What the hell?
“You may.”
He grinned. “What’ll it be?” I told him, and his grin widened. “Scotch?”
I smiled unhappily. “I’m drowning my sorrows.”
The guy waved down the bartender and ordered two whiskies. When his attention returned to me, he said, “Why is a pretty thing like you drowning your sorrows?”
I made a face.
He laughed. “What?”
“Pretty thing? Really?”
“I just say it like I see it.” He held out his hand. “I’m Barry.”
I took his hand. “Alexa.”
“So, Alexa, I’ll ask again … why are you drowning your sorrows?”
Wrapping my hand around the glass of scotch the bartender put in front of me, I tilted my head in a coy gesture. “Guess.”
“Hmm … career troubles?”
I snapped my fingers and pointed to him. “Bingo.”
Barry smiled and leaned closer. “Well, why don’t we see how long it takes me to make you forget about your troubles?”
“What the hell? I’ve got nothing to lose. Give it your best shot, Barry.”
And he did.
We talked about music and movies, and I argued fervently in favor of the Red Sox while he argued for the Mariners, and we did it in a flirty, suggestive way that soothed the wounds to my feminine vanity. We didn’t discuss anything serious and for a little while it was wonderful to be buzzed, relaxed, and admired.
I didn’t know how long we’d been sitting there, but my second scotch was nearly finished and I was thinking it was time for another when Barry suddenly slid his hand along my thigh.
“Why don’t we take this up to your room?”
Looking down at his hand on my leg, I had to admit that there was a part of me that actually thought about it. I wanted to forget what it felt like to feel Caine all around me, and surely the old adage was true—the best way to get over someone was to get under someone new. With the scotch hot in my blood, that suddenly sounded like very good advice.
“Or better yet, why don’t you remove your hand before I break it?”
The breath went out of my body at the menacing voice.
I stared up at Caine, who towered over us, his dark gaze scorching Barry.
Barry flushed and started a stumbling slide from his stool. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
He scampered off before I could do anything to stop him. Not that I wanted to now—there was nothing more unattractive than a scaredy-cat. Although … taking in the look on Caine’s face, I couldn’t imagine many men wouldn’t find him intimidating. “What was that?”
The muscle was working overtime in his clenched jaw. It took him a few seconds to manage to utter the words, “That was me stopping you from making a drunken mistake. A mistake you’ll regret in the morning.” His warm hand wrapped around my elbow and he gently guided me off the stool. “Let’s get you to your room.”
I jerked out of his hold, infuriated by his high-handedness. “What? You’re done ignoring me while you flirt with Farrah Rochdale so you thought you’d come spoil my fun?”
Caine’s features hardened, but he didn’t answer. Instead he gripped my elbow again and began striding through the bar.
There was nothing I could do. If I attempted to stop him I’d just make a scene, and despite what he thought, I was buzzed, not drunk.
He manhandled me into the elevator. “I wasn’t ignoring you. You were ignoring me.”
The elevator began to rise. “Oh yes, of course. How silly of me. I was the one to blame when you were flirting with another woman right in front of me merely days after we had sex.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but Farrah and I are just old friends. I never mix business with pleasure.”
I shot him a look. “I know from personal experience that’s not true.”
Color appeared high on his cheekbones. “Usua—”
The abrupt halt of the elevator and its doors opening cut him off. I hurried out, hoping he wouldn’t follow.
I had no such luck. Caine caught up to me and grabbed my arm again.
“I’m perfectly capable of making it to my room.”
Instead of listening to me, he took my purse out of my hand and raked through it for the room key.
“I’m not drunk,” I insisted.
“So that was a sober decision to flirt with that asshole?” he asked, his voice tight, as we stopped at my door.
I huffed and waited for him to open it. To my dismay he pushed his way in first, holding the door open for me.
“You can leave.” I glowered at him and strode inside.
I bent down to tug off my shoes, whirling and almost falling when I heard the door shut behind me.
Caine stood watching me.
“You can leave,” I repeated
He just stared at me in that intense, overwhelming way of his.
“What?” I snapped. “What now?”
“I’m sorry if I hurt you tonight,” he said, and for some reason his apology only fanned the flames of my anger. “You don’t deserve that.”
Whether it was the alcohol or a buildup of tension from the past few weeks of ignoring our chemistry, my self-control slipped. The hurt and fury just exploded out of me. “You know what? You’re right. I deserve better. I’ve deserved better my whole life, but I never got it. Neither did my mother.” I let all my pain blaze out at him and he stood there, frozen by my words. “But my mom refused to ask for better. I won’t make that same mistake.
“From the moment my father told me what he did to your mom, to your family, I cut him out of my life.” I watched how this information made Caine’s eyes glitter, arrested on my face. “I used to think he was some kind of hero,” I whispered. “Some kind of fairy-tale prince who came around on my birthday and showered me with gifts and made my mom really happy. Then suddenly he was there all the time. I thought he’d finally come to save us. And I kept thinking of him like that until I was a teenager, until I was old enough to see how spoiled and lazy and entitled he was. How he made my mom cry more than he made her laugh. But I pretended.” I gave a huff of bitter laughter as I remembered the way I’d stuck my head in the sand.
“I kept pretending right up until seven years ago when he confessed his sins. I hated him for what he did to your mother. I hated him for lying to me all those years, for having a family I knew nothing about, for coming to us because we were all he had left, his only recourse. I left home. But I couldn’t let it go until I knew everything. So I went back and I asked my father your mother’s name, your name, but he wouldn’t tell me. I decided I didn’t need to know your name. I just needed my father to apologize to you, to prove he really was remorseful and that whatever he was going through wasn’t just about him, but about the people he hurt. But he refused. So I told him I didn’t want anything to do with him ever again, and I never went back.
“I lost my mom because of him. She refused to walk away from him and she blamed me for the rift. Now I can’t fix the relationship I helped break, because she’s dead, she’s gone … And all I’ve got left in this world is a grandfather who’s too ashamed to acknowledge me and a boss who gets a kick out of treating me like shit.” My voice hardened. “Well, no more. I am done with this game. Because I am not my father and I would never hurt people the way he did. I wanted you to see that. I wanted you to see me. To see … to see that I get it. I’ve never deserved your contempt. And I won’t put up with it anymore.” I gestured, weary of it all, to the door. “Just get out, Caine.”
I was too angry to see the change in his expression, to hear the softness when he said my name.
“Caine, get out.”
“Lexie, I never knew any of that.”
“Because you never bothered to ask!” I yelled. “And now it doesn’t matter. When we get back to Boston, I’m done. Screw the two weeks. This is over now.” I whipped around, walking away from him toward the bathroom, hoping by the time I got out of there he’d be gone.
But I didn’t even make it inside.
I heard the quick footsteps behind me seconds before I was yanked around and crushed against him.
He whispered my name before his head dipped and his lips came down on mine.