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“How much have you had to drink?”
“I highly doubt that question was part of your assignment.”
“Fuck. Can we act like adults? You don’t have your phone and I don’t want to leave you alone without it if you intend on getting drunk.”
“Okay, I won’t get drunk,” she says with a casual shrug that says she has no intention of putting any effort into following through on that.
“I’m not leaving you here alone, Kristen.”
“So, you’re staying? We’re going to have a drink together?” She widens her eyes and gasps while covering her mouth briefly. “You’re going to talk to me?”
I scrub my hand down my face. I’m too fucking tired for this. “I meant it when I asked if we could be adults.”
She leans closer to me like she’s about to tell me a secret. “A hot tip for you is that when a man says things like that to me, it only makes me want to do the opposite.” She straightens on her stool. “It’s pretty much the equivalent tocalm downand you know my feelings on those two words.”
“Since I intend for this to be our last conversation like this, you won’t ever hear any of those words from me again.”
“The burn, Bradford. It’s so harsh. I hope it makes you feel good.” She drinks some more of her cocktail and with the flick of her wrist lets the bartender know she wants another.
Since I know I can’t sit through this with her tonight, and since I don’t want to leave her without a phone, I pull my cell out. I send a message to Beckett letting him know Kristen is safe, and then place the phone down on the bar. At her questioning look, I say, “The passcode is 0606. You can return it to me in the morning.”
The shock in her eyes is strong. She shakes her head and pushes the phone back to me. “I’m not taking your phone.”
I pick it up and place it in front of her with determination. “You are, and you aren’t going to continue arguing with me about it. I’m tired and I’m in no mood for you.” I exhale a long breath. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
I don’t wait to hear her thoughts on that or to see the annoyance disappear from her eyes. I’m in the elevator a couple of minutes later. The whiskey I pour myself a minute after I reach my suite is the strongest fucking drink I’ve ever made myself.
I’m two drinks in when there’s a knock on my door. I don’t want to answer it because I’m not in the right frame of mind to see anyone, so I’m slow to make a move towards it.
The knocking grows louder and more insistent as I draw closer, and then I hear the sultry voice I can never ignore. And if I’m not mistaken, she sounds pissed off. “Bradford! I have your phone and I have a whole lot of things to say to you! Let me in!”
28
Kristen
First things first. Bradford receives a lot of texts. Alot. I’ve had his phone for twenty minutes and nineteen messages have come in for him. Mostly from a man called Alan, but also one from Hayden, one from Cecelia, and two from his father. Let the record show that I did not use the passcode he gave me to go through his phone and spy on his life.
That took a lot out of me.
Nowhere near as much, though, as it took to bring his phone to him so he doesn’t have to wait until the morning to read those texts. I figured they might be important. The ones I read on his lockscreen from Alan certainly seemed important.
Yes, I did read those messages. I’m no angel. Plus, I’m having a mid-life crisis; I neededsomethingto distract me.
I didn’t even finish my cocktail. I think that says a lot about the work my therapist needs to do on the part of me that is in denial over Bradford being an asshole. I need to ditch her on the side of a road with my good girl if I can ever figure out how to do that.
Bradford’s taking his sweet time answering his door. Surely he hasn’t fallen asleep already. After I call out to him, I knock a little louder.
The door swings open and those blue eyes of his meet mine. Holding out his hand for his cell, he says, “I’m about to go to bed. Can we skip whatever it is you want to say? There’s nothing I want to hear.”
I shove past him, ignoring everything he says, and walk through the marble foyer into the living room that has a stunning backdrop of the night lights of Vegas through the large windows. Holding his phone up, I say, “Cecelia sounds like a lot of fun. Based on the text she just sent you, I predict you’ll be a silver fox before forty.” I spin to face him, trying hard not to look at the top few buttons of his dress shirt. They’re casually undone and reveal tanned skin that, damn it, I want to touch. “And Hayden seems exasperated with her.” I cock my head as I watch him walk my way. “And Alan. He’s lying to you. There isnowayeveryone will buy Cecelia being into dick. Her appreciation for pussy is legendary. Alan is clearly polling the wrong people. If you need help, I can put him in touch with the right people. I really don’t want you to screw your run for president up before you even get started.”
He looks down at me with a thunderous expression as he reaches for his cell. “Are you finished?”
“Actually, no. I’m just getting started.”
He snatches his phone from me and slips it into his pocket. “No, you’re not. You’re leaving.” Still with that dark expression.
“How do you cope with all those texts? There was one pretty much every minute, and that was late on a Saturday night. I shudder to think how many you receive on a workday.”
