A grin tugs at Road’s mouth. “What a crazy day this is turning out to be. Let me get this straight. You want to have sex with me in exchange for Isadora?”
“That’s right.”
Road chuckles. “Look, Blair, I think you’re a pretty woman and all, but I’m not giving you my car in exchange for sex.”
She stares at him in confusion. His car? What’s he talking about? Blair realizes he’s misunderstood what she’s saying. He thinks I’m offering myself to him so he’ll give me Isadora, but Isadora is already mine! She knows she needs to set him straight, make it clear it’s his body that’s up for auction, but all she can seem to focus on is the fact that he said she was pretty. “Do you really think I’m pretty?”
He nods. “Course.”
“I don’t believe you. And I don’t believe you have a thing for redheads, either. You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie?”
She leans back and tries to pull it together but can’t because her head is spinning. “Where’s my drink?”
“It’s gone. You finished it.”
“I did? Well, I want another one.”
“Babe, you’ve had enough.”
Blair licks her lips in frustration. Her tongue feels too big for her mouth, and then she notices the sun is getting low in the sky. They’ve been out together all day.
“Come on, I should probably take you home before you come up with any more crazy ideas.”
“I don’t wanna go home!” Blair knows she sounds drunk. “God.” She burps. “Those garder . . . marder . . . mardergarders really snuck up on me.”
Road’s hand is on her arm as he leads her to the front of the restaurant. She can hear him chuckling. “Didn’t think it was possible margaritas that big could sneak up on anyone.”
Somehow Nathan manages to extricate his wallet from Blair long enough to pay the bill. She immediately demands its return.
“Don’t trust you,” she tells him, fumbling and shoving it back into her purse. “Even though you’re like Larry.”
“Who’s Larry?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Larry!”
“Sorry, princess, don’t know anybody named Larry.” Christ, I’ve never seen Blair this shit-faced. He manages to get her out of the restaurant. She’s still ranting about some dude named Larry but he tunes her out, trying to get her back to the car in one piece.
Once they’re finally driving to her condo, she’s singing to the radio—loudly, and mostly off-key, but at least it’s keeping her occupied.
When they’re almost there, Blair starts to wind down and by the time he gets her upstairs, she’s more docile. He figures she’s probably getting sleepy, though she starts talking about Larry again.
“Maybe you are Larry,” she says, pointing at him. “But I am not Isabel!”
And that’s when it hits him. “You’re talking about The Razor’s Edge?”
“Of course!”
Nathan chuckles to himself. Now it makes sense. He uses his key to open her condo and when they’re inside, he immediately goes to the kitchen to get her some water. He’s tempted to make coffee, though he’s dealt with enough drunks to know coffee doesn’t sober anybody up.
She’s leaning against the counter, rambling on about Larry and Isabel again. “I’m not Isabel . . . because I would go with you.”
“Go with me where?” he asks, getting down a glass.
“Anywhere. I’d go anywhere . . . but you didn’t ask. Never asked!”
Nathan fills the glass with cold water from the fridge then hands it to her, telling her to drink. “We should get you to bed. Let you sleep it off.”
And that’s when Blair gets that same half-crazed expression she had on her face earlier at the restaurant. “Yes! Take me to bed!”
“No, babe, you need sleep.”
She starts mumbling, “The cure . . . the cure . . . need the cure!”
“Drink some water,” he encourages her. “You’ll thank me tomorrow.”
Blair takes a swallow from the glass then another. “Want to end this addiction . . . end it . . .”
He’s been around people who drank too much his whole life, so he knows the shit that comes out of their mouths.
“What kind of addiction?” he asks, placating her, figuring she’s talking about her perfectionism, all her lists.
“You!”
“Me?” Nathan is taken aback. “What do you mean?”
But Blair just shakes her head, drinks more water, then puts the glass down. “And do you know what’s the real . . . pisser? You’d fail the Bandito Test!”
He rolls his eyes. “Not that stupid test again.”
“It’s not stupid! You’re only saying that ‘cause you’d fail.” She hiccups. “Can’t believe you’re the worst I ever had.”
Nathan watches her, still trying to figure out why she’s going on about that test so much, and how could he be an addiction? Blair’s eyes are bloodshot, and that amazing hair is a mess of cinnamon curls. She usually tames it, but he has to admit he likes it this way. Sexy. He’s surprised to see her so hammered and knows it’s not normal for her. Even after five years, he can tell she’s still a good girl. She’s always been the same as him about alcohol and seldom drinks to excess, though he’s sure her reasons are different than his. Not sure what got into her tonight, though.
“Wait, what did you just say?” Her last words suddenly sink in.
“What I said was,” she waves her arms in an elaborate drunken gesture, “you suck in bed.”
He opens his mouth. “I . . . uh . . . what?”
“You’re the worst lover I ever had!”
“Babe . . .”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me.” She closes her eyes, swaying a little. “God, I was so disappointed.”
Nathan stills for a long moment, stunned. He leans back against the counter and thinks back to the one time they were together. Granted, he was plastered, but he doesn’t remember it being that bad.
To be honest, he barely remembers it at all.
