A nod later and the room slid into darkness before a dim lamp was turned on.
“What happened?” Vivienne’s voice was hoarse and gravelly, the voice of someone waking for the first time after a long sleep.
“You were drugged,” Max said bluntly, and Drew watched as Vivienne’s eyebrows lifted in confusion. When Max mentioned that, Drew remembered why it had struck her so.
How had she been drugged? She hadn’t had anything to drink.
***
Drugged? Vivienne thought with a long shudder. On her birthday of all days, she’d been drugged. The irony. No one had attempted to drug her in high school or college, when she’d been her most reckless, but now that she was a grown woman of twenty-three, someone had dared.
She whimpered at the pain in her head and tried to think back over the events of the night. She remembered briefly going to the Four Seasons, and then heading into a club. That was it. Everything from there on was either hazy or blank, an effect of the drug, she decided. After a pounding headache started when she pushed too hard, she gave up trying to remember for now. She was so tired anyway.
“Did we have fun, apart from that?” she found herself asking, even as her lids closed.
“Loads,” Max replied immediately.
Drew’s voice came later, just before she fell into a dreamless sleep, “Yes, fun.”
***
After changing Vivienne into more comfortable clothes, and with Max’s help, getting her under the duvet, Drew left Vivienne’s room with Max beside her. It was nearing four in the morning, and while she was tired, there was something on her mind.
“‘Night,” Max said as he began walking in the direction of his room. He’d opened his door and was almost inside when Drew followed him, calling out, “Hey, I need to speak to you.”
Max turned at the door and pulled it open wider, so as to give her space to enter. Drew lifted a brow. Why couldn’t they speak outside?
“Because Vivienne’s sleeping.” Max answered her unspoken question easily, and Drew frowned, her lips curling slightly, at him. She really hated that he knew what she was thinking most times.
Stepping into his room, Drew looked around, surprised to find it was extremely clean. She hadn’t been to his room—well, ever. She’d looked inside on passing a few times but she’d never actually stepped into the place. Everything was neatly organized, from the books that dominated his bookshelves, to the neatly organized rows of shoes in his open closet.
Drew was so busy looking around the room she almost forgot about the man who resided there.
“What do you want to talk about?” His voice came from somewhere behind her and Drew turned to face him.
She was about to begin speaking when her eyes came in contact with his naked torso. Max had removed his shirt, and his hands were on the buttons of his pants. Her eyes lifted slowly, tracing the deep cuts of muscle against his abdominal area, the thin line of darker blond hair that started at his belly button and disappeared in the waistband of his pants, before she whipped her gaze up to land on flat, pink nipples.
Swallowing, Drew quickly looked away. She thanked her lucky stars her complexion was so dark that the heat that rushed her face would not show through. Max was gorgeous. He was. It was fact, but Max was also an asshole. She had no business ogling him in his room, with that big, comfortable-looking bed right behind him.
“Like what you see?” Low and deep, his voice taunted her.
Clearing her throat, Drew shook her head. “It amuses me how often you seem to forget that I’m not one of your floozies. If you’d put some clothes on, this conversation would be over faster.”
Moments later he stood before her, a plain white T-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms covering his body.
“Does this please you, my lady?” he asked sarcastically, turning to showcase his clothed body.
Drew nodded, glared at him, and said, “Vivienne wasn’t drugged. I don’t think so, anyway.”
“What?” Max asked, his brows crinkling in confusion. “What are you talking about? You saw her. She was obviously drugged.”
She shook her head, and the braids swayed. “She couldn’t have been, Max. She didn’t even have anything to drink. I was with her the entire time, Max. I would know.”
He drew in a breath and continued to stare at her. When he made no move to say anything, just continued to look at her, Drew grew self-conscious.
“You’re positive this guy gave her nothing to drink?”
Drew nodded once as she explained to Max, in detail, what had happened. She started with Vivienne approaching the man on her own, kissing him like a lost lover.