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CHAPTER1
Evan
With the hangoverfrom hell this morning, I regretted going out last night with the guys. It had been shots and more shots. How many was hazy. Then there had been that other thing…
I’d arrived at work much later than usual when I punched the elevator button for the top floor of our building. The Advil had finally lessened the agony enough for me to face my father and apologize.
I’d been in the tabloids plenty of times, but this time was worse, much worse.
Before, the girls had always had their clothes on.
And so had I.
I wasn’t ever drinking that fucking mezcal shit again, because it had sure knocked me on my ass. It had taken a full half hour in the shower to clear my head this morning. When had I gotten so old that I couldn’t handle a few shots? I definitely needed to slow it down next time, and eat something while I drank.
By the time the elevator doors opened, I was as ready as I was going to be. I pasted on a smile for the troops and strode out. Ten paces later, I tried my voice. “Good morning, Anita,” I said with a cheeriness that I hoped hid my raging headache. “Is he ready for our ten o’clock?”
Dad’s assistant shook her head, still focused on her screen. “You could say that.” Her tone was cryptic. She glanced up. “Are you?”
I nodded. I was always ready, although this time was likely to be worse than usual. He’d bark; I’d mumble apologies—I knew the drill. I’d have to invent even better apologies. I should have thought of that before arriving. I blamed the damned headache.
I looked across the waiting area. For some reason, my drinking buddy, Martin Graff, was here. “Hey, Martin. Some night, huh?”
He glanced up from the phone he was typing into. “Morning, Evan. I warned you not to swallow the worm.” Normally, I drank him under the table. Today, he didn’t look remotely as bad as I felt. He’d been with us, but obviously hadn’t had as many drinks as I’d had last night. He went back to focusing on his phone.
Letting myself into the office, I closed the door behind me. “Good morning.”
Dad looked up from the paper he held. This was clearly worse than I expected. His face was deep magenta, indicative of an impending Vesuvius-level eruption. I didn’t remember ever seeing him this agitated. “A fucking disgrace,” he announced.
I stood back, eying the paper in his hand. “Dad, it’s not what it looks like.”
Of course the pictures told a different story. As soon as I’d turned on my phone this morning, it had blown up with messages asking me about those fucking pictures. I’d pulled them up and just to be sure, checked my pants and shoes. Yup, soaked. It had happened.
He shook his head. “Of course it isn’t. It’s worse. A fucking disaster, and that’s putting it mildly. You’ve done some pretty fucking idiotic things before, but this… This…” He threw down the paper, open to the page-six picture. “This last night? It fucking tops them all by a mile.” Fergus McAllister was on a roll, and at the current rate, he’d disown me some time in the next two minutes. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
I started to form words, but was cut off by the continuing explosion.
“You can’t keeping thinking with your dick.”
“No, sir,” I got out with conviction. If my dick had been in charge, I would have been banging the red-head against some secluded wall, not splashing around in the fucking water.
That vein on his temple looked ready to burst. We were twenty-seven floors up, and my only question was whether the glass of the wall facing Central Park was truly unbreakable. At the current moment, it seemed like throwing myself against it hard enough might be my only way out of this office.
Dad wasn’t a fan of plain, rectangular structures. Accordingly, the McAllister International building had a small patio two floors down on the twenty-fifth floor where the building widened.
After a fall like that, this suit would be toast. A small price to pay. Maybe if I rolled properly, I could avoid adding a broken ankle.
“Are you even listening to me?” Dad bellowed another dozen decibels louder.
“Yes, sir.” I stood up straighter. He might be getting ready to throw me through the window himself, but I wouldn’t cower. Never show fear was a lesson he’d taught me.
“Myra Cotts, for God’s sake? What the hell were you thinking messing around with the district attorney’s daughter?”
District attorney’s daughter?I held up my palms. “I didn’t know.”
I’d barely gotten her name, Jenny, Jerri, or was it Jennifer? Whatever. She hadn’t mentioned that little tidbit about her father. It most certainly would have killed the mood.“Hi, my father is the district attorney, so if you don’t treat me right, he’ll bury you.”No she hadn’t said anything remotely like that last night. I didn’t remember much, but drunk or not, I wasn’t idiotic enough to go after a girl like that.
“And naked in a public fountain?” Dad took it up another few decibels. “Her father is going to crucify us.”
