And send me Clarence’s phone number. Now that your phone isn’t dead.
I didn’t even realize how pissed I was until the growl came out of my throat. I was so angry. So frustrated.
So hard.
As angry as we’d been with each other, it was probably good that we weren’t going to see each other tonight. Even better that we weren’t going to see each other for an entire week. I would get my apartment to myself, wouldn’t even have to stay at her place.
But... I wanted to see her.
I wanted to stay at her place. I wanted to fucking be in her arms. I wanted to be in her bed, wanted to be inside her—and since I still couldn’t stand her, the whole idea had me in turmoil.
I ran my hand through my hair. Both of my hands through my hair. One after another, willing myself to settle down, but I heard Roxie’s voice outside the office.
“Go on in. He’s in a mood though. I warn you.”
“I heard that,” I yelled.
“You were meant to,” she called back.
Then there was Sabrina standing in my doorway, her hands tugging at her hair like they often did, a gesture I’d found adorable when I’d first met her a decade ago.
And now?
She was striking, she really was. A natural beauty. She’d grown up to be even more sophisticated and beguiling, more sure of herself. She was serious and put together. She wasn’t feisty or passionate. She wasn’t late for everything.
Why did I have to remind myself that these were good things?
“Hey, what’s up?” she asked tentatively. “Is there a problem?”
“Not exactly.” I dropped my phone on my desk. But it sat there, staring, mocking, Elizabeth’s texts shouting in my head at the mere sight of it.
I opened my desk drawer and threw my phone inside, as though that would silence the buzz buzz of my thoughts.
It was weak, but the only idea I had at the moment.
I turned my attention back to Sabrina.
“Have a seat,” I said, and the world did seem a little less noisy now that my cell phone was tucked away.
She walked farther into the room somewhat cautiously, and slunk down in the chair facing me. “I’m here.”
“You’re here.” I didn’t even remember how to do this. Didn’t remember how to talk to a woman.
What the hell had happened to me?
I shook my head and attempted a smile. “Anyway. As I was saying downstairs, Tom Burns spoke to me yesterday, and he had some interesting things to say about you.”
“Really? Like what?” She blinked rapidly, seeming nervous.
Women were nervous when they were into a guy, right? Shit, I needed to be closer, needed to get the barriers out from between us. I stood up and circled around so I was right in front of her, then leaned back, half sitting on the desk behind me.
As soon as I sat, she bolted to a standing position, startling me.
“Whoa,” I said. “You okay?”
“Yep. Just edgy today.” She tugged on her hair. “Go on. Tom said…?”
“That you stayed as late as anyone else, and that you provided some of the last minute additions to the project, such as the global message component. That was one of the selling points in the strategy.”
“Really?” Her eyes were level with mine now, her focus completely on me. She was into this, then, if I was reading this right.
And I wasn’t. Yet.
“Yes. Really.” I kept on with my praise. I wasn’t a quitter. “I wanted you to know your commitment to your team didn’t go unnoticed. Everyone seems to be responding really well to you. The staff likes you. Your team likes you, and I’m really glad you came.” I was glad she’d come. She’d done great things for the company, made my job easier. She was probably better at the work than I was.
And I was glad for other reasons. Surely.
She was still playing with her hair so I reached out and took it from her and tugged it myself, making a play of sorts.
Had coming on to a woman always felt this unnatural?
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Her cheeks grew pink. “Was that everything?”
I nodded, keeping my eyes on hers. “Yeah, that’s everything.” I chuckled at myself. What else was I supposed to say? No, that’s not everything, I was hoping we could meet at a hotel later so I can remember why I like you better than the woman I’m marrying.
That wasn’t smooth at all. Three months out of the game, and I’d forgotten all my moves.
“Okay, then. Thank you again.” She started to leave, then hesitated. “Oh, and congratulations on the account.”
She definitely wanted me. All I had to do was want her back.
Or at least try to.
“Congratulations to both of us.” I put my hand up in the air to give her a high five, and when her palm met mine, I left my hand there, let it linger, and when she started to pull away, I laced my fingers through hers.
Yeah, this was how to do it. It was coming back to me now. It didn’t have to be tawdry.
“You’re coming tonight, aren’t you?” I asked, my confidence rising incrementally along with my self-loathing.
Out of the corner of my eye, Donovan appeared in the open door frame.
Sabrina glanced over and noticed him too, but instead of pulling back, she entwined her fingers around mine. “Uh, yeah. Of course.”
“Good. I’ll save you a seat.” We held hands, stretching our arms until she was too far away to touch, and then we let go. I watched after her, though, my heart beating hollow in my chest, my stomach feeling empty.
I sighed again and turned to my partner. “Kincaid. Whatcha got for me? Budgets for the toothpaste campaigns, I’m hoping.”
He closed the door.
Which was immediately a bad sign. There was no need to have the door closed to discuss toothpaste campaigns.
“What the goddamn hell are you doing?” he hissed.
Of course. I should have seen this coming a mile away. “Oh, Christ. You’re really going to be like this, aren’t you?”
