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Chapter Thirteen
The sound of my cell vibrating drew me from sleep. Feeling confused and still drunk, I rolled my sluggish naked body from my stomach to my back, on the bed. With my eyes still closed, I patted around until I eventually found my cell phone. The rumblings of a headache flared to life and my heavy arm rose and fell over my head. Through a slit in one heavy eyelid, I saw the light on the screen in the darkened room. The caller’s name was a blur.
“Yeah?” I croaked, prying open my eyes in the darkness. They stung and for a second or two I couldn’t remember where I was or how I had gotten there. When my mind caught up, I vaguely remembered draining the whiskey decanter in my suite and carrying the last of the whiskey in a tumbler to bed. I winced when I tried to crawl up on all fours and fell back down on the mattress, electing to roll onto my back instead.
“Where did you go?” Tricia’s sultry sexy voice broke into my inebriated state and my eyes widened, despite my stupor.
“To bed,” I mumbled flatly.
“Alone?”
“Does that matter?” I slurred, thinking on what Bradley had told me about them.
“Yeah, because if you’re alone at 9:00 p.m. in your bed, you’re not the James Wild I thought I knew.”
“A handful of hookups and you think you know me?” I shot back, pissed off by her forwardness.
“Ouch, that wasn’t called for,” she said in a tone laced with hurt.
“What was it to you, if not that? Shouldn’t you be focusing your attention on Bradley?” The bitter sound of my voice gave away how I felt at the thought of them together.
“You’d prefer I focus on Bradley after the way you looked at me down here in the bar?”
“Tricia, you’re here with him,” I stated, bluntly. “I’m here to work, not to play games. Bradley made it clear you’re together, and I’m fine with that. We were just …” I struggled for what we were.
“We’re still working things out?” she finished for me. “Why did you sneak out that last night?” she asked, quietly.
“I didn’t sneak. There was nothing to work out. You dictated the terms and I knew the score.”
“James, I think we both knew the score the first time we met. Neither of us wanted to admit that to ourselves.”
“True, but what do we have if we take sex out of the equation?”
“We’re more than sex, don’t you think?”
“To be frank with you, Tricia, I really don’t know what to think,” I snapped, frustration lacing my tone. “Look I’m tired, I’ve had too much to drink, and I can’t deal with another mindfuck.”
“Gotcha.” The line went dead, and my heart sank to my stomach. “Fuck you,” I muttered, as I dropped my cell on to the sheet beside me. Being drunk I was more annoyed than depressed by her call, and thankfully the travel to Denver and the whiskey meant I couldn’t think straight. My mind was too muddled to think and with my eyes still heavy it didn’t take long before I fell asleep again.
* * *
The phone rang again, dragging me out of a deep dreamless sleep. Clearing my throat, I picked it up, answered, and held it to my ear.
“James, is that you?” my father asked curtly.
“Yes, sir,” I croaked before clearing my throat.
“Did I wake you? Damn, I forgot about the time change, it’s 7:45 a.m. here.”
“I was getting up at 6:00 to hit the gym anyway,” I muttered, which was true. I had put in a wake-up call with the valet when I’d arrived. The clock on the TV flashed 4.45 a.m.
“Okay, I just wanted to let you know, Deanna Waitland is going to be at the conference. We crossed paths yesterday at a meeting downtown, and she mentioned she was attending. I gave her your cell number and told her to call you, but I’ve emailed you hers. Please make time for her and if she hasn’t called you by 9:00, give her a call. She’s Vice CEO of her father’s financial institution now, so she’ll be useful to you down the line.”
Deanna was a young attractive woman my parents had been eager for me to know around my thirtieth birthday. Both sets of parents had arranged a couple of country club dinners and invited us both, we had figured at the time they’d all agreed we were marriage material. As for Deanna herself, she was a lovely woman in her early twenties at the time we had met, but I’d thought her too sweet and innocent for the man I was at that time.
“Got it. Any project you want me to mention?”
“No, nothing right now, I just thought having a powerful contact in the industry would be a bonus in the years ahead.”
