Flerkinshmidt! She shouldn’t have said that. Any of it.
She caught a flash of something in his eyes that might have been anger—or pain—before his eyes narrowed and his lips tightened even more. “Right,” he said. “Pardon me. This
is
business. And you can go back and talk to your friend and let him buy you drinks all night if that’s what you want.”
“You’re leaving next week.” Oh,
why
did she keep saying these things?
He gave her a long look. “Yeah. I am.”
And he turned and shoved his way through the crowd to the bar.
Chapter Twenty
Dylan ordered another San Pellegrino at the bar from a hot bartender who gave him a long sexy look. He smiled back at her as he took it then turned around to face the crowd. For the first time since he’d walked in, he was alone. And yeah, you could be alone in a crowd.
His eyes sought out Brooke and found her, way across the room talking to…nope, not that cop guy, but two other guys, who stood there looking at her with foolish grins. Fuck.
She was so goddamn pretty. She laughed and tossed her hair behind her shoulder then sipped from her wine glass. And then she batted her eyelashes at one of the guys. Batted her eyelashes!
Something churned inside Dylan, hot and unpleasant. He gripped the bottle of water tighter. What. The. Fuck.
Then she was following one of the guys onto the dance floor. And dancing with him.
Dylan nearly crushed the bottle.
“Hi, hon,” a cute blonde said to him. “You’re Dylan Schell, right?”
He sucked in a long breath. With barely a glance at her, he said, “Yeah.”
“You’re an awesome surfer.”
“Thanks.” He turned his gaze toward her. She leaned on the bar next to him, and another girl beside her also smiled at him. They were both wearing skimpy tops that showed off a lot of tanned skin, short shorts and killer heels. He lifted an eyebrow. “What’s your name?”
“Carly. And this is Stephanie.”
“Hey girls. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Sure!” Their eyes went wide and their smiles beamed.
Dylan lifted a hand and caught the attention of the bartender, who gave the two girls a pursed-lipped look when he ordered.
Business. It was just business. Brooke was just there keeping him out of trouble, she’d said. And then she’d made that crack about him lusting after Corey. That was utter bullshit.
It hurt that she thought so little of him. Which was a weird experience for him. He didn’t give a shit what people thought about him. Why did he care about her?
His lips twisted as he looked down at the floor.
He did care about her. And that made sweat pop out on his forehead and his breathing stop. Christ.
He was a stupid idiot. He should never have told her about Matt and Corey. That had been a messed up time of his life and she didn’t understand. For her to say that was just wrong. He’d trusted her, thought she really cared about him and he could be honest about that, but this was just business for her, which she’d made crystal clear.
Shit.
He wanted to punch something, maybe drive his fist through a wall. Or maybe into the face of that guy Brooke was dancing with.
He forced himself to keep from looking at Brooke, keeping his gaze focused on the two chicks in front of him who were rambling on about the competition and the parties and how drunk they’d gotten the night before.
Sounded like a plan to him.
Brooke flirted and laughed and danced, studiously avoiding Dylan, but with a stone-cold feeling in her stomach because of what she’d said to him. Partly because she’d hurt him. Partly because she’d said out loud what was really bothering her—the feeling that he still cared about Corey.
She never should have slept with him. In Tahiti, yeah, but especially here at home. She should have known better. She was a professional. What was she thinking?
He’d bought those girls drinks. After he’d been pissed at her for talking to another guy. And there was
nothing
between them.
Nothing. So why was she all agitated? Why was she all hyper and flirty with guys she had no interest in? How long did she have to stay here, anyway? Dylan was the one who’d wanted to come.
It was nearing midnight and she had to get home to bed. Dylan’s heat wasn’t until later in the day, so maybe he didn’t need to sleep, but she did. She located him across the bar, once more the center of attention in a crowd of mostly women.
She crossed over to him and slipped through the crowd, then went up on her toes to speak to him. “I need to go home,” she said. “Are you ready?”
He gave her a toothy smile that chilled her. “Not really.”
