Begin Again novel Chapter 5

Eden had an unusually long nap during the thirty-minute drive from Willow Hills to her apartment in Forrest Creek, an artsy neighbourhood in the east of Rock Castle, jerking awake when the car skidded as they hit a pothole on the road.

She yawned and stretched as she looked outside her window, feeling oddly embarrassed for passing out on her Uber driver. The last thing she remembered was him asking her if the air conditioning in the car was okay.

She couldn't decide if she was brave or just plain stupid for falling asleep in the back of a stranger's car, especially when she was dressed in nothing but a man's shirt and her coat.

She shifted in her seat and crossed her legs demurely, praying she hadn't inadvertently opened them while she slept. Going commando wasn't as liberating as she thought it would be. She felt vulnerable and well, naked.

Now that she had time to put some distance between her and last night's terrible decisions, she had to figure out the mystery surrounding her missing underwear. It wasn't in her trench as she'd expected, and it was most definitely not in Liam's room when she left.

Did he hide it from her on purpose, was he a weirdo who stole women's underwear and kept them as memorabilia to eternalise all his conquests?

The longer she thought about it, the more convinced Eden was that the massive walk-in closet she'd noticed to the left of Liam's room, next to a frosted glass door she'd assumed led to his ensuite, was filled with thousands of women's panties in all shapes, colours and sizes.

Just how many had he collected over the years? And of all the perverts at Crush what had possessed her to choose him?

"Gosh!" She cried in her hands, her brown hair cascading in waves around her face.

"Are you okay?" Jude asked, his eyes boring holes into her through the rearview mirror.

Eden shook her head. She wasn't okay. She would never be after last night.

"We're almost there," Jude checked the ETA on his phone and threw her a reassuring smile, completely misunderstanding the reason for her misery.

She wasn't eager to get home, not with the Spanish Inquisition she knew awaited her. It was unavoidable, judging from the way the group chat was blowing up, but she would delay it as long as she could.

"Drop me off at the corner over there, please," she told the driver, pointing at a busy intersection up ahead.

He turned in his seat, his face laced with concern. "Are you sure?"

Yes, she was. She needed carbs. Lots of them. And maybe Plan B. She could never go wrong with Plan B.