“What do you see as on track for today? Is there something specific you feel like talking about?”
I dragged a hand through my hair. “No offense, but if it were my choice, I wouldn’t be here talking to you at all. So, no… There’s nothing specific I want to discuss today.”
She was quiet for a long time. “Let’s continue. Were Sophia and Caroline friends?”
“Caroline didn’t have a lot of friends. She was out of school so much and couldn’t do most of the things normal kids did.”
“Okay. So let’s go back to Sophia and prom for a moment. For whatever reason, you felt the need to intervene in her relationship and got into an altercation with her boyfriend. Was Sophia upset about that?”
I shrugged. “As far as I know, she wasn’t even aware it happened. She ran out right after she caught them messing around in the bathroom.”
“And that was the last time you saw her?”
I smiled. “No. I was in a shit mood. All of my friends were getting drunk and acting like idiots, and I couldn’t drink, so I left prom early. I ran into Sophia in the parking lot.”
“Why couldn’t you drink like your friends?”
“I had a procedure scheduled for the next morning. Caroline was sick again.”
Dr. Halpern frowned. “Okay. So you ran into Sophia in the parking lot, and how was that?”
I smiled. “We argued. As usual. She thought I was there to gloat about what a jerk her boyfriend was. He didn’t even chase after her. We’d both taken a limo to prom and gotten dropped off. I called my driver and had him come pick us up.”
“Okay…”
I wasn’t about to share that while Sophia was in the middle of bawling me out, I’d pressed my lips to hers, and the two of us wound up taking out our frustrations in a much more productive manner that night. “We…hung out for a while. I fell asleep at her house around the time the sun came up, and I woke up a half hour after I was supposed to be at the hospital. I got a cab and showed up in my wrinkled tux from the night before.” I shook my head. “My mother made them do a blood alcohol test on me because she thought I’d put having fun over Caroline. She didn’t believe me when I told her I didn’t have a drop to drink.”
Dr. Halpern picked up her pad and wrote for a full minute that time.
“Perhaps seeing Sophia reminded you of that time in your life—a time when you were helping your sister.”
I guess that made sense. Though my sister had been the furthest thing from my mind last night, that was for damn sure. I shrugged. “Maybe.”
We moved on from our trip down memory lane. When Dr. Halpern asked me how things were going at The Countess, I almost told her how I’d royally fucked up by sleeping with the enemy. But then I figured she might try to keep me here all afternoon to dissect the real reasons I’d done what I did.
Because no shrink accepts that sometimes you just can’t handle how the cream buttons on a royal blue silk blouse make you insane. Or how the color of those buttons exactly matches the skin on her neck, and since you can’t bite that neck like you really want to, you have to settle for listening to the little cream pearls ping against the tile floor.
Yeah, Dr. Halpern would definitely not understand that. Let’s face it, if she did, she’d be out of business. Because in order for her to maintain this fancy midtown real estate, she needs to psychoanalyze the shit out of everything we do.
But the truth of the matter is, sometimes we just act on instinct like an animal. And Sophia damn Sterling has the uncanny ability to bring out the savage in me.
Chapter 6
* * *
Sophia
“You can have six rooms, if you want. Should I book it under your name? Will they be flying in with you or checking in on their own?”
Scarlett had sent me an email asking to book a second room for her upcoming trip. So I’d picked up the phone to respond since I was wide awake anyway.
“I’m not sure yet. But if you could book the room under Thomason, that would be brilliant.”
“No problem.”
“Isn’t it the middle of the night there? It’s just seven in the morning here, so it’s, what…two in New York?”
I sighed. “Yeah. I couldn’t fall asleep, so I figured I’d catch up on my emails.”
“Jet lag?”
“Not really.”
“Don’t tell me you’re losing sleep over that sloth, Liam.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“So what’s keeping you from getting the proper amount of beauty rest, then?”
I hadn’t called my friend to unload my troubles. Well, maybe that wasn’t so true, and unconsciously I’d hoped we’d get to chat. It had been four hours since I scurried out of Weston’s room, yet my head was still spinning from what had happened.