Waking up in Your Arms

HOW MUCH had he drunk?Anna Robson put her hands to her head, which hurt as if it were being hit with a hundred hammers inside. He had a bump. He felt it cautiously and winced. Had he hit himself?He tried to remember. He'd gone out for a drink with Melissa. or hadn't he?Yes, she had. She had gone out with her sister for a drink after spinning class , as they usually did every Thursday afternoon. When she looked at the clock on her nightstand, she jumped.
Her phone's alarm should have gone off an hour ago. Where had she put it?She looked around to see if she could find him, but she completely forgot about it when she felt a sudden nausea. She just had time to get to the bathroom before she started vomiting. Afterward, she sat by the toilet like a rag doll. She tried to remember what kind of alcohol she'd consumed. She normally drank little more than a glass of white wine when she went out, but right now, she felt like she'd drunk several bottles.
In that state, she couldn't go to the office... But then she remembered that Stefano and she were having a meeting with the director of a young technology company her boss wanted to buy. As usual, Stefano had asked her to thoroughly review all the reports on the company. He trusted her judgment. If it coincided with his, he would invest in the company without hesitation. If it didn't, he would reconsider his strategy.
But she had no choice but to email him the report and explain that she was sick. After wandering around the house like a ghost looking for his laptop and not finding it, he deduced he'd left it in the office. He'd have no choice but to call Stefano to give him the password and tell him to copy the report himself. All she had to do was find her phone. On the kitchen table, she found a nice purse on the counter.
Next to it was an envelope addressed to her. He blinked to keep his gaze focused as he opened the envelope. He read the letter inside, but couldn't make any sense of it. It was from Melissa, apologizing for going to Australia. She promised to call him as soon as she arrived. Australia? It must have been a joke, although her sister's claim that she was going to visit the mother who had abandoned them a decade earlier wasn't funny at all.
Melissa also added that she had poured sand on the front door step so he wouldn't slip on the ice again, and urged him to see a doctor immediately if his head continued to hurt where he'd hit it. Anna instinctively reached for the bump on her head. He didn't remember slipping, or there being ice on the step. But her head was hurting too much to understand anything, so she put the letter aside and looked inside her purse.
The wallet she'd been using for almost a decade was inside. Her father had given it to her shortly before he died. Had she and Melissa swapped purses? That wouldn't have been unusual, because they always exchanged things. What was unusual was that she didn't remember. But they must have, because at the bottom of her purse, she also found her cell phone. He pulled it out and saw he had five missed calls.
He struggled to focus his eyes as he dialed the PIN. Wrong PIN . Please try again. Wrong PIN.