Brian is deep in conversation with a man I’ve never seen before, and I don’t want to interrupt. Instead, I find myself in the kitchen, asking one of the bartenders who’ve set up temporary camp in there for a glass of wine.
It feels odd ordering from a bartender in someone’s house, even if it’s the penthouse suite.
Just as I take my first sip of wine, a pair of arms thread around my waist. “Hey, you,” Brian says, nuzzling my neck.
I spin around in his arms. He’s wearing a suit and tie and he’s freshly shaven and he looks gorgeous. If I can just focus on all that, I can make it through this night. “Hey.” I smile up at him.
“Thanks for coming.”
“Thanks for inviting me. What’s this all about?”
“Beck wanted to host a small dinner party for our newest clients, and it was Jason’s idea to do it here. It’s got a better view than anywhere we could’ve rented on short notice. Plus, the price was right.”
Not that money’s an object, I think to myself.
“Your brother doesn’t mind?”
He shrugs. “He doesn’t care if we have parties here, but he’s out of town tonight.”
“Oh,” I say, disappointment piercing my gut. I push it away. I didn’t come here for Mark, anyway. I wonder if that’s why Brian felt comfortable inviting me over—specifically because Mark isn’t here.
“I like your dress,” Brian says, fingering the frills around the sleeves.
“Thanks. Is it okay?”
His eyes move from the sleeves to my eyes. “The color makes your eyes glow.”
“Thanks,” I say, impressed that he still can manage to make me blush even after we’ve been together for a while now.
“I have to go mingle. You’re okay over here?”
I nod. “I’m fine. The bartender’s super nice.”
Brian rolls his eyes. “Or you can try talking to Kelsey.”
“Uh, no thanks.”
“Why do you hate her?”
I narrow my eyes at him.
“You proved to me the other night that you were past that.”
I flash him a grin. “And now you can prove to me that you have no interest in anyone but me.”
He rolls his eyes petulantly, but he leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek. “Be a good girl.”
“Always,” I say sweetly, and then I get back to my glass of wine.
As Brian works the room, I’m a little perturbed that he didn’t ask me to join him. It seems strange that he invited me here to this party but doesn’t plan to introduce me to his colleagues.
Jason makes his way over to me when he sees me standing by myself.
“Hey, Reese,” he says. He looks at the bartender. “A bottle of Bud.” The bartender hands him his beer, and he looks at me and raises his bottle. I clink it with my glass and we both take a sip. I’ve gotten to know Becker fairly well over the past month, but I haven’t spent much time with Jason.
“Having fun?” he asks.
I shrug. “Sort of lonely over here to be honest, but Keith and I have become fast friends.” I nod to the bartender, and he grins. “Have you seen Tess lately?”
He shakes his head. “I was just going to ask you the same.”
“Most of my free time lately has gone to Brian.”
“Most of mine has gone to work. I’m sure Brian told you about our travel schedules.”
“He mentioned a bit of traveling, but he didn’t go into details.”
“Then I imagine he didn’t tell you how much he’s pushed off onto me so he could stay in town with you.”
“He has?”
Jason nods. “He’s into you, Reese. You make him happy.”
“That’s nice of you to say.”
“I mean it. His last relationship had sort of a rough ending. You’re good for him.”
“He hasn’t talked about how his last relationship ended. He’s only mentioned his ex a few times.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I brought it up. It’s not my business to share.” He takes a swig of his beer, which he’s managed to almost drain in our short conversation.
I shrug, but he’s got my mind working overtime. “No worries. He’ll tell me when he’s ready to, I guess.”
“It’s just been hard for him to get past everything that happened, but I’m glad he’s moving on with someone like you.”
“What was her name again?” I ask.
“His ex?”
I nod.
“Kendra.”
Kendra. The same name Hazel brought up.
“That’s right,” I say, wondering how many drinks Jason has had and how much information I can pull out of him this way.
Another man I don’t recognize walks up and starts talking to Jason, so I turn back to Keith the bartender.
When it’s time for dinner, I finally get to sit by my boyfriend, though the conversation flies right over my head. I hear words like predictive analytics, data mining, and statistics, and my eyes glaze over. Give me a conversation about twentieth century American literature and I can talk circles around most people, but when it comes to statistical analysis, the best I can do is talk grade book percentages and class averages. So rather than try to take part in a conversation I know nothing about, I stare out the window at the view. I’m facing the Strip, and I can’t help as my mind drifts back to that night.
The image that stands out most from that night is from the second time we had sex, not the first. He cupped my cheek first, and then he kissed me as he hovered over me. He ran his fingertips along the outside of my thigh before he grazed his knuckles against my wet, sensitive flesh. That image of his hand and my naked thigh lit only from the glowing lights below is what keeps flashing through my mind. It’s not even close to the best part of our night together. It doesn’t hold a candle to other sexy moments and sensual exchanges. But for some reason, the image of his long, strong fingers against the skin of my thigh has stayed with me. It has flashed through my mind at the strangest times, alone or in a crowd, by myself or with Brian or Jill or anyone else beside me.
