Starting an evening with an orgasm should have been a sign of more good things to come. Literally.
Of course, most orgasms aren’t given out of pity, and this one definitely was. Even if Scott hadn’t so much as said that directly, it was a big clue when he dismissed me just when it was his turn for the hand job.
His cutting remark echoed in my head: “Only reason I got you off was so that you’d leave me alone.”
I refused to cry as I stomped away from him.
Well, stomped until I got to the edge of the roof. There, my departure became more awkward as I attempted to descend the steel ladder to the main rooftop level with as much poise as a woman dressed in a cocktail dress could muster. Which is to say, not any poise at all. Mostly, I tried to keep my knees together so that no one below could see that my panties had gone the way of my dignity—stuffed into Scott Sebastian’s pocket.
Not my cocktail dress, I should add—borrowed from my older sister, as all my formal attire was—which meant that the snag that I got halfway down the damn thing would have to be repaired before I returned it. There went next week’s Café A Lot money.
Fuck everything.
Rather, fuck everything but Scott Sebastian, the only thing I actually wanted to be fucking at the moment.
At the bottom of the ladder, I sent one more angry glare toward the upper roof, hoping that my sometimes lover would be standing there to see it.
Alas, the glare went unreceived.
And I, in a dramatic flare that no one was there to witness, lifted my chin and stormed over to the bar.
“Everything going well?” I asked the bartender as I slipped behind the counter. His name was Denim.
Denim.
I’d be appalled at his parents for giving him such a ridiculous name if I wasn’t so sure that it was a name change he’d taken for himself.
Actors.
Correction: Millennial actors. The other actors weren’t quite so eccentric.
The city was full of them moonlighting as waitstaff, and since my job description as receptionist somehow included every random task not otherwise assigned in the PR department, I was frequently the point person for the service staff at parties such as this.
Obviously, I wasn’t the best at this part of my job, since I’d been getting busy with my boss instead of remaining in sight and available. But honestly, I would have been overjoyed to have this particular task doled out to someone else. I’d frequently asked for just that over the last few years, only to have my request put off time and time again. So now this was just another thing in my life that could fuck right off.
“Peachy,” Denim said flatly, and charming as he wasn’t, I didn’t take it upon myself to manage him the way some others in my position might have.
I hadn’t really come by to check up on him.
He eyed me as I rooted around in his wine fridge. “Anything I can get for you, Ms. Waters?”
“Nah. I got it.” I pulled out an already opened, mostly full Moet & Chandon and made sure the Nectar Imperial flavor was a demi-sec—it was—and then shut the fridge door with my hip. I held up the bottle for Denim to see. “A guest requested this.”
Never mind that the guest was me and that I wasn’t really a guest.
“Do you need some flutes?”
“Nope! I’m good.”
“Ah, so that’s the kind of evening this is going to be,” said another familiar voice as I slipped back to the other side of the bar.
I turned to see the only other face I wanted to see at the moment—really, the only other face I wanted to see at most moments.
“That’s the kind of evening this already is, Brett,” I whined, the way a girl does when she’s having a bad time and she sees the person who knows her better than anyone else in the world.
He frowned as he used his thumb to clean up my smudged mascara. “Want me to beat him up?”
I forced myself not to shiver at his touch. “Yes, please.”
“On it.”
He smiled, and the bright white of his teeth somehow managed to accentuate the green of his eyes. It was hard to know where to look, which was often the case. Every part of his face was attractive, from his dimpled chin to his chiseled cheekbones to his thick eyebrows to the scruff covering his angled jawline.
Hands down, he was the hottest man I knew. Even after years of knowing him, I wasn’t immune to his looks. The only reason I hadn’t chased after him was because he wasn’t running. If I wanted him in my bed, I had a feeling he’d follow me like a lost puppy. That was his only problem—which wasn’t really a problem in general, just where my libido was concerned—he adored me, and f’d up broken girl that I was, I required a certain degree of assholery to turn me on.
Scott Sebastian, case in point.
