Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
No matter how hard I worked, Darcy popped into my thoughts every few minutes. The immediate reaction in my brain was always regret. I felt the loss of her like a fucking nail straight through my heart. It physically hurt, but I was sure it would gradually dull like everything else. But I’d send an email, then remember the way she had looked so heartbroken when I told her about Percy. I’d finish a call and then see her face and the appreciation written all over it when I stood up for her at dinner with her dad. I’d get up to make myself a coffee and remember the way her moans had sounded and how her breath had been hot against my ear.
It was nearing midnight when I finally came up for air. I’d worked all day from my room and blew off both Marcus and Tristan several times when they tried to come by. I didn’t want to be consoled. I just wanted to bury myself in work until I forgot about everything else. To my surprise, my dad hadn’t so much as checked in.
I hadn’t eaten all day and considered calling for room service. But I wanted fresh air. I headed down to the lobby and heard the laughter and talking before I rounded the corner. I saw a large group of Squawker employees just coming in from what looked like a night out. They were all dressed for clubs or bars and everyone looked at least a little drunk.
I saw Darcy with an arm around Elizabeth and Farhad coming in. All three were smiling and laughing about something. Polly was walking backwards telling some kind of story and everyone else was cheerfully saying their goodbyes and heading toward the elevators.
Seeing her happy stung. Sure, I wanted things to end. At least, I thought I did. But I stupidly expected her to be moping in her room. Instead, it looked like she was celebrating her new-found freedom from me. It pissed me off, so I walked straight up to her without thinking and took her arm.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Darcy glared at my arm and jerked free. “It’s none of your business.”
“You’re staying here on company money. That makes it my business.” There I went again. Apparently, the momentum of stupidity was preserved across time and space. It was like I just stepped straight back into the room last night and wanted to pick up where I left off.
“You mean I’m staying here on your daddy’s money, right?” she asked.
I saw Elizabeth and Farhad both wince behind her.
“This is my company,” I said. “And you’re my employee.”
“For now,” she said, never breaking eye contact with me. “If you don’t mind, I have to pee like a racehorse and sleep. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll have a dirty dream about the guy who was hitting on me at the last bar.”
I saw red, but I managed to keep from blowing up. I just stood there like a statue as she walked past me and the rest of them filtered out of the lobby. I imagined her flirting with some asshole at a bar–her going home with him and fucking him like she’d fucked me. It made me sick to my stomach.
And I deserved every bit of it.
“Rough night?” The voice was familiar.
I turned to see my dad wearing a somber expression. He patted my back and gestured with his other hand to the sofas by the window in the lobby.
All the anger drained out of me. It was replaced by hopelessness. This was what he wanted. He wanted me at rock bottom so he could offer his hand and reinforce the vision he had of being my savior–my superior.
I sat down, head hanging as I listened to him take the seat across from me.
“I know it’s hard, Son. But you did the right thing. I heard you two broke it off. That’s good.”
You don’t know shit, I thought. But I said nothing.
“Without that woman distracting you, I’m confident you’ll turn things around here. Next time you start thinking you can get by without your old man, just remember I’ll be around to help you out of your messes, eh?”
I looked up at him and felt like throttling him, but I still said nothing.
He smiled, and there was just the faintest touch of venom in his expression. It told me everything I needed to know. Like always, there was a conversation happening just beneath his words. The real conversation. It was the one that said “don’t forget you’ll never be as good as me. You’ll always need me to come fix your problems. You’ll never be able to do this on your own, so bow down and say thanks.”
There was a lump of disgust in my throat when I thought about how similar that all sounded to what I’d told Darcy in the hotel room. Fuck. I was hurting her the way I’d learned to be hurt, wasn’t I?