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“Stace. Please. Can’t we talk about this?”
“Talk about what? Are you going to deny what Dino said.”
“Dino has a big mouth.”
“I’m thankful he does.”
“Yeah. Well, he’ll hear from me. But Stace, I…” Words hung on his tongue, caught between mind and voice. He wasn’t quite sure how to vocalize them.
“Good bye, Michael.”
“What about our day together? Hell, what about our night together?”
“It was a fun romp. Now, it’s over. Ciao.”
“Can’t we—”
She sat up again and reached for the phone. “No, we can’t. Now leave, or I’ll have you removed.”
Michael exhaled. He knew when he’d been beaten. He just never expected to take anything this hard. Where were these feelings coming from?
He turned, walked toward the door, and opened it. He didn’t look back.
That it took so much effort not to surprised him.
* * *
“Thanks a lot, pal.”
Dino took a swig of his beer. “Hey, Ronnie and I tried to find you. I managed to do some damage control with her, but—”
“But nothing. Why didn’t either of you go after Stacy?”
“Why would we? I mean, it’s not like—”
“Damn it, Dino, I thought we were friends.”
“Hell, Mike, you never said it was a secret.”
“You really do have a brain the size of a pea, don’t you?” Michael shook his head. “Does it take a genius to know you don’t go telling a woman’s friend what your friend has in mind for her friend?”
“Well, get a load of that. You actually have feelings for the woman.”
“You’re full of it. I loved a woman once. It’s not worth the heartache.”
“You can’t always control your feelings, Michael. Even a pea brain like me knows that. Maybe you didn’t mean to develop feelings for Stacy, but you did all the same.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“If you didn’t have feelings, you wouldn’t be so upset about this.”
He shook his head. “Yes, I have feelings. Feelings of the loss of twenty-four hours of this conference. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want to start the whole process over? I invested a lot of time here. Maybe I found the woman I wanted, and now you fucked it up.”
“There’re a million women just as hot with just as much money who’d be glad to…”
Michael stopped listening. Yeah, he knew the drill. He’d gone through it in his own mind a thousand times since he’d left Stacy lying in bed, since he’d packed up his belongings in the hallway, since he’d picked up the blue glass from the broken vodka bottle. Yup, a million women. The thought should appease him.
It didn’t, which mystified him.