It keeps coming back, that image, and I can’t seem to erase it no matter how hard I try.
Eventually, I stopped trying.
“What do you think, Reese?”
I snap to attention at the sound of my name and look over at Brian.
“Huh?” I ask.
Kelsey, who is sitting on Brian’s other side, laughs. Bitch.
“I just asked what the average person thinks about cybersecurity,” he says.
“Oh, right. Sorry. Yes, I think it’s necessary.” I fumble my way through some non-response, a little insulted that he referred to me as the average person.
“What about in schools?” he presses.
I shake Mark out of my head and try to focus. “Well, we have a strong IT department where I teach, so many sites are blocked that kids can hardly even research at school anymore.”
“Isn’t that for the good of the kids?” an older man at our table asks.
“Of course it is, but when a kid can’t access a website that shows videos when he’s trying to incorporate video clips into a presentation, that’s a problem.”
“Youtube?” a different man asks. “I think there’s state laws against that.”
I shake my head. “Teachertube. Only approved videos. There are a ton of sites out there like that, where I could upload a video or put up a protected link, but in our district, the kids can only access those from home.”
“Won’t people try to rig the system? Hackers?” the first man presses.
“Hackers will hack regardless of what type of security systems are in place.”
Brian narrows his eyes at me.
“What?” I ask. “Isn’t that what hackers do?”
“We’re working with Mr. Everly’s company to develop a system hackers won’t be able to breach,” Brian says.
“Won’t that just give them motivation to figure it out?”
Kelsey rolls her eyes besi
de Brian.
“Not with the advancements we’ve created,” Brian says, his teeth gritted. The way he’s speaking to me makes me feel like a scolded child in my green, ruffled dress.
I sit quietly for the remainder of the meal, but I try to focus on what they’re discussing. Clearly, I missed the point of the dinner when I was thinking about Mark and his hands on my body, when I was daydreaming as I stared out the window. I must’ve said something wrong, because Brian’s barely acknowledging that I’m even here.
But tonight, he was doing that long before I sat next to him for dinner.
Chapter Twenty-One
Brian climbs into bed beside me. I’m turned on my side, away from him, as I stare out his window at the mountains.
“Did the dinner go as well as you wanted?” I ask.
“It was fine,” he says, turning off the light on his nightstand. I can tell he’s lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
“Are you mad at me?”
He pauses. I wonder if he’s looking at me or if he’s still staring up at the ceiling. I haven’t moved. “No. Why would you think that?”
“You seemed irritated with me at dinner. The whole hacker conversation.”
“Mr. Everly is tight with his security and his whole idea is to create something hackers can’t hack. You wouldn’t have known that.”
“If you would’ve talked to me, maybe I would’ve known.”
“Excuse me?”
“You invited me to come to your dinner and then I was brushed aside as an outsider for the entire night.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t sound very sorry. In fact, I detect more than a hint of sarcasm. “It was a business dinner, not a date.”
“That didn’t stop you from talking to Kelsey all night.”
“Oh my God,” he says, his voice laced with frustration. “You have got to be kidding me right now.”
“Fine, I crossed the line. I’m sorry.” I mimic his sarcastic apology from a few seconds ago. My blood comes alive and adrenaline kicks in as my body prepares for a fight. “How about Kendra? You ever going to tell me what happened there?”
“Jesus, it’s just shot after shot with you tonight.”
“That’ll happen when I’m forced to drink wine all night by myself.”
“You weren’t by yourself. You had Keith the bartender keeping you company.”
I finally turn over to face him. “What’s your problem?” I spit.
“Nothing.” He doesn’t bother to look at me.
“Talk to me,” I whisper.
“It’s complicated.”
“What is?”
“My ex.”
“What’s complicated about it?”
“We were together for a year. We broke up shortly before I moved out here.”
“When did you move out here?”
“About a week before I met you.”
“Are you over her?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
I sigh and reach over to cup his cheek. “You can talk to me, Brian.”
“I know I can. I’m over her, okay? I love you. I want to be with you.” He glances over at me.
Even though I’m pretty sure I feel it in my heart, I still don’t say it back. I don’t want the first time I tell Brian I love him to be part of some argument. “Then why can’t you tell me what happened?”
“You first.”
“What do you mean?”
“You tell me what happened with your last relationship, and then I’ll tell you what happened with mine.”
I don’t know whether to consider Mark my last relationship. Does a one-night stand qualify? Probably not. I go with Justin instead.
“I dated Justin for over two years. We got engaged. I planned to marry him. And then we broke up.”
“Why?”
“He decided he didn’t want to get married.”
“I’m sorry, Reese,” Brian says, the sincerity back in his voice. “When was that?”
“Seven or eight months ago.” I realize only now that I can’t even remember the exact date anymore. It used to be a daily count in my head. One day gone, one day further from what we had.
“Are you over him?”
“Yes.”
