Page 165 of Executive Engagement

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I must have drank until I passed out. I don’t know how many bottles of wine I went through with my friend but it was enough that I woke up with cotton mouth and a pounding headache.

I found out that WineBar had gotten drunk with his friends.

Two days later, he was on a flight to Miami.

And I cried.

I loved him.

This was the man that had driven me around my city, showing me parts of it that I had never known.

Here was a man that made everything feel new.

Who once drank all the Tito’s in a bar.

Who put me on a pedestal and worshipped me.

And who now with his absence caused that pedestal to crack and break.

I was broken. On the floor.

Dragged through the mud.

Torn.

There was no hope.

How could I have been so stupid?

There was no us.

Only me.

And the dark night of despair.

Emilia

Not that damn song again.

I swear, it’s haunting me. Following me everywhere I go.

Can’t a girl just wallow in her heartbreak in peace?

I knock back my shot of tequila and try to forget. A challenge that’s becoming nearly Herculean.

“Can I get another?” I gesture frantically for the bartender as soon as my glass hits the polished wood.

He’s right there, pouring my fourth—or is it fifth?—shot.

“Let me guess,” he says with a wink, “you don’t like flying?”

I nod my head, even though flying doesn’t bother me in the least, because it’s a lot easier to just go along with what he says rather than explain to him why I’m actually drinking myself into oblivion while I wait on my flight to Fiji.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m drowning my sorrows before I run away. Go ahead and judge. You wouldn’t be the first.

As if on cue, my phone lights up with a text from Erin.

Are you sure you’re making the right decision?

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