Page 31 of Whispered Sins

I took a sip of my drink, holding it in my mouth to feel the burn before swallowing it slowly.

“Whatever happened with that?” asked Freddy. The redhead was now nibbling on his earlobe, making it hard for him to concentrate. Hell, it was making it hard for me to concentrate.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

“If there was anything there, do you think I’d be here with…”

Shit, I didn’t know her name.

“Rebecca,” she muttered.

“Rebecca. I knew that,” I said.

Freddy let out a laugh as Rebecca removed her legs from my lap. Whatever. I wasn’t interested anyway. I removed my arm from her shoulders and checked the time on my watch.

It was 1 a.m. I was already fucked for tomorrow. I didn’t need to make it worse.

“I think I’m going to head out,” I said.

“What? We still have half a bottle left,” said Freddy, pulling the bottle from the ice bucket.

“Have at it.”

Rebecca rolled her eyes and slunk against the seat of the booth. I slid on my jacket and gave them a single wave before heading toward the door. I carefully pushed my way through the crowd and out onto the sidewalk. There, I heard the disappointed murmurs of the paparazzi who had been waiting outside all night. Nothing to see here. No woman, or women, on my arm. I gave them a shit-eating grin and got in my town car.

When I got home, I could barely sleep. I kept thinking about Addison and how empty my bed was. I hadn’t brought anyone home since that night. It was a new record for me. Of course, the paparazzi didn’t report on that. A playboy is much more interesting than a guy who spends his nights alone. Plus, Kiera was still playing the angle that we were headed for an engagement. I hadn’t cared enough to set things straight. People assumed things all the time.

After maybe getting only four hours of sleep, I headed miserably into the office this morning. CEOs don’t have the luxury of sick days. Now I was struggling to keep my eyes open. There was a knock at my office door, waking me up slightly.

“Come in,” I said, but it was more of a quiet groan.

Margaret popped her head in. “I sent you a push notification on your Google calendar. Did you see it?”

“No. I’ve been…busy.”

“Oh, it’s just a Ms. Heartly called earlier and wanted to schedule a meeting with you.”

My ears perked up.

“Wait, Ms. Heartly? As in Addison Heartly?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

I sat there in a few seconds of quiet disbelief.

Margaret cleared her throat. “So, do you want me to set that up for you?”

“Did she say what she wanted?”

“No, sir. She just said she needed to get in to see you as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Margaret. I’ll handle it.” I dismissed her.

She nodded before closing the door behind her.

I smoothed my fingers over my chin in thought. It had been a month since our night together. I ran through a list of reasons why she would want to meet with me. Was it because she couldn’t stop thinking about that night either? Or did it have to do with the business deal? There was only one way to find out.

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