Page 43 of Crave
Alana pointed her finger between Dale and me. “Whew. We’ve obviously got some bad blood here.”
Eden turned to me and then Dale. “You know what? Maybe this was fate. Maybe we can resolve the bad blood between the two of you so we can work in peace together for the next three weeks.”
The smug look on Dale’s face was an indication that he was not ready for any resolution. And then it struck me. I was angry because I knew that he’d intentionally used Eden to get to me. I could guess how he’d done it because I knew how he operated. First, he convinced her to buy the property. She’d told me that a friend had talked her into purchasing it, and I would have bet it was Dale. Then he convinced her that she should look into hiring an interior designer. He showed her magazines that featured my work.
And as far as entering into a film project with him, I wanted to wave the red flag at her. The poor thing hadn’t known he used to work for a slimy judge in Washington, DC, and was meanwhile using our relationship to learn as much as he could about my family. When his badly written and unauthorized screenplay was finally finished, he somehow wrangled a contact in Hollywood and set out to do what he’d always wanted to do—be famous. Since the story was based on my family, he talked me into signing on as one of the executive producers.Executive producer. What a big title.I hadn’t known that me being executive producer meant I would invest more money than he did. Dale was the producer, which meant he could bed all the actresses.
However, the real reason he wanted me on the project was so that Jasper wouldn’t destroy him. It took entirely too long for me to end our relationship, romantically and professionally, and after I got away from Dale Rumor, Jasper handled him accordingly. In the end, I let Dale go after grieving the fact that he was too narcissistic to be concerned about anyone besides himself. Because of my issues, I’d been drawn to him, but I could never depend on a man who took more from me emotionally than he gave. I didn’t know if Dale had changed a little, a lot, or not at all, but as I took a moment to feel Jamison’s presence beside me, I came to one conclusion—I no longer cared.
I shrugged and, in a gesture of good faith, reached out to shake Dale’s hand. “We’ll leave the past in the past.”
He hesitated but then reached out to complete our handshake. He didn’t say anything but slyly tickled the inside of my palm before letting go. Once again, he proved he hadn’t changed at all.
Finally,I made that run to the lady’s room with Alana. She took me by the arms and guided me against the wall. “What the fuck, Bryn? Your two exes are at our table. And you’re fucking one of them, and the other’s our client’s hooptie?” She leaned in closer. “And did he give you an authentic orgasm? I thought I heard you coming from a real intravaginal orgasm.”
She watched me with glossy eyes, waiting for my answer. It was hard to concentrate, since everyone who walked past us was watching us as if we were about to give them some hot girl-on-girl sex show. Finally, I nodded.
“Shit, shit, shit… you do know there are only a handful of men in the world who know how to do that shit.” She shook a finger in my face. “And I guarantee you, none of them look like Jamison Cox. Those other guys are frogs, and they have to know how to fuck or they’ll never get any. Your guy could have moderate skills and a less-than-average-sized dick and still land a shit-ton of pussy.”
I grimaced, wondering if she knew that what she said wasn’t true in the least. I’d had conversations with all three of my sisters-in-law about sex, and they’d all confessed that my brothers gave them dick-to-pussy orgasms. And my brothers were like walking, talking Greek gods. There was no use arguing with Alana that she was wrong. I figured one day she’d learn the pleasurable way that her theory was wrong.
I dropped my hands onto her shoulders. “Alana?”
“Huh?” she said way too loudly. She’d had about three glasses of wine.
“I gotta go pee now.” I kissed her on the cheek and walked into the ladies’ room.
When we madeit back to the table, Eden was in my seat and talking to Jamison. Dale didn’t seem bothered by all the attention she was giving my boyfriend. He scoped out the women in the room, including Alana, who he eye banged all the way until she sat down next to him. Eden hadn’t seemed bothered by that either. She also didn’t want to move back to her chair, but Jamison insisted she did.
Gosh, is he too good to be true?
The first thing Alana did when she sat down was ask Eden a barrage of questions about her sitcom and especially her good-looking costars, Daniel Daring and Christ Potts. Dale continued staring at the females in the room, and the younger and needier they were, the more attention he gave them. I loved the fact that Jamison’s eyes hadn’t wandered once. I nuzzled up against my new beau, determined to go the distance with him for as long as possible and hopefully a lifetime.
It didn’t take longto forget that Dale was at the table. Eden did a far better job ignoring his sulking than I would have when we were together. When Dale wasn’t having a good time, he was like a joy sucker. I was starting to feel sorry for him.
Eden leaned forward so she could get a complete picture of Jamison. “What about this weekend? How about we do some horseback riding on Friday and skiing on Saturday?”
“Who wants to be on a horse when it’s this damn cold outside?” Alana said.
Eden shot her a snide look. That question was for Jamison, not her.
“Plus, I’m going to California this weekend. I’m babysitting,” I said.
“You are?” Jamison sounded surprised.
I looked into his whiskey eyes. “Yes. I’m spending time with my nieces and nephew at the Montecito estate.”
Jamison nodded.
“But you’ll be here, right?” Eden asked him.
He shook his head. “I’m going wherever she’s going.”
My eyebrows pulled. “Spencer’s going to be there.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