She frowned. “I think we should go, Dylan.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, no doubt you do,” he said. “But I’m tired of being told what to do.”
A quick little stab in the heart took her breath away. Yeah, no doubt he was. “It’s my job,” she said quietly.
He gave her a long look. “I know,” he said. “Fine. I’ll drive you home.”
She nodded. “Good. Thanks.”
The drive home was painfully silent. She searched around in her head for something to say but came up empty. Thick tension filled the car and she found herself rubbing at the cuticle on her thumb. He pulled up in front of her apartment building and got out to walk her in.
She had to close her eyes against the wave of longing that swept over her, remembering the last time he’d brought her home, the night of the wedding, and how he’d stayed all night. That wasn’t going to happen tonight, not with this icy tension between them. This time he merely made sure she was safely inside and then lifted a hand in a curt good night. “Later, Brooke.”
She bit her lip as she watched him stride back to his car, suddenly on the edge of tears. Holy guacamole. She was such an idiot.
Her bed felt very empty without him and that was even crazier.
The next morning she felt like crap. She’d drunk too much wine, stayed out too late and her sleep had been restless and filled with frustrating dreams about Dylan. Her head throbbed, her neck and shoulders ached and her stomach roiled. Great. It was going to be a good day.
She went into the office to get some things done before she headed back to the beach for more schmoozing with media people. The office was quiet. This week was never a normal work week, and today she was grateful for the quiet.
She’d been checking emails on her BlackBerry the day before, but there were things she couldn’t attend to from her phone and other matters to follow up on. She still had a lot of work to do on the marketing strategy for Jolt. She popped a couple of painkillers and drank a big cup of coffee she’d picked up at the Black Bean on her way to work. Caffeine was supposed to help a headache.
Focusing on work took her mind off her aching head and also took her mind off Dylan Schell, and she’d made good headway on her list of tasks when Tim poked his red-headed, freckled face in her door.
“Hey,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be in today.”
“Of course I’m in.” She tried to keep the irritation out of her tone. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Heard you were out partying it up at Aura last night.”
“I was there for a while. Didn’t stay that late. How’d you hear that?”
“There are a bunch of pictures online on various blogs and Facebook.”
She frowned. “Pictures of me?”
“You’re in a couple. You and Dylan. But most of them are of him. Guess he had quite the night. Uh…not sure Barrett’s going to be impressed.”
She tilted her head. “Why? Nothing happened.” Other than she and Dylan pretending to ignore each other all night.
“Really? You better have a look. Check out Joe Cosner’s blog.” He named a well-known surfing blogger.
She reached for her mouse and opened her Internet browser. In moments she was staring at pictures of Dylan and herself that she recognized as having been taken at Aura last night. Must have been early in the evening, when he had his arm around her shoulder and was looking down at her with a warm smile. She paused and stared at that image for a long moment then closed her eyes. Damn. It looked like…well, never mind.
She scrolled down through more images, other people who’d been at the party, more of Dylan…and then even more of Dylan, with girls she didn’t recognize, another of him smiling, his arm around a girl’s neck while she kissed him. And another with him standing with a girl on either side of him…both girls topless.
When the hell had
that
been taken?
Her stomach in a tight ball, she scanned the blog article. The party had apparently lasted all night and had gotten a tad rowdy. And raunchy. Good God. Dylan must have gone back there after he’d dropped her off.
A wave of heat washed over her and for a moment she couldn’t even see the computer monitor. Her stomach cramped and she thought she might throw up. Seeing this on top of being tired and a bit hungover was not good.
Her chest ached too, at the thought that Dylan had driven her home, dumped her, then gone back to party without her. And once again she had to remind herself that there wasn’t anything real between them. They’d slept together, had hot sex together, pretended to date for the sake of Corey and Matt. No, the real reason she was so twisted up about this was because he was supposed to be behaving this week.
Holy floating jellyfish! If Barrett saw this…that was what Tim had been talking about.
She lifted a shaky hand and rubbed her forehead. God. Oh God. She was supposed to be keeping him out of trouble and…she’d failed.
