Page 35 of Damaged

Sure, we’re collecting artifacts and bringing them back to America so the financiers who buy them can brag about their mantelpiece. But I’m trying to not be a cynic. Some of the people who buy these artifacts will be passionate about their history.

Alana is downright worried I’m going to be killed. I had to convince her not to skip her rehearsal to come back to my apartment and try to talk me out of it. But that was before she heard how much I’d be making.

Going with him is a no-brainer. Even if James did brain some creep with a brick. I doubt we’ll even be working together that much. I’ll be doing assessments and inventory and be stuck in a back room if I had a guess. My cute outfits will be for the turquoise eyes of the sarcophaguses only.

Oh well. I am officially a glass-half-full gal. That’s something four hundred grand allows you to be.

Back home, I spend the evening packing and trying on all my outfits in the bathroom mirror. And yes, maybe I watchThe Mummy. While it may not be an accurate representation of modern Egypt, it gets me pumped.

James texted me earlier to be in the apartment lobby at eight a.m. for the car to the airport.

I think about watchingThe Mummy Returns, a much worse film, because I’m not going to be able to get much sleep anyway. I decide against it, take a hot shower, and climb into bed. I’m finishing the day the same way it started—restless and staring at the ceiling. Only this time I’m victorious.

Until I hear something from above. From James’s apartment. I sit up to hear it better. It’s not the sounds of sex—it’s a woman’s laugh.

It’s brief and I just hear it once, but there’s no mistaking that’s what it was. It didn’t come from a TV. It had a real, echoey quality to it. I would almost prefer to hear the sounds of his emotionless sex than this.

There was an intimacy to it. James isn’t funny for everybody; he must like this girl. I hold one ear cocked to the ceiling, ready for the sounds of pleasure and bed creaks, but nothing comes.

A minute later, I’m beginning to wonder if I even heard a laugh. Or if I’m imagining things.

Things I don’t want to be real.

I roll onto my side and try to get some sleep.Who cares if James has a woman over,I ask myself, but from the way the question twists my insides, I’m afraid the answer is me.

James

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking with the damn cake. I should’ve shown up at her door and demanded her price. No peace offering needed. This was to be a business relationship, anyway.

I’ve been frustrated all day. It was difficult enough to fire innocent little Sophia Simms. Showing up at her shiny new door was icing on the cake of the universe calling me an idiot. Rarely do I make a fool of myself.

Sure, I got what I wanted. But I hate that I felt at risk of having to beg.

I could’ve got some tweed-suited professor to follow me on this trip, but I didn’t want that.

If it wasn’t Jessica, I wanted Sophia.

I’ve vented my frustration tonight in a foolish way. Sex. Hard. Raw. But as unpassionate and cold as the black ice on the sidewalks below. There was nothing pleasurable about it.

I stand at my bedroom door with my glass of scotch brought to my lips. I look at the little piece of art lying sideways and facing away from me on my bed. Katherine.

A beautiful mess of black curls hangs over her shoulder. The deep serpentine curve of her spine spills into the delta of her hips.

She’s truly something to marvel at. Yet I feel nothing. Not arousal for another round nor a sense of possession I’ve got with certain women in the past.

The model on my bed seems no different than this scotch—a buffer. An attempt to quiet the voice in my head. I did this so I could behave in Egypt.

I know I hurt Sophia by firing her, but it doesn’t make me any less pissed off at how she made me turn around and handoff that cake. I should’ve come inside with the cake. Made her understand that if she’s working for me again, there will be rules.

Respect.

A sharp spanking and a hard fuck for disobedience. But no.

Sophia is off-limits. Sophia is not another girl I can turn out in the morning with a waffle bar and an Uber Black. She’s too smart, innocent, and most importantly involved in my business dealings and personal life.

She’s coming to Egypt but staying the hell away from me. I need to set things straight. My thoughts towards her are adolescent. Weak.

To be drawn so strongly to a woman just because I can’t have her is the kind of apish behavior I abhor.

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