"Meg, someone puked in the bathroom."
Meg Sanders closed her eyes and counted to ten very, very slowly. It didn't change Jonah's words—or their implication. By the time she turned to face him, she had her expression under control. Mostly. "You're telling me…"
"I'm clocking off." He held up his timesheet. "My shift ended thirty minutes ago and I'm about to go into overtime."
If she let that happen, cleaning up someone else's puke would be the least of Meg's worries. "Okay, go ahead." Their boss had a notorious temper when it came to overtime, and they'd all learned to avoid going over the allotted hours whenever possible. Jonah was a decent dude, and she didn't want to drop that hammer on him. "I'll take care of it." Last call had already been sounded and the lights were all up. If the last four people didn't file out soon on their own, she'd call them cabs and kick them to the curb.
Thankfully, it didn't come to that. Jonah clocked out, and she must have looked as miserable as she felt because he herded the patrons out and waited for her to lock the door before he headed for his car.
Yeah, Jonah was a good dude.
He'd even blushed a little when he'd asked her out a few weeks ago, and took it well when she turned him down. She might have cited her insane work schedule that would only get more insane once school restarted in the fall, but the truth was far more pathetic.
How could anyone compare after she'd been with a prince and his bodyguard?
What was supposed to be a single night straight out of her dirtiest fantasies turned into the standard she was in danger of comparing every future relationship to. Not that she could call being picked up at a club on her twenty—third birthday and going home with two guys for the sexiest night of her life a relationship. It wasn't. The amazing sex was just that—sex.
Even if she was starting to suspect it had ruined her for life.
No use thinking about it now.
They left. They never called.
You're the one who snuck out without saying goodbye. They probably took a hint.
Meg laughed softly at the absurdity of her spiraling thoughts. She found the mop bucket and hauled it to the sink and squirted some soap into the swirling water. Easier to focus on her hurt pride than the money stress she couldn't quite escape. The deadline to pay her fall tuition was this week and she hadn't quite come to terms with the fact after all the hours and tips and even a second job she was still short.
Seriously short.
Short to the tune of two thousand dollars.
Not that much money in the grand scheme of things, but it might as well have been on the moon for all Meg could access it. She'd gone so far as to fill out a couple credit card applications, but they sat unsent on her desk at home. They were just a temporary fix. Fall tuition would turn into spring tuition, and even if she could scrape together the money this time, she wouldn't be able to do it next time. Better to just bow out gracefully now and leave her degree unfinished.
But she hadn't filled out that form, either.
She was stuck in place, unable to move forward or go back. If she dropped out, she was no better than what her mother had always called her: a fuck—up destined to retread the footsteps of her family for as long as living memory. Poverty. A marriage or four. Crippling debt that she'd never be able to climb out from beneath. A job that slowly sucked every bit of joy out of her life.
She couldn't do it.
She couldn't go back to that small town and that dingy trailer and face the family she'd given the middle finger to when she turned eighteen and graduated with honors. Meg had worked too damn hard to put herself in a position to make something of her life.
Look at her now.
Cleaning up someone else's puke.
She wheeled the bucket down the dim hallway to the pair of bathrooms situated near the back door. The bar could stand in for countless bars across the country. The lights a little too low, the floors a little too sticky, the alcohol a little too cheap. But it was what passed for her second home. She loved most of the people she worked with, and if her boss was kind of a dick, well, that went with the territory.
Meg took a slow, deep breath and pushed open the first door. The smell of vomit sent her reeling back a step, but she mastered her response. Just get it over with and you can go home. Home, to her tiny apartment filled with secondhand furniture. It wasn't much to look at, but it was hers and she loved it. There was only this filthy bathroom between her and her lumpy bed and damned if she'd let the stench permeating the air beat her.
She got to work.
It was, in short, awful.
Jonah hadn't caught the mess in time and part of it had dried. When the door swung open behind her, Meg was cursing up a storm and scrubbing with the mop at what looked like melted cotton candy and corn. Never eating either of those things again. She didn't even realize she was no longer alone until a masculine chuckle rolled through the bathroom.
She jumped and swung the mop around, nearly braining… Meg froze. This was it. She'd finally lost what was left of her mind, because transitioning into an exhaustion—fueled hallucination was the only explanation for him being here. She blinked and blinked again. He didn't disappear. "Theo?"
Theodore Fitzcharles III, former Crown Prince of Thalania, propped the door open with a leather shoe that was no doubt designer and gave her a pained grin. "Hey, princess."
She looked from him to the half—cleaned vomit to the mop in her hand. For one second, Meg seriously considered whacking him with it just to rumple him a little. Even when he had her pinned to a couch and was fucking her within an inch of her life, Theo never ceased to look perfectly put together. The man was downright pretty, though he was too masculine for that adjective. His face was all sharp angles and full lips and blue eyes that held stories she could only guess at. Tonight, he wore a plain white T—shirt that looked like it might have been ironed at some point, and a pair of jeans that probably cost more than Meg's monthly rent. She couldn't even hold it against him, because it was so purely Theo.
No, she couldn't hold that against him.
But she could hold the fact that he'd been MIA for three fucking months against him.
She considered the mop in her hands again, but ultimately decided going after him with it would just prove how angry she was. Meg dunked it into the dirty water and went back to cleaning. "Didn't expect to see you again."
"Do you normally leave your number when you don't expect to see someone again?"
He had her there, but she'd never admit it. She'd left her number when she still thought the night had passed with two strangers whose only real sin was being so rich it blew her mind. It was only when she snuck down the hall that she'd learned the truth. Theo was the exiled prince of Thalania. An exiled prince came with more baggage than she had, and that was saying something.
But she hadn't gone back for her number.
She still wasn't sure why.
Her excuse of not wanting to face them in the light of the morning didn't hold up to three months of absence. Meg scrubbed harder at the mess on the floor. "If it was an invitation—and it wasn't—then it was one to call me. Not stalk me to my place of business and show up after hours when I'm alone and defenseless."
He laughed. The bastard laughed. "Defenseless, Meg? Never. If there's anyone defenseless in this scenario, it's me."