Her eyes flew open and she continued reading and viewing the pictures, torturing herself, punishing herself maybe.
Dylan had left the party at about five in the morning with three hot girls, after an orgy had apparently broken out in the closed-to-the-public nightclub.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she muttered and lowered her head to her desk.
Was there any way she could keep this from going viral? Was there any way she could keep Barrett from seeing this? Or any of the executive management team, who’d been all twitchy about Dylan’s antics, prompting her rescue mission to Tahiti?
Probably not.
Unless she could hack into that blog and…but that was beyond her tech abilities, and besides, it was illegal.
She sat like that for a while, head on her arms, thoughts swirling around inside her aching head. She had to come up with some kind of damage control plan, but she had no idea what that would be at that moment. The hard evidence of her failure was posted online for the world to see.
“Brooke?” Tammy’s voice made her lift her head. “Barrett wants to see you in his office.”
She sucked briefly on her bottom lip then nodded and shoved her hair back from her face with both hands.
How bad was this going to be? He could be such an asshole. He might fire her. He’d threatened that when they were making her go to Tahiti. But come on—how bad was it? Apart from the fact that she felt like her insides had been shredded, what Dylan had done hadn’t been that bad. Just a little drunken, naked partying.
She pressed a hand to her heaving stomach and forced her legs to walk down the hall. She knocked on Barrett’s open door to alert him she was there. He turned to face her from behind his desk. The corners of his mouth tipped down and a crease marred his forehead. Yeah, he was pissed.
“Come in, Brooke.”
She advanced into the office. It was much larger than hers, sunshine pouring in the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the intense green of Torrey Pines Park.
“Have a seat.” He gestured at the chair.
She sank into the chair.
“I know you’ve seen the blogs,” Barrett said. “I talked to Tim about them already.”
She nodded. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how that happened.”
“You don’t know how that happened.” He nodded, his jaw tight. “You don’t know how that
happened?
”
She sighed. “Yes, I know how that sounds. I was at that party last night. I stayed until midnight. Dylan and I left together. I assumed he was going back to his hotel. I never thought he’d go back without me, and…” Her voice trailed off.
He nodded. “You assumed he was going back to his hotel.” He inclined his head. “I had the impression that you two were sleeping together.”
She kept her mouth from dropping open at his bluntness. “I don’t even know what to say to that. That’s not the issue here. And not your business.”
“If you’d slept with him last night this wouldn’t have happened.”
She fought down a blaze of anger. “You do realize you sound like a pimp?”
“What?” His eyes widened, then narrowed and a vein throbbed in his temple.
God, she shouldn’t have said that to her boss. “I really don’t want to think that my job depends on me sleeping with certain people. I think there are laws against that kind of thing.”
“Are you threatening us with a lawsuit?” he demanded.
“Are you firing me?”
He glared at her. “No. But I am taking you off this project.”
Her throat constricted. She was about to remind him that she was the one who’d suggested sponsoring Dylan Schell, but that might not be the best move at this point. “What about Dylan?” she asked quietly, stomach tensing. “Are you going to withdraw his sponsorship?”
“I haven’t decided that yet.”
“He’s in the middle of an important competition. At least wait until it’s over.”
“I’ll think about it. Tim will take over working with him. And maybe he’ll do a better job of keeping Dylan from making a fool of himself in the press.”
She knew there was no point in arguing with him and at least she had her job. For now. But inside, she burned.
She rose to her feet. “Tim probably won’t sleep with him either,” she muttered under her breath as she moved to the door.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.” She paused. “Once again, I apologize, Barrett.”
He gave a curt nod. “We’ll reassess things after the Pro.” And he turned to his computer.
Back in her office, she slumped in her chair. Flerkinshmidt! She took a long deep breath and let it out slowly, her head falling back against her chair.
Okay. This was probably just as well. She had a lot of work to do and now she had no reason to go to the Pro this afternoon and do all that schmoozing. That would be up to Tim now.