"I'm always like this in the morning." I set the cup down. "What happened last night?"
The moment I asked that question, Roman's mouth began to lift in an amused smile. "Which part? Because a LOT of things happened last night."
"Oh, please. Don't start."
"I'm asking for clarification," he replied. "I want to make sure we're discussing the same thing. Is this about when you told me to take you home, or when you pulled me through the front door and kissed me, or when you asked me to kiss your—"
"Stop talking!" I yelled, holding up both hands. My face was already burning. "Please, just stop."
He stopped, but the look on his face was unbearable.
I started pacing my kitchen. "Okay. Last night happened, and it was—" I paused, because the truth was that it had been the most overwhelming experience of my life, and I had wanted every second of it. Not to mention the fact that it had been my first time having sex. But I would rather throw myself out of the open window than let him know any of that.
"It was a one time thing. That's what it was." I settled for that, then waited for him to reply me. But Roman just watched me pace the kitchen without saying anything.
"I cannot do this with you, Roman. I cannot be the physiotherapist who sleeps with my patient and derails everything I have worked for, not again."
"Again?" He asked, genuine curiosity on his face. "Has this happened before? How did it happen?"
"That's not important to this!" I stopped and faced him. "You are a hockey player at the school where I work and study, and Dr Sherman already warned me once. If one more thing goes wrong, I will lose this internship, I will lose my place at University of Illinois, and I have nowhere left to go. Do you understand how serious that is? Can you please, see things from my point of view?"
He was quiet, but the smile had faded from his face now.
"So last night stays in the past, where it belongs. We don't discuss it, we don't repeat it, we don't tell a single soul and we don't revisit it. You go back to your apartment and healing that knee, while I go back to my shift, and we move on."
I crossed my arms. "Finish your coffee and go."
I had said that a lot harsher than I planned to, and I wanted to take back my words. But the damage was already done. Roman looked genuinely, painfully hurt by my words, so much so that I started to feel pangs of guilt.
But quickly, I smothered the guilt before it could gather. Roman Foster was not my responsibility, and whatever flicker of hurt I had just seen in his eyes was not my problem to fix. I had been down this road before, with another athlete, another situation I had trusted myself into, and I had paid for it by losing two good years of my college life. I was not about to forget that just because this man knew how to stir my body up.
"I shouldn't have still been here when you woke up, you're right about that," Roman muttered, turning his cup in his hands. "But just so we're clear, you were the one who told me to bring you here last night. I didn't show up uninvited. You wanted the sex just as much as I did, so stop acting like it's all my fault."
He set the cup down on the counter and walked out of the kitchen. I heard him moving around the living room, then the front door opened and closed behind him.