When he’d eventually made it to his room after leaving Nicky, he’d downed a couple of painkillers and then taken an ice cold shower, which had respectively obliterated the pain throbbing in his head and the heat racing through his veins. He’d crashed into bed and had been asleep barely before his considerably less painful head had hit the pillow. Consequently he’d woken up in a much better mood. Back in full possession of his self-control and all his faculties, he’d had ample opportunity to assess the events of the previous night and had come to the conclusion that he’d overreacted. Big time. He’d been tired and overwrought. In pain and on the defensive. All entirely unsurprising of course given the circumstances, but nevertheless he had overreacted. For one thing, he told himself, lighting the gas ring beneath the pot and straightening, he doubted that Nicky, with her big blue eyes, tumbling dark curls and long slender semi-naked limbs, could be nearly as distracting as he’d imagined last night, and the cold light of day would soon prove it.