He paced toward me, his face looking as enraged as I’d felt all morning. “Our reputation is on the line. Our company is on the line. Elizabeth’s company is on the line.”
I stood up from the desk to answer him. “I know what’s on the line. Trust me.”
“Trust you? I walked in on you with your hands all over Sabrina,” Donovan said, disgusted. “Your door was wide open. The glass is clear. Anyone could have seen you.”
I circled behind my desk, putting a barrier between us so that I didn’t kill him. “Because there are so many spies in our office just dying to call up Elizabeth’s cousin and tell him about some harmless office flirtation? I bet he chases his own secretary’s skirt. Have you seen the guy?”
Donovan’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. “You’re lucky it was just me,” he said in a tone so quiet and controlled, it made my scalp prickle.
“So lucky. To think, I might’ve missed out on you telling me what was what and putting me in my place. Like always. Thank you. I appreciate it. Now if you don’t have anything business related—”
He cut me off. “This isn’t one of your games, Weston. You can’t charm your way through this like you do everything else.”
God, he sounded like my father. Not because my father had ever said words like that, but because Donovan thought he had the right to say things like that.
And he didn’t. No right at all.
I leaned my palms onto the desk and bent toward him. “If you didn’t think I was capable of it, then you shouldn’t have insisted I be the one to do the damn job. It isn’t like I wanted it.” I held his intense stare for several long seconds, neither of us backing down.
Finally, I spoke again. “Look. I’ll be where I’m supposed to be. I’ll go through with the wedding. I’ll wear the ring. I’ll continue playing house—playing the part like I have been, which has been an Academy Award-winning performance. But like hell do you get to keep popping
in like you’re directing this show. You were the casting agent, Donovan, that’s all. Now step aside, and enjoy it when you get to put Reach’s name on Dyson’s advertising subsidiary, because that’s where you get to take your credit. The rest of your role is done.”
We stared at each other for a few more seconds, and I had a feeling he wanted to say something else, but by God, no way was I letting him have the last word. “Now, do I need to call security?” I said, acting like the total asshole that I was. “Because this is my office.”
He straightened to his full height. “Technically, it’s not your office, is it?” And he turned and left, shutting the door behind him.
Fuck him.
Fuck him for having the last word and fuck him for bringing up the money I owed him, for reminding me that I didn’t have a proper stake in the company yet.
But also, thank Donovan. Because he reminded me why I was doing all of this. Why I was suffering day in and day out with a woman who made me question everything that I wanted and desired.
But seriously, fuck them both. Both Donovan and Elizabeth.
And if this was really how it was going to be—Donovan barking orders, Elizabeth not playing her part to the limit, not being as committed as I had been—then I was done playing by the rules. Tonight I would go to Red Farm without my fiancée, and if I flirted with Sabrina, so be it. If I had fun with Sabrina, then good for me. If anyone else was put off by it, well, maybe they shouldn’t have treated me like this when all I was doing was my best.
I opened the top desk of my drawer and grabbed my phone. There was one more text I needed to send if I was going to feel completely liberated enough to do what I wanted this evening. I searched and found Clarence Sheridan’s number and sent it to my wife-to-be.
I might be a dick, but fair was fair.
Twelve
“I’m planning on getting a restorative herbal massage,” my mother said as I dropped a sleep mask into my suitcase. I shifted the cradle of the landline receiver so I could hold it with my chin and rifle through my dresser drawer at the same time. “Or should I get the chakra balancing massage instead?”
“What does it say the difference is?” I grabbed a handful of panties from the drawer and dropped them in the suitcase, then shuffled toward my closet for some yoga pants. To be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention to the types of services she was telling me about. She would change her mind by the time we got there.
The spa was in a resort in Connecticut—only a couple of hours away, but the driver was arriving early in the morning and I wanted to be packed tonight. I’d already spent an hour on the task, which was too long. We planned to spend most of the weeklong trip wrapped in seaweed and on massage tables, so it shouldn’t have been that big of a burden to pack a bag. Problem was, I was too distracted by thoughts of Weston.
Naked thoughts of Weston.
Thoughts of Weston doing the things I saw him doing last night in the dark.
“I don’t know, one’s Thai style, the other one’s Swedish with a focus on chakras. Oh!” my mother suddenly exclaimed. “We could do the massage for two!”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Those are for couples, Mom. They’re romantic and sexy-like.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if we did it together. There’s a discount if you do it together.” With the money my mother got from her divorce, she didn’t need to worry about bargains. But she remembered where she came from, and she could never turn down a buy-one-get-one-free special.
“Sorry, Mom. I just don’t want to see you naked.” But there was that guy I did want to see naked.
And now I was thinking about him again. Or still. Missing his presence, trying not to notice what time it was or that he was likely out with his friends, eating dinner now. Trying not to wonder if he would show up at my house at all tonight, considering I was leaving in the morning. Our last texts had escalated in tone and tension; I had no idea whether he even wanted to be in the same room with me at the moment.
I didn’t want to be in the same room with him.
But I did.
No, I didn’t.
“What’s Weston going to do while you’re gone?” my mother asked, as though she could read my mind.
