A Trade Of Hearts |✔

CHAPTER 35: I Don't Belong

VANESSA

15th December

My eyes fluttered open as a pillow hit my face. I woke up, tangled in a blanket, smelling like wine and with no sense of time or place. I looked around, my eyes slowly adjusting to the brightness and I saw a dark figure in the center of the room. I rubbed my eyes and looked again to see that it was Adrian in a black three piece suit. Already? Does this man ever sleep?

Wait a second!

Why is he here? Where was I? And why do I have a terrible headache? Before I could answer any of that, another pillow flew up to my face and a voice boomed through my head, "WAKE UP! WE ARE LATE!"

"Ouch! Could you be any louder?", I complained as I scrambled to my feet, swinging my legs off the sofa where I had apparently been sleeping last night. Right now I felt like a high school hot mess.

I shook my head, pushing the various strands of hair off my face and straightening my crushed rose pink shirt and trousers that I had turned into pyjamas last night and walked up to where Adrian was, fixing his tie.

"I am awake now.", I informed him though I knew he could clearly see that.

He,now putting on his cufflinks, said, "We are late. Get ready quickly."

"Late? For what?", I scratched my head.

Adrian sighed and then looked at me, "We drank way too much than we should have, especially on a working day. The first board meeting of our company's partnership starts at 11:30 and what time is it?"

"11:00! Holy shit!", I said as I looked at my watch, "What should I do? I don't have time to go back home or any other clothes. And Nate will reach there before me. Why didn't you wake me up earlier?"

"Oh! I tried but guess who wanted to complete seeing her dream about riding away into the sunset...on a unicorn...was it??", He smirked.

I felt the heat in my cheeks grow. Oh god! What all must I have blabbered. I just wanted to crawl under a rock and never return.

"Vanessa, the washroom is on the left. Get ready as fast as you can. I will be waiting outside. And yes, drink this. It will help with the hangover.", He told me, pointing to a small glass with some yellowish liquid which I knew definitely had raw eggs. Though the very sight of it made me want to puke, I held my breath and gulped it down and after that, I left.

I went to the bathroom and quickly shed my crumpled office wear. I turned on the shower and the water began to rain down on me. Trust me, there is no such feeling as that of warm water pouring down your body, taking all signs of tiredness and sleep away with it.

Slowly the hungover feeling began to fade and last night came back to me. Boy! I have never laughed so much as yesterday. We talked about the silliest of things, from the conspiracy theory that our dads are friends because they like to kick their middle children out of the house to reading the label of cushion covers. I could never imagine I would get wasted on wine and that too with Adrian.

I turned off the shower, wiped myself and luckily found an unopened packet of brushes in the drawer below the sink. I wrapped myself in the towel and then sneaked into Adrian's room. He said he would be waiting outside and I had no choice but to take my chances that he would have stuck by his words because there was no way I was wearing that creased shirt to a meeting where I must dress to impress.

I picked out a black and white striped shirt which as I expected was way too long. I tucked it inside my rose pink trousers and rolled up the sleeves. I left the top button open because I remembered having a pretty golden necklace in my bag from a few nights ago and picked up a thin belt from Adrian's closet as well. I next picked up my blazer and pumps and scurried back to his waiting Lamborghini.