Page 57 of The Billionaire's Commitment

“We were out drinking,” Grace said as she approached us and put Zoey in a chair.

Zoey smiled at me when she sat and gave me an adoring look. It wasn’t how I thought she would look at me. I almost went to pull her into my arms when Grace added, “She might be a little inebriated.”

“Zoey?” I asked and looked from Grace to Zoey.

As I did, I could see the telltale signs that she was a bit tipsy, if not all the way drunk. I had never seen her like that and never thought I would. I looked over at Grace and asked, “What did you do?”

“Invited her out for drinks, gave her a couple of shots. If I knew she was such a lightweight and loose with her lips, I would have done it sooner,” Grace said.

“Loose with her lips?” I asked.

“You’ll have to ask her,” Grace said, but she didn’t get to say anything more as Sean walked into the bar.

“Is there someplace private we can talk?” Sean asked when he stood in front of Eric.

“Bad or good?” Eric asked.

“Good. I think. Where can we go?” Sean asked.

“Your office is too small for all of us,” Logan said.

“We can go in the back where the beer pong is,” Eric said, and we all followed.

I stood behind Zoey as she stood up. She stumbled a little when she did, and I was there to hold her arm and keep her from falling down. She reached her other hand and put it on top of mine. Heat and need immediately filled me. I wanted to ask her why she was there. I wanted to know if she had been as miserable as I had been the last three days. I wanted to ask her if she had reconsidered and wanted to be with me. I wanted to ask her what I could do to get her to take me back.

There was no time to ask any of those, nor was she in the right frame of mind to answer them. Whatever Sean had come to discuss was the top priority. Everything else would have to wait.

“You didn’t have to come,” I said to Zoey.

“I wanted to be here, for all of you,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said and gave her a soft smile.

She had gotten to know everyone since we had started dating. I hadn’t thought she had gotten that close, but I was glad she had. I didn’t want her to be alone in the city while she was still here. If I couldn’t be around her, then at least she had other people she could lean on.

At the moment, she was leaning heavily on me, literally, and I had to put my hand around her waist to keep her upright. I didn’t mind. I would take any excuse to hold her, but I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be the last time.

Was she only there to support our friends? Was she so drunk that she didn’t even know where she was or what she was saying? Was she there because she missed me as much as I missed her? Had she come to see that she loved me as much as I loved her? I didn’t want to take anything for granted, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to be happy or even hopeful as to why she was there.

We all filed into the back. Logan politely asked the people who were playing beer pong to come back in ten minutes. He told them to have a drink on him, and they were happy to head out. The room was small, with only one table, but it had stools along the side, and it did give enough room so all of us could be together without stepping on each other.

Grace went and stood next to Eric, who reached down and took her hand. She leaned into him, and I could see him whispering something in her ear that made her smile. Amber and Logan were standing next to each other with his arm around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he kissed her head.

They all looked like such a unit, and I longed to have that with Zoey. I thought we could, but now I wasn't so sure. It had been three days since I left her apartment, and I hadn’t heard from her. I knew she could be stubborn, but I hadn’t thought she would be this stubborn. I didn’t want to believe she wasn’t talking to me because there wasn’t anything to talk about, but I wasn’t so sure.

Zoey wasn’t steady on her feet or even when she was sitting down, so I didn’t want to leave her alone. I didn’t ever want to leave her, but I certainly wasn’t going to do it when she was drunk. I stood behind her, but I didn’t touch her even though I wanted to. We certainly weren’t the unit like my friends were with the women they loved.

Sean went over and talked to Eric for a second, and I could feel the whole room tense up as we waited to hear what he had to say. Zoey leaned back in her chair, and her head touched my stomach. I looked down to see her smiling up at me.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said.

I wasn’t sure if she was talking about us, whatever Sean was going to tell us, or something else. I didn’t get a chance to dwell on it as Sean moved away from Eric and looked at us all.

“Thanks for seeing me. I have some new developments with the Denton case, and I wanted to tell you as soon as I could. Thanks to Zoey, over the past few weeks, we have been working with Detective Garcia and the District Attorney’s office to get an immunity agreement for Blackwell.”

“Did you get it?” Logan asked.

“We did, but it was contingent on him talking to Denton again. We were able to get Blackwell admitted into the same facility that Denton was at. The plan was for them to get reacquainted and see if Denton would tell him anything. We had a wire on Blackwell the whole time, hoping he would incriminate himself.”

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