One month had gone by. Lily had moved in with Jared. Angelina had met Stephen's mother and created a bond with the woman. Much to her pleasure, Stephen's mother had browsed through her photos and thought her exceptionally talented, so Angelina, for the first time in her life, got the approval of a parent.
Katherine knew for a fact that Stephen had been slowly removing Angelina's things from her apartment and into his, hoping that Angelina wouldn't figure out his plan until it was too late. Angelina acted oblivious even though she knew exactly what things he had moved and generally stayed where the things she needed were.
In her big three-bedroom apartment, Katherine remained alone with Cage sometimes coming over. She didn't need to cook bigger portions or put up with the fuss of roommates, but she missed living with someone on a regular basis.
Thankfully, her days were spent in calmness and soon enough it was time for Cage's movie to start shooting.
The flight out had been easier than she anticipated. She had gone through the private entrance while Cage and Stephen went into the airport where the fans sat waiting for him to arrive. Cage created quite a stir, signing autographs and taking pictures with his adoring fans... all-female... The raucous created resulted in Katherine making her way into the same plane without being discovered by anyone.
The alarm blared and Katherine cringed away from it, feeling beyond guilty. It was five in the morning already and she had yet to go to sleep. She had thought that she would pick up on Cage's routine and timely get sleep every night but that was far from reality. She groaned as she lowered the brightness of the screen further and kept editing the video without paying the alarm attention. As much as she could.
She heard Cage laugh and felt his lips brush over the skin of her arm before he silenced the alarm.
"How can you wake up so early?" she asked, pulling the pillow out from behind her and peeking at him. The dim light from the bathroom was all that illuminated the room and she was glad. She didn't want Cage dazzled early in the morning.
Cage was a considerate man. The nights she fell asleep, he would tiptoe around in the dark without switching on the lights so that she wouldn't wake up. On others when she was awake, he would massage her head for a couple of minutes before kissing her forehead and leaving the bed.
This morning, he kissed her forehead and massaged it thoroughly.
"Habit," he said quickly. "Why are you still awake?" he asked belatedly.
Did he have to ask? "Editing videos for the next two days. I finished all my designing work this morning." She sighed. She placed her laptop aside for a second and shuffled down the bed, laying down her head on his lap and mumbling a quick 'love you' as she snuggled into him.
He gently smiled before removing her head from his lap and sliding out of bed.
She could hear the shower running and all she could think about was him n.a.k.e.d. How she was going to get any work done or sleep was beyond her. Some mornings she managed one of the two, others... neither were possible. In reality, they got so little time together since they arrived a week ago that she wanted to take advantage of any time they had together. Even if it meant, working at ungodly hours so that she could have a couple of hours of free time for him when he finished work every night.
She had fallen into a rhythm already. Living together proved to be simpler than she had imagined and she loved being the first person he saw when he came home. They would talk about his day and make love before he crashed and she would get back to work and finish so that she could get some rest.
Since the contest ended, she had stopped posting every day and posted about twice a week, so her work pressure had gone down a lot. She even had time to go out during the day and sightsee when Cage wasn't around.
They had gotten more time together during the weekend. He had worked lesser hours on those days and got the evenings to themselves like normal human beings. It was just the two of them, room service and movies on the television.
Katherine had been lucky so far. Though she had come and gone from Cage's room, no one seemed to know who she was yet. She went around the city without incident. Everyone who knew remained discreet and the hotel staff seemed to be blind.
The reason for finishing her work for the day early was because Cage had invited her out to dinner. The next day, they would go to a spa to get some much-needed rest. Cage was spoiling her rotten and the only thing she could do was comfort him and give him a home when he came back after a hard day's work.
They had bickered about it quite a bit in the past week and she had mostly won until Cage slyly kept adding benefits to the room and wouldn't let her pay.
She didn't make a fuss about it because it made him happy to know that she was safe. She understood his concerns.
He was taking her out that night and she couldn't wait. A fancy dinner date with Cage Cavanaugh in a city as beautiful as this? She wouldn't mind it a single bit. The restaurant was one of those that needed to be booked months in advance and she had no clue how he had managed to pull that one off.
Good thing she had brought some fancy clothes she could wear to knock his socks off.
Cage sauntered back into the room, his towel hanging deliciously low on his waist and his hair dripping with water. She bounced up from the bed and snatched the towel from him, lowering him so that she could help him dry his hair.
"Why didn't you go back to sleep?" he asked.
"Too excited for tonight?" she said coyly.