Page 14 of Tormented Bastard
Eden’s Ego, Zero
Eden
That sound I just heard? Yep, that was the other shoe I’d been waiting to drop ever since I took on this event.
What the hell was I going to do now? Not only could I no longer outrun the storm, but I had nowhere to go. Nothing about this trip had turned out like I had planned.
It was my karma for not noticing that things for the biggest event I’ve ever held were going too smoothly. Events of this magnitude never went so well. I should have been planning for the worst-case scenario all along. But really, who expects their keynote speaker to get hit by a starlet with a drinking problem?
Not this girl. But I should have.
Instead, I’d been so focused on what I’d do with the money made from the event that I’d neglected the details of the event itself. It wasn’t like me to do such a thing, but the whole business of losing my business was really screwing with my head.
To have a hurricane isolate me on an island with the man who’d loved me and left me was testing my limits of reasonableness.
Ah, the irony. A giggle escaped me before I slapped a hand over my mouth.
“Are you okay?” Chase asked. The two men stared at me like they were wary of my next move and were ready to dodge and weave if it came to it.
“Oh yeah. I’m fine. Just fine.” I giggled again and this time didn’t try to stop it. I bent at the waist, my arms wrapped around my middle, and laughed. The situation wasn’t even remotely funny. I was fucked in so many ways. But the thought of that just made me laugh harder.
“Eden?”
I lifted up and wiped away a tear that had leaked out.Tears, Eden? Really?Those words played in my head in my late mother’s voice. She’d always had impeccable timing to make my life hell. Even when she was six feet under.
“I’m fine, Chase.”
“You don’t look fine.” The stance of his body was rigid, but his eyes were searching. “And you’re doing that laugh you do when you get nervous. Or are about to lose your shit.”
“Didn’t I just say I was okay?”
Chance cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, love. But I gotta agree with Hollywood. You don’t look fine, and you’re laughing like a loon. I don’t know you well, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”
I looked over at the two men standing in front of me and shook my head. What the hell did they know about anything hard? They were both too sinfully handsome for their own good, with women falling at their feet all the time. Never worrying about money.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t fair. I didn’t know the first thing about Chance, but I did know Chase and his story. And it wasn’t an easy road.
Still, I was too caught up in my own life unraveling before my eyes to reel it back in.
Chase was right, the rat bastard. Iwasabout to lose my shit.
“Oh yeah, I’m fine. Just peachy keen.” I started to pace. “I’m about to lose the business I’ve worked my ass off to build over the last decade because some reality star decided it would be fun to drink—underage I might add—and drive her Porsche down the PCH and hit the keynote speaker I had lined up for the biggest event my company has ever hosted. And the only person I could think of to step in was Hollywood here”—I gestured toward him—“but he refuses because I ran out on him after we slept together four years ago. Now this fucking storm is making its appearance early, closing off my escape hatch to the mainland where I’d have a bed to sleep in, which is more than I can say for this island!”
My voice ended on a screech, and in the ensuing silence, I froze and it dawned on me what I’d just said. Oh. Fuck.
Chance cleared his throat. “Okay, yeah. I need to head home. Hunker down, guys.”
The crunch of twigs and tree debris already littering the driveway told me that he was walking away. For the second time today, Chance drove away from a charged scene between Chase and me. I could only hope like hell he wasn’t a gossip like Odette. He didn’t strike me as one, but he’d have quite the fodder to spread if that was his thing.
I turned to face Chase, a small expanse of grass between us. Grass that reminded me of his eyes depending on his mood. And I didn’t know what those eyes were going to tell me right now.
“Eden, look at me.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll pass.” I started to turn and stalk away when Chase caught my hand.
“Eden. Look. At. Me.”
I jerked my hand from his because I couldn’t continue to have skin to skin connection with him and think straight. “What?”
