Did I need to pull her on top of me in the car yesterday? Did I need to touch her pussy to feel how wet she was?
No.
I didn’t need to do either, yet I did, for no other reason than I wanted to.
She was soft and gentle, a vulnerable young woman with the weight of her world on her shoulders.
I was hard and brash, a total asshole, carrying the weight of my own universe in my hands.
It didn’t matter that my heart was just as broken as hers. Didn’t matter for a damn second that we shared a pain she had no idea about.
All that mattered was that she was a wistful daydream to me, yet to her, I was no more than a persistent nightmare.
Nine
Dahlia
“I promise,” I said to Patty, the cleaning lady. “I’m sending you home. Full pay.”
The old woman sniffed and rubbed at her nose with a tissue. “You don’t need to do that.”
I touched her shoulder. “Go home, go to bed, and call your son to bring you some soup and tea, okay? You’re sick, you crazy lady. Did you drive here?”
She shook her head.
“Let me get Fergus to take you home. Sit down.” I directed her to a chair and walked back to where Fergus was rifling through resumes for Abby’s perusal.
My assistant manager was a twenty-nine-year-old, blond, god of a man. He had muscles on every inch of his body thanks to a love affair with the gym, but it didn’t look out of place on his tall, lean frame.
My favorite thing in the world was watching him get hit on at the bar. It happened five times a night and watching the look on women’s faces when he said, “Sorry, darling, I’m gay,” never, ever got old.
“Hey, Ferg?” I leaned against the doorframe. “Can you drive Patty home? She’s sick.”
He wrinkled his handsome face up as he lifted his attention from the desk to me. “I just got back from vacation. I don’t have time to be sick.”
“Nobody has time to be sick. Stop being a drama queen, or I’ll make her sneeze on you.”
He sighed, closed the folder, and stood. “Fine, but you know she lives only a block away from Reggie. If I see him and I cry the entire day, it’s on you, and I’ll need extra breaks.”
I rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain. He and his long-term boyfriend, Reggie, were constantly breaking up and getting back together. I had whiplash from the whole thing, honestly.
This time, they’d gone on vacation to the Bahamas for two weeks, and while there, Reggie had eyed up the cabana boys the night before they came home. If Fergus was to be believed—he had a flair for the dramatic—they’d fought the entire flight home to Vegas and promptly broken up the moment Fergus had taken him home yesterday afternoon.
That was twenty-four hours ago.
This morning, I’d texted Abby. I had fifty bucks that said they’d be back together in three days, and she said this one would be a week.
“I saw you rolling your eyes at me.” He tucked his shirt back into his waistband as he followed me to the bar.
“Good. Then, maybe, you’ll understand how ridiculous it is.”
“He was eying up the cabana boy!”
I leaned against the bar, noting even Patty was covering a smile. “Honey, of course he was. He was bringing you drinks! Where else was he supposed to look?”
“At me.” Fergus sniffed. “Come on, Patty, darling. Let’s get you home.” He went to put his arm around her before thinking better of it. “You’re not contagious, are you?”
Patty answered with a cough. When he jumped away from her, she shot me a wink.
I dipped my head to hide my laughter, only letting it go when I heard the door shut behind them. If Fergus knew I’d laughed at him, I’d never hear the end of it.
Seriously, he’d be reminding me about it in ten years.
I pulled a packet of new coasters from beneath the bar with the intention to set them on every table, but the phone ringing beat me to it. Glancing at the clock, I picked up the phone and answered.
“Good morning, this is The Scarlet Letter, Dahlia speaking.” I tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder. It was a little awkward, but it enabled me to tear the packaging on the coasters open.
“Good morning.” The deep, now-familiar tone of Damien Fox stopped me in my tracks. “Are you able to talk?”
“I’m sorry, who is this?” I kept my tone light and airy.
“You know who it is.”
“I know it’s not Damien Fox. He doesn’t do calls before one in the afternoon, and it’s barely past eleven.”
He laughed.
I shivered.
I suck.
“I’m his long-lost twin brother,” he said.
“I hope you have better manners than he does, in that case.” I grinned as I put three coasters down on a circular table.