“I don’t know. And I don’t care.” With five pairs of yoga pants and four long-sleeved T-shirts, I returned back to my suitcase and dropped them inside. “Don’t you remember what it’s like to live with a man, Mom? Because it’s really terrible, and I’m glad I’m getting a break.”
She laughed. “Of course I remember, honey. Why do you think I’m divorced? But aren’t you worried that this particular man might muck up your deal while you’re out of town?”
I’d been conflicted about this. He’d promised me over and over again that he was faithful to our commitment, that he wasn’t going to do anything to mess up my chance at getting Dyson Media, but did I trust him?
Part of me did, actually. A deep-rooted part of me trusted him when he said he would keep it in his pants. It was my head that thought otherwise, the reasonable part of me that knew what men were like and what temptation could do to a man. That was the part of me that said perhaps he was fooling around, or would fool around, given the opportunity.
Luckily, I had someone who had my back. “Donovan will look after him,” I told my mother. “He knows how to keep Weston in line.”
A muffled ringing sounded from somewhere in my bedroom—my cell phone.
“What’s that? Do you need to go?”
“I won’t know until I find my cell phone and check the caller ID,” I said, annoyed. I had stuck my cell somewhere when I was bitter with Weston, but where?
Oh, yes. Under my pillow.
The name on the screen said, Kincaid, D. “Mom, I gotta go.” I clicked off the home phone before she had a chance to say goodbye, and clicked on my cell. “What’s up, Donovan?”
“What are you doing? And why aren’t you here?” He was serious, straight to the point like always, but this time there was also a note of something I’d never heard in Donovan. Panic?
“I’m at home, and I’m talking to you. I am not where you are because I don’t know where you are.” Then I realized he was probably out with everyone else at the company, celebrating their new account. “Oh, I mean I’m not there because I don’t want to be.”
“You do want to be. Get down here. Now.”
I turned to look at myself in the dresser mirror, see if my makeup had still held up from my earlier outing to the library. It had, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t going anywhere. I wasn’t jumping because Reach said so.
“What’s the point? Why do you want me there so badly?”
“Elizabeth, I should think you would trust me enough to not have to go into a lengthy explanation. Let me just tell you this—Sabrina is here.”
At the mention of her name, my stomach curdled. I had nothing against her personally; she was a nice woman. Probably. But I knew what kind of thoughts Weston had about her, and that made her dangerous.
But she was also an employee for the company, so of course she would be at the celebration dinner with the rest of the staff and higher-ups.
“Sabrina works with Weston every day,” I said, not quite so sure of myself.
“Tonight, though, they aren’t working.”
If Donovan hadn’t convinced me I should be there, the text message that waited for me when I hung up did. It had been sent earlier in the day, but I was only just seeing it now—Clarence Sheridan’s contact info, forwarded from Weston.
Sure, I’d asked him to send it, but I’d asked more than once, and he’d been pissy about it. Was it reaching to think he might’ve sent it to relieve his guilt about whatever he was planning to do with Sabrina?
I wasn’t certain, but I was damn sure going to find out.
I changed quickly into a dressy jumpsuit and heels. Instead of taking the time to wait for my driver, I went to the front desk of the apartment building and
got the doorman to hail a cab. Twenty minutes after my phone call with Donovan, I was on my way to Red Farm.
It was easy to find the group I was looking for when I arrived at the restaurant. They took up most of the main room, the company staff spread out along two long tables. I spotted Weston, Nate, and Donovan immediately at the far end and headed over to them. The food had already arrived; dumplings were in the middle of the table being shared family-style. As if by fate, there was one empty seat waiting next to Donovan. Weston sat across from him, Sabrina at his side.
And Weston’s hand was on her thigh.
“Elizabeth!” Weston jumped up, eyes wide, voice pitched high. “What are you doing here?” It almost sounded like he was glad I’d come, but the sting of seeing his hand on the other woman’s thigh was fresh. Had he known I’d seen it? It was probable he didn’t. It was possible he did.
It was possible everyone knew.
And that thought pissed the hell out of me.
He bent to kiss me, but just before his mouth met mine, I moved away. His lips landed on my cheek. It was only for show anyway, not like we were kissing for the fun of it.
“My fiancé had a celebration. Thought I should be here,” I said, answering his question with the subtlest emphasis on the reminder of who he was to me. Real or not.
“I’ll move so you two can sit together,” Nate offered.
I waved him off. That would be the mature thing to do, but I was in battle mode. All of the people at this end of the table were in the know, and the rest of the employees didn’t seem to be paying any attention to what happened down here. If my fiancé could flirt with somebody else, so could I. Weston King wasn’t the only player in the world.
“Don’t be silly. I don’t need to sit by him. I’d much rather sit by Donovan.” I slipped in next to the man, who eyed me curiously. “Now. Next time the waitress comes by, I’m going to need a drink.”
Probably a double to give me enough nerve to go through with this. I put my arm around Donovan’s back and ruffled the hair at the base of his neck. “So. I’m here!”
Dirty Sexy Player Page 13