Page 79 of Serving the Mogul

She shook her head with a pained grimace. Once more, she demanded, “Why?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” I said after considering the matter. “But…Tina matters to me. And I will not let you, or anybody else, cause her harm.”

Twenty-Nine

Tina

“Are you still talking to him?”

My sister’s ire scraped over my nerve endings like nails on a chalkboard.

Dina refused to admit that she could be wrong about someone, and I could not convince her otherwise.

It gave me a headache of epic proportions and made me wish I hadn’t answered her call.

“Dina, he wasn’t responsible for those pictures, and he didn’t write that article. He’s just as much a victim in this mess as I am, only he is doing something about it.”

“Really?” The sour note in Dina’s voice was another slap against my battered senses. “Like what? Is he planning to take you to Sluts R Us on your next date?”

“That’s enough,” I snapped.

“Is it?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” I retorted. Is there anything else you want to say to your sister, or are you satisfied with calling her a slut?”

She sucked in a breath, and I heard Newt’s low, calming voice. I wasn’t ready to listen to what she had to say next. If it wasn’t an apology—and a real one—then I couldn’t deal with it.

“I’m done with this,” I said, cutting her off before she spoke. “It’s been a rough week for me. Thankfully, most of my friends didn’t blame me. None of them called me a slut, either. No, that’s coming from my sister. It’s the rotten cherry on a shit sundae, and I want to just forget about all of this.”

“Tina,” she said stiffly.

“Don’t. The two of us will get into something that we’ll both end up regretting, so just…don’t.” Tears blurred my vision, turning the eclectic prints on my wall into surreal watercolors. “I’m done being blamed and harassed over somebody else’s actions.”

I ended the call and hurled my phone on the nearby armchair. I badly needed a drink.

The phone pinged two minutes later while I was in the kitchen, whipping up a prickly pear margarita from scratch. Since I already knew it was Dina sending me a text, I ignored it. I’d meant what I said. I refused to be blamed and harassed for other people’s mistakes.

A boozy, fruity margarita, maybe two or three, sounded like the perfect remedy.

After ten minutes, there was a knock at my door, and my smile was already in place.

It couldn’t be Dina—even if she’d listened to Newt’s patient advice and wanted to apologize, it would take her twenty-five minutes to get to my place.

And my parents would never come over without calling—Mom thought it was the rudest thing on Earth, dropping by unannounced.

By default, that meant James was at the door. I opened it without even checking.

Big mistake.

The margarita glass fell from numb fingers, and the cold, deliciously sweet icy concoction splattered my lower legs, left bare under the short sundress I’d pulled on after showering.

A pair of well-tooled Italian leather dress shoes now doused in icy pink, while wet splotches stained a pair of chinos with a crease so sharp you could cut yourself.

The bright green polo shirt tucked into those chinos had escaped the margarita dousing.

Dark, intense eyes held a cynical amusement as they took in the mess I’d made, then slowly traced a path up my body before finally locking gazes with me.

“Well, babe, is that your way of saying you missed me?” Cecil Golden, my ex, paused and a slow smile curved across his lips. “I’ll just tell you the feeling is mutual.”

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