He thinks harder. His impression has always been that it was good. Real good. Blair, so sweet and pretty. She had an elegant body with nice legs and a great ass, and she’d turned out to be eager in bed. Unfortunately, his overriding memory of the incident is tainted by how he felt afterward.
Guilty as hell.
That’s what he remembers the most.
He’d been selfish, taking advantage of the situation. He’d wanted her that night, though, remembers that clear enough, wanted her badly. She hadn’t been a disappointment in any way.
But I was?
He looks over at Blair, who’s watching him, bleary-eyed. Her pink tongue darts out, licks her lips, and he feels his groin tighten at the sight of it. There’s a flash of memory. Blair going down on him, using that pink tongue. She’d been surprisingly uninhibited.
Definitely not a disappointment.
“I was drunk that night,” he says. Might be an excuse, but it was the truth.
“So? So what?”
“So, that’s why it was . . . you know . . . ,” he feels his face warm, and can barely believe he’s having this conversation, “not that great.”
“Uh-huh, of course.” She nods, but it’s obvious she doesn’t believe him.
Is this what she’s always thought of me?
A part of him is tempted to take her to bed again when she’s sober, just to prove he’s not a bad lover, but he knows that’s stupid. Pride is all. Ego. And there’s no way he’s making the same mistake twice. Though he finds himself staring down at her legs anyway. She has great legs. Shapely and elegant.
Bet they’d feel fantastic wrapped around my back.
Christ. He wishes he could remember more about that night.
Blair is studying him with an expression that looks like pity, and even though she’s drunk, it grates on him.
“Look, I was seriously wasted that night, all right? Don’t usu
ally drink like that, but I was feeling like shit about what happened.”
“Your girlfriend cheating on you?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Blair stares at him with raised eyebrows. He’s confused by her expression for a second but then he gets it, gets what she’s implying.
I don’t fucking believe this.
“Hey, Gwen didn’t cheat on me because I was a bad lover! She cheated on me because she wanted to hurt me.”
This much he knows is true. Hard to believe he could ever have thought himself in love with someone so heartless. Afterward, she came crying to him, begging him to take her back. She spit fire when she heard he was marrying Blair.
“Of course.” Blair nods slowly. “Sure.”
“No woman has ever left my bed complaining, I can tell you that.”
Their eyes meet and he realizes he’s looking at a woman right now who’s complaining.
“Whatever.” Blair puts her water down. “Whatever you say.”
She sways a little, walking off down the hall toward her bedroom. Doesn’t even bother saying good night.
There’s a mewling sound and he sees Mr. Maurice twining around his legs. Nathan squats down to pet him. “You believe me, don’t you, buddy?”
Mr. Maurice purrs.
“Yeah, we guys got to stick together.”
As he’s petting the cat, he notices Blair’s purse sitting on the floor right where she dropped it. He stares at it, realizes this is his chance. He can grab his wallet and phone, and since he still has Isadora’s keys, he’ll be home free.
I can finally take my damn car back.
“Can I have a sip from that bottle?”
Road’s long body was sprawled on Tori’s couch with the bottle of Jack Daniels held loosely at his side. His brows went up. “You want some whiskey?”
She moved closer so she was sitting right next to him, her heart still hammering at the decision she’d made. “Just a taste.”
He passed the half-empty bottle over to her. She brought it to her mouth. The smell was strong, nearly overpowering. Blair realized she’d never drunk straight whiskey before. It burned going down, and she tried to hide her grimace when she handed the bottle back.
“Have more if you want.”
“No, that’s okay.” She didn’t want to risk getting intoxicated, didn’t want anything to dilute this experience.
He shrugged, took another swig, and closed his eyes again.
Blair watched him with an indecent pleasure. Slowly took in his handsome face then traveled lower, enjoying the look of him, the ridges and planes of his muscular body. He was wearing a black Metallica T-shirt, and she knew she’d never hear Metallica again without thinking of this night.
“I’m sorry about what happened with your girlfriend,” Blair said, knowing she wasn’t sorry in the least bit.
“Thanks.”
“You deserve better.” In this, she was sincere. It was the truth. Road wasn’t perfect, but he was decent and kind, and it was rare to hear him speak ill of anyone. He deserved better than all the Skank Factor X women he kept choosing.
He must have heard the sincerity, too, because he opened his eyes and looked at her.
“You’re better than all of them,” she whispered. More truth. “I only wish you could see that.”
He blinked.
She put her hand on his arm. His skin was warm, and Blair let her fingers trail lightly over the smoothness of his inner forearm. She nearly closed her eyes, stunned by how erotic it was to touch him.
Road was watching her and she could tell he was trying to turn on his laser focus, but he’d had too much whiskey and couldn’t quite manage it.
Her pulse raced and her breath grew unsteady. Nothing was going to stop her now.
I’m going to remember this night for the rest of my life.
Blair wakes up with a splitting headache, her mouth as dry as kindling. She groans, rolls over in bed, and closes her eyes again.
Last night comes back to her like images from a flickering movie screen. Road. Tequila. Jealousy. More tequila. Barter for sex.