“And there hasn’t been anyone else since then?”
My heart races. Should I tell him? He’s giving me an opening. “Well,” I start as I think of how to word it. I don’t have to tell him who it was. I can keep it vague, can’t I? “There was a one night thing.”
“There was?” he asks, finally turning to face me and sitting up on his elbow.
“You said if I told you about my ex, you’d tell me about yours.”
“Tell me about the one night first.” His eyes light up with excitement, like he had no idea I had it in me. To be honest, I didn’t know I had it in me, either.
I shake my head. “Nope. Your turn.”
His phone starts buzzing on the nightstand. “Shit,” he mutters when he picks it up and looks at the screen. “Fox,” he answers.
I glance at the clock. It’s a little after one in the morning. I was just about to gain some insight into Brian’s last relationship. Instead, it sounds like Brian has some business to tend to.
I hear a voice through the other end, but I can’t make out the words. “Book me on the next flight out. I think it’s just after six.” There’s a pause as he listens. “Yes, book for both. Just one way for now, plus hotel.” Another pause. “I’ll do it. Thanks.”
He hangs up and looks over at me, annoyance in his eyes. “That was the call for Houston. I have to go.”
“Why are they calling you at one in the morning?” I ask.
He gets up from the bed and heads to the closet. He pulls out a suitcase and starts filling it with clothes, and then he pulls out a garment bag and sets several suits inside. “We just got word from our partners in Germany. They’re sending some associates over tomorrow, and I need to get there before they do.”
I give him a sad face, and he gives me a sad smile back. “I’m sorry. I’ll take you home.”
“My car’s here,” I remind him.
“Fine. Stay here tonight. I don’t want you driving home after all that wine.”
“Okay,” I say, thinking of his brother.
Why couldn’t Mark be in town tonight? It would be our first chance to talk without Brian around, but instead who knows where he is and who’s keeping his bed warm?
Not that it matters. It’s not my business.
But it still sort of feels like my business. Or maybe I want it to be my business.
When he finishes packing, he sits on the edge of the bed. “I have to go to the office to get some things before I head to the airport. Will you be okay here?”
“Of course.”
He leans in for a soft kiss. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too. Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing.”
He chuckles. “Thanks. Have a good few days. Hopefully I’ll be back mid-week.”
“Think about me lots.”
“Always.”
He kisses me once more, not a searing hot, panty-melting kiss, but one of those kisses exchanged between two people who have been together a while, an automatic, sweet kiss that tells me he loves me without the words.
I wonder if I should say it. I wonder if I should tell him how I feel about him as he leaves, tell him I love him right before he’ll be spending day in and day out with his pretty secretary.
He slips out the door before I get the chance, and I’m glad. I want to say it when I feel it, when I’m positive it’s true—not as part of some manipulation to make sure I’m on his mind while he’s spending time with another woman.
* * *
I sleep in, luxuriating in Brian’s bed. It’s the same sort of mattress as Mark’s bedroom, I realize. I scroll my phone lazily, checking the texts from Brian letting me know he l
anded hours ago and writing back about how much I miss him even though it’s not how I feel. He’s only been gone a few hours—hardly long enough to miss him yet.
I finally pull myself out of bed a little before eleven. I make the bed and head to the bathroom to clean myself up. I’d figured I’d be spending the night, so I slipped a change of clothes, a hairbrush, a toothbrush, and some makeup in my huge purse so I’d at least be presentable enough to get my car from valet.
I wouldn’t say I look good—that’ll take a shower for sure—but at least I don’t look like I just rolled out of bed. I scrap my hair back into a messy ponytail and change into the sweatpants and t-shirt I stuck in my bag. As I pull on the shirt, I realize it’s the Vail shirt I wore the night I met Mark—the one I bought at the concert that night. I even washed it in an effort to get over him, so the sandalwood Mark scent is long gone from it. I thought I’d grabbed a different one, but I guess this will have to do since it’s the only shirt I have with me.
It’s almost noon by the time I emerge from Brian’s bedroom, and the place has been transformed. There’s no trace left of the business dinner that took place here last night. The round tables are gone, the couches are back, the food has been cleared, the temporary bar has been disassembled and removed. It’s spotless in here, and I can only imagine Hazel has been through with her magic wand.
It’s quiet, and I realize for the first time that I’m alone in Mark Ashton’s penthouse suite. I wonder what I should do. Part of me wants to snoop. I thought about it when I was in Brian’s room, but I refrained.
I set my purse down on the kitchen counter and wander over toward the windows. It’s different in the daylight. Vegas loses a bit of its magic when the bright light of the sun shines down on the Strip. Crowds of people mill the sidewalk below, tiny little ants from this distance. Cars rush to get somewhere, and while traffic isn’t anything like it is at night, it’s still a constant and steady stream of movement. Life goes on as usual as I stand at the window and look down upon it, feeling strangely like a goddess up here in the clouds gazing down at the subjects below.
Love Triangle: Six Books of Torn Desire Page 59