“Mmm,” Annie hummed seductively, running her eyes up and down my body. “Definitely not just the readers.”
I ran my finger across my bottom lip as I regarded the brunette in front of me. I had absolutely no desire to fuck her, but Navie had spent the past hour fuming, so I needed to lay it on just a little thicker. “You know, I’m starving. What do you say we grab a bite to eat after this? That is, if you’re not too busy.”
“I’m not busy at all,” Annie answered. “Just a few more shots and I think we can call it a day. We could go somewhere, or maybe… order in?” she finished with a wink, not so subtly letting me know she was a sure thing. Oh, she was just playing right into the palm of my hand. I was ecstatic—that was, until Navie cleared her throat.
“You know, if you’re almost finished here, I think I’ll head out a little early.”
My gaze quickly darted from the woman I didn’t want to the one I did. What the ever loving hell? “Early?” I asked dumbly, trying to understand what was happening. She was no longer staring at Annie like she wanted to gut her like a fish. Oh, no, all that hate in her eyes was focused solely on me, along with something else. Something that looked an awful lot like pain. My gut plummeted.
“Yeah. I mean, you obviously don’t need me here, right?”
“I think we’re good, just the two of us,” Annie answered before I had a chance to speak.
I needed to fix things fast. “You’re not joining us for dinner?” My question earned a confused look from Annie and a scowl from Navie. It was at that very moment I realized my mistake… my huge fucking mistake. Navie wasn’t like any other woman I’d ever been with. She didn’t play games, didn’t manipulate. She was honest to a fault. I was an idiot for thinking for one second that making her jealous would pull her closer to me. All I’d managed to do in the span of an hour was push her even further away.
Standing from my chair, I started in her direction, needing to touch her with a desperation I hadn’t felt in years. A desperation I was so sure I’d never feel again after what Bree had put me through. But seeing my intentions, she quickly skittered toward the open door. “I’ll pass on dinner,” she sneered. “I’m sure you’ll have your hands full anyway. You won’t even notice I’m not there.”
The meaning behind her words was a punch in the gut. Despite my intentions, as far as she was concerned, I’d just proven her right in thinking the worst of me.
“Have a good night, Nancy,” Annie said as she stepped up next to me, curving her fingers around my bicep possessively.
Something flashed in those navy blue eyes, a sadness that stole the breath from my lungs. “You, too,” she offered, not bothering to correct the leech who had just attached herself to my side like she belonged there. Navie’s eyes flittered to where her hand was wrapped around my arm and the look on her face nearly broke me. It was entirely my fault. If it had been possible, I’d have kicked my own ass.
“Now, where were we?” Annie purred once we were alone, moving in front of me to wrap her arms around my neck. The heavy, suffocating scent of her perfume suddenly hit me like a punch to the face, and I wanted nothing more than to get her out of my apartment as fast as possible.
“You were just leaving,” I answered shortly, reaching up to pull her arms from around me.
Her brows drew down in disbelief. “What?”
“My assistant’s name is Navie. Not Nancy. You knew that already, seeing as you used her name to request something from her at least three times today.”
“Yeah, so? What does it matter?” She laughed, running her fingers along my chest. “She’s just your assistant.”
I grabbed her wrists, holding tightly enough for her to get the hint that she needed to stop touching me. I was already pissed at myself, and her blatant disregard for Navie was doing nothing but fueling the fire. Using my hold on her wrists to pull her closer, I hissed in her ear, “The only reason I paid you any attention today was to make that assistant jealous. If you had been lucky enough to get my cock, it would have been her face I was picturing as I fucked you. And I would have come, moaning Navie, not Nancy. Now, get the hell out.”
She yanked away from me, disgust distorting her features, features that required makeup for her to look attractive. Navie didn’t need anything to make her gorgeous. I’d seen her in sweats, her hair in a messy bun at the top of her head, and not a speck of makeup on her face. And I still got harder for her than I had for any other woman.
“You’re an asshole,” she seethed as she stuffed her camera inside its bag.
“Nice working with you,” I responded dismissively, not bothering to watch her storm out as I grabbed my phone and began dialing.
It was time to do something I hadn’t done in a very long time.
It was time to grovel.
“Oh, my God,” Harlow gasped, grabbing my phone from the table. “He’s calling again!”
“Damn, I’ve never seen that boy act so needy before. This is hilarious!” Pepper giggled as I let out a drunken groan.
It took extreme effort not to slur my words as I said, “It’s not hilarious. He’s a jerk-face and I hate him.”
After everything that had gone down at Rowan’s place with that slutty photographer, I was in desperate need of a drunken pity-party. Fortunately for me, I had two of the best girlfriends a woman could ask for. Unfortunately for them, I had passed buzzed four drinks back and was well into shit-faced territory, meaning I had lost all control over my emotions and had spent the past two hours going from angry to mopey and right back to angry again. I was currently sitting at angry. And I was pretty certain the only reason Harlow and Pepper hadn’t ditched me yet was because they were both equally as drunk as me and found my mood swings utterly hysterical.
“I can’t believe he made plans to fuck that photographer right in front of your face!” Harlow shouted. Whereas I was an overly emotional drunk, Harlow was a loud drunk. I was pretty sure every single one of the bar patrons knew every sordid detail of what was going on with me and Rowan, starting from the night at the Neon Room, all the way up to my humiliation just hours ago. Add in Pepper being a giggling drunk and all three of us were Urban Dictionary’s living example of ‘White Girl Wasted’.
It wasn’t pretty.
Hysterical, yes. But not pretty.
“You know what you should do?” Pepper declared as I swayed from side to side in my chair. Damn thing was wobbly as hell. “You should have sex with someone else!”
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I’d never be able to go through with Pepper’s suggestion, but I was ashamed to admit that, in my alcohol-addled brain, I considered it for a few seconds. That was, until some skeevy guy with a rapist goatee sidled up to our table with a creepy grin.
“Ew, gross! Not you!” I all but shouted, shoving at the man who’d obviously overheard Pepper’s idiotic suggestion. “Go away.”
Taking my not-so-subtle hint that there was no way on God’s green Earth he was getting his P anywhere near my V, he slinked away with a dejected expression on his pervy face. Reaching for my gin and tonic, I downed the last of it and slammed the glass on the table as Pepper and Harlow fell into peals of laughter. I didn’t hesitate in waving over a waitress for a refill.
“Why’s he have to be so friggin’ pretty?” I pouted, my southern accent becoming stronger the drunker I got. “Stupid Rowan with his stupid pretty hair and his stupid abs and his stupid perfect penis and delicious man buns.” I was so into my drunken rant that I hadn’t even realized what I let slip until my friends suddenly went silent.