AllFreeNovel
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“The new woman Reed’s been hooking up with,” Cole explains, rubbing at a spot on his temple before taking another drag from his cigar. “She’s a tabloid cover waiting to happen.”
“She’s going to be the distraction the media needs to finally get me past the scandal,” Reed argues, but his gaze stays on me. He tilts his head, lifting a brow. “Not that I’m eager to have you both lecturing me on my life choices, but you’ve usually got more to say than this, Dec. What’s up with you?”
“Nothing,” I mutter.
“Bullshit.”
“Fine. Something.”
Cole snorts, finally giving up on his conversation with Reed and glancing my way. “And that something is… a woman?”
I press my lips together, the muscles in my cheeks working as I clench my jaw. Even without me saying a single word, that’s answer enough for my two best friends.
“Figures,” Reed says with a chuckle. “It’s always woman troubles, isn’t it?”
Not. Enough. Whiskey. In. The. World.
I throw the liquor back and let it burn its way to my stomach. It’s not the way this whiskey deserves to be drunk, but here we are. It’s the way I deserve to feel.
I motion for the bottle, but Reed is already pouring it in my empty glass, his eyes full of sympathy. Fuck. The last thing I need is sympathy from a player like Reed. I love the guy like a brother, but usually, relationship blowups are his thing, not mine.
“Her name is Sophie,” I tell them. “I met her a year ago in San Francisco.”
“A year ago?” Cole’s eyes widen. “You’ve been seeing her all this time, and we’re only just now hearing about her?”
“It was a one-night stand,” I correct him. “Until she showed up at Dynasty a year later and talked me into hiring her for a position on the marketing team.”
Reed groans. “Oh shit. Don’t tell us you’re still hooking up with her. She’s your employee.”
Cole shoots him a look. “You’re one to talk. I know for a fact that you’ve blurred that line on more than one occasion.”
“We had an arrangement,” I continue, and now both Reed and Cole groan. “I know. I know how it sounds. But it was working fine. We had rules about how it was going to be done. How we’d conduct ourselves. No feelings. No strings. And it just… well. It doesn’t matter. It’s over now.”
Reed and Cole exchange a glance before Reed leans closer.
“It’s obviously not over, man,” he says. “Look at yourself. You look like shit, and you’ve been lost in your own head all night. You’re heartbroken.”
“You’re fucked up about her,” Cole agrees. “Shit, Dec. You’ve caught feelings for her.”
I can feel the muscle jumping again in my clenched jaw. “I’m not. I didn’t.”
But I’m lying. To myself and to my friends.
And nobody—least of all myself—believes me.
I have no idea what to fucking do about it.
* * *
Sophie
The best part about throwing myself into my work at Dynasty is that there is plenty of it to distract myself from anything remotely resembling a feeling about Declan.
And that level of dedication has an added benefit of being good for my career and professional goals.
I work hard. Long hours. Get home and collapse into bed, sometimes still in my carefully constructed outfits, and don’t wake up until it’s time to head to work the following morning.
I stay bright at work. Engaged. Immerse myself in my colleagues’ lives and needs—go above and beyond at any and every opportunity. Create the opportunities for myself, really.