Of course Brett wouldn’t really beat Scott up because A) he wouldn’t hurt a fly, B) Scott was his boss as well as mine, and C) Scott was his cousin—relevance in that order—but it was a nice sentiment all the same.
I held up the bottle. “I’m going to drown my misery with expensive champagne that I didn’t pay for. Want to join me?”
Brett peered over one shoulder then the other. “I can’t. I think I need to schmooze a little longer.”
See? Brett was one of the good ones. He wouldn’t even try to talk me out of shirking my own duties, despite the fact that he had gotten me the job and held rank over me.
Since I was not one of the good ones, it wasn’t beneath me to try to change his mind. “You’re tucked in the corner by the bar with me. You’re already not schmoozing.”
“Well, I’m also trying to hide from Adrienne Thorne.”
I threw my head back and groaned, for his sake as well as mine. The blue-haired sexagenarian called the office at least once a week trying to land an appointment with Brett. His personal assistant had stopped taking her calls, and so she’d started calling the main line, meaning I was now the one making up excuses for why Brett couldn’t see her. “You should just tell her we’re never going to work with her and get it over with.”
“I have, Eden. Several times. She thinks she can change my mind.”
Because Brett was so nice that being dumped by him probably felt like an invitation to try harder to win him.
Poor guy. He couldn’t help being good-natured.
“Want me to beat her up?” I smoothed my hand down his tie, more to cop a feel than to straighten it.
Yeah, he wasn’t the guy for me, but he had a great body. Sue me for appreciating it.
I silently scored myself a point when he shivered. “I’m afraid you’d really do it, even if I said yes in jest.”
“I mean, it would probably cost me my job.”
A beat passed before we broke into laughter. Whether or not Scott Sebastian returned my affection, sleeping with the boss gave me the advantage. I’d one hundred percent been the one who’d gone after him, but the Sebastians were concerned enough about their image that they’d think twice before letting me go. And if I did get fired, I’d likely leave with a hefty paycheck.
Not that I’d ever accuse the guy of anything, but as long as he thought I might, and the possibility gave me job security, I wasn’t going to admit that I wouldn’t.
Thinking about my job gave me a second to consider sticking around like I was supposed to and helping Brett hide from Adrienne Thorne, for no other reason but that I liked his company, and he always cheered me up after Scott broke my heart.
But the notion was quickly dismissed when I saw the devil himself climb down the ladder and casually throw my panties in a trash can. Naturally, he hadn’t snagged anything, and he looked just as put together as he had when he’d gone up.
Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.
Brett followed my eyeline and stiffened when he saw what I was looking at. Who I was looking at.
Maybe he really would beat Scott up. If I asked him to.
I wouldn’t ask him to. I hated myself already for making Brett feel like he had to choose sides. Which didn’t stop me from returning to Scott time and time again like a beat-up boomerang, but it did compel me to defuse the current situation with distance.
As in, me distancing myself from the object of my affection before I ended up back at his side.
“Anyway”—I patted Brett’s chest like I was calming a ferocious guard dog—“you do that work stuff, I’ll be on the other side of the roof.” I nodded to the area at the far end of the party that had been roped off to store the extra boxes of alcohol so that the staff didn’t have to go inside when they ran out of vodka or scotch. I’d noticed a couch over there during setup, and right now the secluded spot was calling my name. “Join me later?”
“Yep.” I didn’t miss the longing that flashed through his eyes, as it did on occasion, but as always, I didn’t acknowledge it. He gestured to my champagne. “Save me some.”
“Sure.” I managed not to roll my eyes. He pretended he wasn't blue blood because he wasn’t as blue blooded as Scott’s branch of the Sebastian tree, but he’d grown up much more dignified than I had and preferred a dry wine to my dessert liquors.
Still, he’d drink it when he joined me. Whether to show his support or because he didn’t want me to drink it all alone and get wasted, I didn’t know.
Whichever his reason, I made sure to grab another bottle before taking off to solitude. It was early in the night, and I’d already been dumped by Scott. Again. I was not in the mood to have my drinking limited.