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As soon as I arrived home, I poured myself a huge goblet of wine and then poured myself into a bubble bath. Sam sat on the edge of the tub watching me, his tail swishing along the edge of the tub. I’m pretty sure his interest was because I’d neglected to fill up his food bowl when I returned home, but I told myself he was there to comfort me in my time of need.
My God, I’m pathetic.
I took another gulp of wine, letting it slide down into my belly, warming me from the inside.
“Can you believe I said that?” I asked Sam. He continued to stare.
The truth was—I still wasn’t sure where my blurted-out question had come from. It was phrased in the worst way and delivered at the absolute worst time. What had I been thinking?
I wriggled my toe against the faucet until a slow stream of hot water poured into the tub. I’d been soaking for twenty minutes or so and my bath was getting cold. My skin was turning pruny and wrinkly and I knew I should get out, but then I would be forced to come up with something to do for the rest of the day, and I wasn’t sure I could deal with entertaining myself right now.
Everyone else I knew would be working—like the good, responsible, mentally stable people I knew and loved.
I, on the other hand, suddenly had nothing to do except sit around, turning in a human raisin and bemoaning my bad taste in men and terrible habit of saying the first thing that popped into my head.
In all fairness, my question wasn’t one hundred percent off base. Cooper did owe me an explanation—and his resistance to give me one was only making me feel worse about the answer he was hiding. Whoever this actress was to him, it was clear that there was something going on between them. Something more than a casual acquaintance. First of all, casual acquaintances don’t spend the night at each other’s houses, they do not say things like “I love you”, and they do not hide them from other people. Especially not the woman they are involved with.
“Hah!” I had to laugh at myself. To think that Cooper even considered me when making decisions or choices in his everyday life was laughable, if not completely delusional. Cooper had proved time and time again that the only person he was capable of thinking about was himself. I really had no right to be mad at him. He’d never promised me anything. There had never been a discussion of exclusivity or relationship status. For all intents and purposes I was just a fling to him, a conquest, a notch on his bed post.
I drank more wine.
When the goblet was empty, I set the glass outside the tub and sunk lower into the bubbles. They were rapidly dissipating, but there w
ere still enough to give a faint aroma of rose petal and sweet pea. It should have been soothing, but I couldn’t relax. My nerves were shot from the hacking fiasco last night and the crazy session in my office this morning. The last twenty-four hours had left me reeling, fighting for breath and clarity as my world continued to get weirder and weirder.
Eventually, I hauled myself out of the tub and wrapped up in a soft, fluffy bathrobe that I’d stolen from a hotel once upon a time. I knew it had been wrong, but it was the nicest thing I owned at the time, so I’d kept it.
I wandered into the kitchen and rummaged through my fridge but it was pretty bare. I had done all kinds of shopping over the weekend, but, unfortunately, none of it had been for groceries. I pulled out a container of hummus and a bag of carrot sticks, praying the hummus hadn’t gone bad. With my snack in hand, I sat down at the dining table and pulled open my laptop. I may have high-tailed it out of the office, but that didn’t necessarily mean I couldn’t get any work done. I needed to focus on this hack. The sooner I got Cooper the answers he was looking for, the sooner he would leave me alone.
And that was what I needed…for him to leave me the hell alone.
The man undid me in a way that I couldn’t even articulate. The way he looked at me, talked to me, talked about me. The way his hands felt on my skin, his body fit against mine, the smell of him. Ugh…it was all too much. He was driving me insane in the worst possible way.
I shook my head, hoping to clear him out, but it didn’t do much good. He was still there, hovering in the back of my mind as my computer fired up and I logged in to the company website. I checked my emails, but there was nothing super important. I’d been with Brighton Enterprises for a week and although I was cc’ed on most inter-office memos, they really had nothing to do with my position and I could safely ignore the majority of the chatter. I supposed Cooper wanted it that way, at least for now. Whatever he thought the competition had, he wanted it badly, and wanted to make sure I could focus on that task entirely.
The whole thing was so confusing. I still had no idea why he cared what the competition was using in their products. I’d given him the general ingredients, with my added suggestions of natural, plant-based substitutes, but still, he pressed on, demanding more information.
The next thing I pulled up was the data that I’d saved from the night before. I’d emailed all the tracking information and screen shots to myself for further review, and decided that now was as good of time as any. I munched on the stale carrots as I read through the files, digitally highlighting anything that seemed important.
As I scanned through the data, a ding sounded, indicating that an email had come in. I minimized the window and pulled up my inbox. There was some small speck of hope that it could be from Cooper, telling me he was ever so sorry about the way he’d left my office, and asking me to come back to work so we could talk.
The email was from Parker.
Curiosity quickly replaced my disappointment and I pulled it open to read his message:
Allison,
I’m really sorry to do this over email, but I don’t think things are going to work between us.
I hope this doesn’t make things too awkward at the office. I think you’re a great girl and am happy to have you on the Plush team.
Regards,
Parker
I almost laughed, but it died on my lips before it could escape. I rolled my eyes instead and deleted the email, not bothering with a response. I had no doubt that Cooper had nipped that situation in the bud as soon as he found out about it. It didn’t really matter. Parker was a nice guy, but not someone I wanted a second date with. However, knowing that Cooper had intervened in some way brought my anger rising back to the surface and suddenly I couldn’t get him out of my head again, which only made me angrier.
Chapter Eight