My God!
Her eyes fly open. Did I really offer up Isadora in exchange for sex? But then she remembers it didn’t quite go as planned. There was some misunderstanding involved. More parts of the evening continue to play back to her. She remembers Road paying the bill. Road driving them home in Isadora. The weight of his wallet and phone inside her bag.
Ohmigod.
Where’s my purse?
She scrambles out of bed, barely noticing that she slept in the sundress she wore yesterday. Her head is killing her, but she manages to stumble out of her bedroom and down the hall.
What time is it?
Her brown leather Coach bag is sitting on one of the tall kitchen chairs and she rushes over, shoves her hand inside and starts rummaging through it.
Shit, shit, shit.
Blair grabs the purse off the chair and hurries over to the couch, dumping the entire contents out, searching frantically, but she already knows the miserable truth.
They’re both gone.
It’s over.
Road took his wallet and phone back, and now he has Isadora’s keys, too.
She falls back onto the couch.
Her stomach churns and tears burn her eyes. Hard to accept, but she’d actually believed Road’s promise that he’d give her Isadora’s keys back.
I am such an idiot.
She should have known better. He was just manipulating her, though she can’t believe he’d stoop to outright lying.
Jerk!
What am I going to do?
Blair shoves everything back into her purse, doesn’t even care that it’s not organized, that her lip gloss is floating freely and mixing with her wallet and tissue pack. Who cares? I’ve lost Isadora!
She gets up and pours herself some water from the fridge, gulps down half of it, and finds the Tylenol.
This is like a nightmare I wish I could wake up from.
Road’s backpack isn’t anywhere, and she notices the couch bedding he used to sleep with is stacked and folded. It’s sloppy and the corners don’t match. She wants to refold it, but instead heads purposefully toward her second bedroom he’s been using as an office.
All his stuff is still there. It’s not like he could move out that quickly. There’s only one computer on his desk instead of two, but as far as she can tell, nothing else is missing. She thinks about losing Isadora and her heart hurts. How could he do this to me?
Blair marches over and unplugs his laptop, rips the cord out of the wall in frustration. Tears blur her vision but she ignores them, quickly wiping her eyes.
Glancing around, she checks to see if there’s anything else she could take. She starts going through the desk drawers, but they’re mostly empty. Road hasn’t been here long enough to fill them with stuff.
What’s this?
In the last drawer, she finds a large, beat-up mailing envelope. She pulls it out and stares at it. It’s covered in foreign stamps on the outside and says ‘Nathan Church’ on the front, with an address in the UK. In a normal situation, Blair would never consider going through someone’s stuff like this. It’s too dishonorable.
But this is not a normal situation.
She immediately dumps the contents out. There’s a bunch of papers and some colorful foreign money—Euros, Pound Sterling, and Forint. She sifts through the papers and discovers they’re official documents from various countries, work-related as far as she can tell. As she’s shuffling through the pile, she suddenly notices a few letters tucked in. They’re written on blue-striped stationary.
Blair pulls one out and opens it. Right away, she can see it’s a personal letter. She hesitates. Should I read it? But her eyes have already started. It’s addressed Querido Nathan and is written in a foreign handwriting, but she can tell right away it’s a woman’s hand.
The body of the letter is in English and from what she can gather,
it’s from a woman Road was involved with. It talks about school and her family, and then goes on about how much she misses him and wants him to come back to Madrid.
The Spanish girlfriend. Blair feels ill. Ill from her tequila hangover and ill from reading some letter from a woman he had a love affair with.
She wishes now she hadn’t read it. Hadn’t touched it.
She puts it back in the pile then notices a page torn from a magazine that looks familiar. Blair unfolds it and is surprised to discover a picture of herself. It’s from the write-up Seattle Magazine did on La Dolce Vita a few months ago. She remembers Road mentioning how Tori sent him a copy of the article, but is surprised to see he kept it.
He’s been traveling around with a picture of me?
Blair studies it, tries to see herself objectively. It’s a good photo. She had her hair and makeup professionally done, and the photographer was a cute guy who kept flirting with both her and Natalie. As a result, he managed to capture Blair with a playful expression on her face.
Why would Road keep this?
She can’t think of a single reason. And then she notices a green slip of paper sticking out from the pile and her breath stops. It’s worn and folded, but right away she knows what it is.
Isadora’s title.
Yes!
Immediately, she shoves everything back in the envelope, except for the title. Puts it all back in the bottom drawer, grabs the computer, and heads to her bedroom. Once there, she tucks everything into her underwear drawer, figuring it’s safe there. The odds are slim to none that Road will ever be looking at her panties.
Not in this universe.
Obviously, he can order another title, but that takes time. In truth, she’s not even sure how to use this to her advantage, but figures it’s worth keeping just in case.
You never know.
THANKS TO HER tequila hangover, her misery over Isadora, and her fury at Road, Blair nearly forgets she has a movie date with Graham that night. She almost cancels, but decides to grit it out instead. She’s not letting Road ruin her social life the same way he’s ruined everything else.
Return of the Jerk (Sweet Life in Seattle, Book 2) Page 13