Page 50 of Dating the Boss
“Yeah, well, he’s my idiot.”
By the time we left the club, Quinn had sobered up enough to drive us home so we didn’t have to leave his car there. I was drunk and heartbroken… two things that were a recipe for disaster. After plopping down in bed, still fully clothed, I grabbed my phone and opened up a new message to Daniel.
Me:Wat r uoi doing
His response came less than a minute later. Was he awake too, thinking of me?
Daniel:Are you drinking?
Me:Wat makese uoi think thrat
Daniel:Your impeccable spelling, for one.
I focused hard on the screen to try to see what he was talking about. My spelling looked fine to me. I jumped in shock when my phone started ringing, and his handsome face popped up on my screen from the contact photo I’d set for him.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?” Daniel asked, his voice stern.
“Why?”
“Just answer the question, Reed.”
I sighed and flopped to my back on the bed, stretching my legs out. “I’m in the back room of the club about to get drilled in the ass by a frat boy with tight abs. Wanna join?”
There was a pause. And then, “Are you really?”
The change in his tone gripped my heart. He sounded… sad.
“No,” I responded. “I’m at home. I was messin’ with you.”
Though it was barely audible, I heard him exhale. “You should go to bed. Sleep off the alcohol.”
“I miss you,” I said as my eyes filled with tears. “I know it was only a few days, but they meant so much to me, Daniel. I miss the way you smiled at me. How you held me in your arms at night as we lay in front of the fire.” I could’ve very well blamed it on the booze coursing through my veins, but everything I said was true. “I miss waking up to you.”
“Reed.” His voice cracked on my name. “Stop.”
“I’m sorry.” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “It’s just hard for me, and you aren’t even bothered. You’ve been so cold to me this week. It’s like you’re not even the same person.”
“You think it’s easy for me?” Daniel asked with a low growl. “You think I don’t miss you too?”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do.” He was quiet a moment. “And you’re right. The person I was this past week wasn’t me. But it was who I needed to be in order to keep you at arm’s length. I was able to let my guard down around you at the manor, and that doesn’t happen for me that often. Only my family gets to see that side of me.”
Daniel had not only smiled a lot during our snowed-in weekend, but he’d laughed too. A lot. He’d been playful and even adorable at times, like when he wanted me to play with his hair. Knowing he didn’t show many people that side of him made me feel special.
As if that did me any good now, though. The only way we could continue where we left off was if one of us quit our job. And throwing away a promising career for a relationship was the kind of shit stupid people did because it more often than not came back to bite them in the ass when the person they left their job for ended up cheating on them or dumping them.
“I lied when I said I was at the club when you called,” I said. “But I really did go there tonight.”
“Oh?” There was an edge of hardness to his voice.
“Yep. And a guy came on to me. A few guys actually.” I blew out a breath and tried to swallow down the tightness that had swelled up in my throat. “But I couldn’t do anything with them because all I could think about was you. You’re all I want.”
“Pop some Tylenol and go to bed,” Daniel said, back to his emotionless tone. “Sounds like you’ll have one hell of a hangover in the morning.”
He was a master at avoiding conversation or steering it in another direction. It hurt like hell. Drunk or not, I had laid myself bare for him. His refusal to even address it stung.
