Chapter 409: I Slept Carelessly

They got back into the room and the door clicked shut.

Bennett had already been inside earlier, so the suite itself was not the shock. The quiet was. After the restaurant, after all those eyes, the room felt too still.

Then it hit her.

One bed.

She stopped walking.

She and Lucas were sleeping in the same bed tonight. That should have been the part that made her careful for the usual reasons. Men always looked at her a certain way. Most of them waited for any small opening and called it luck.

With Lucas the worry was different.

She was not scared he would try something. That thought barely formed. What bothered her was the other reading. Sharing a bed could look like an invitation. He might think she was giving him the green light. She did not want that hanging between them.

Lucas did not notice she had stopped.

He went straight to the edge of the bed, sat down hard, pulled off his shoes, and dropped back onto the mattress.

"Good night."

That was it.

His eyes were already closing. No joke. No look toward her side. No testing the space. He turned slightly and was gone, like the whole day had finally caught up and shut him down.

Bennett stood there longer than she wanted to admit.

The same man who had laughed in Chiara’s assistant’s face was now asleep in under a minute.

She finally moved to the other side, put her things down, and lay as far from him as the bed allowed. She even fixed the gap in the middle on purpose. Clear space. No chance of drifting into him.

Only then did she sleep.

---

Morning light came through the curtains.

Lucas woke to weight.

Warmth across his chest. An arm locked around him. Soft pressure holding him down so hard he could barely shift.

Bennett.

She was fully on him in her sleep.

At some point in the night the careful gap had disappeared completely. Bennett’s body had crossed the whole bed and settled over him like it belonged there. Her face was buried against his shoulder. One leg was hooked tight over his thigh. Her chest was crushed flat against him, soft and heavy, with no space left between them at all. He could feel the full shape of her breasts through the thin fabric, warm and pressed hard into his chest with every slow breath she took.

Lucas tried to ease out from under her.

The second he shifted, Bennett made a small sound in her throat and held on tighter. Her arms locked around him. Her leg pulled him in. As she settled again, still deep asleep, her breasts pressed even heavier into him, soft flesh flattening against his chest as if her body had decided he was not allowed to leave.

He stopped moving.

A second later her breathing changed.

Bennett yawned once, still half asleep, then her eyes opened.

For one blank second she only stared at his shoulder like nothing was wrong.

Then the room, the bed, and the position hit her at the same time.

Her arm locked across him.

Her whole body on top of him.

Her chest still pressed flat against his.

Bennett went rigid so fast it was almost impressive.

Color exploded across her face. Her eyes widened. For half a second she looked like her brain had simply refused to accept the evidence.

Then she shoved herself off him so hard the mattress bounced. She scrambled backward on the bed, still staring at him like if she looked long enough the whole scene might undo itself.

It did not.

Lucas was still there.

She was still the one who had been glued to him.

Bennett got off the bed like the sheets were on fire, crossed the room in a rush, locked herself in the bathroom, and stayed there in pure silence.

Lucas remained where he was.

Then he smiled.

Bennett. Cold in public. Sharp with people. The same woman who handled rooms like she owned them had just fled red-faced because she woke up glued to him.

He waited.

Minutes passed. The bathroom stayed quiet.

Eventually he spoke toward the door.

"We’ll be late for the car if we don’t leave early."

More silence.

The lock turned.

Bennett came out looking composed only on the surface. Her posture was straight, her expression carefully set, but the redness still sat high on her cheeks. Her eyes hit Lucas once and jumped away so fast it was almost funny. She went straight to the wardrobe and started picking through her clothes with far more focus than the task needed, like the right blouse might erase the last ten minutes.

"I didn’t mean that," she said, voice tight. "I slept carelessly."

Lucas sat up.

"No need to explain. Just get ready."

He did not drag it. No joke. No lingering look. That alone cooled her face a little, though not completely.

She dressed fast. Professional top. Fitted corporate skirt. Clean lines, sharp and controlled. By the time she finished, she looked more put together than she had the night before, which only made the earlier scene funnier in his head. The same woman who had woken up glued to his chest was now standing there like nothing could touch her.

Lucas glanced at her once before going into the bathroom.

When he came back out and dressed, she was already on her makeup, working with quiet concentration. Between the two of them, it took about forty minutes before the room was in order and they were ready to leave.

---

Across the city, Chiara had not slept at all.

Her phone would not stop. Every time the screen went dark, it lit up again. The entrance clip was still spreading, but the restaurant video had joined it now and the two had become a set. First the bodyguard leaving the ground. Then her assistant standing over a tourist’s table, demanding a public apology, only to get laughed at and told to leave.

People had turned both moments into open comedy.

Her face was already in sticker packs. Short edits. Mock captions. Someone had cut the bodyguard’s fall to sad music. Someone else looped the assistant’s stiff walk-out beside laughing reaction clips. One account posted side-by-side frames under the text, "Powerful women when the tourist says no." Another turned her expression into a reaction image that was already being used under unrelated arguments.

Every refresh made it worse.

Comments under the original videos were even less kind. People were asking if this was the same Chiara. People were asking where all that attitude went. People were asking if the bodyguard needed a refund. The jokes were moving faster than any statement she could prepare.

Her assistant sat across from her in the same clothes from last night, eyes tired, phone face-down like she could not bear to look at it anymore.

"So what do we do now?"

Chiara stared at the screen.

The trend was already ahead of them. And the man who caused all of it had left the hotel that morning like none of it mattered.

They needed a way to kill the attention before it stuck for good.