“I’m afraid Devin McMasters is… well… let’s just say he is going through some personal issues that seem to be blurring his sensibilities. The last few sessions he has chosen one woman—The One—to focus his attention and energy on, to the detriment of his other guests. The One is chosen to be a symbol to the other women, to formally start the festivities of the weekend.”
“Like a virgin sacrifice,” I said snidely. She gave me a blank expression. I held up my hands. “I’m sorry, please, go on.”
“Yes, well, The One should receive a Yoni Massage and be sent on her way. Lately, however, Devin has chosen to have sex with the woman, which is strictly forbidden, and he ignores everyone else the rest of the weekend. Come Monday, the woman who thought she truly might be the one for Devin ends up with her heart broken and self-respect in pieces. Because once the weekend is over, Miss Casey, Devin will never speak to her—to you—again.”
“You said it was a problem only I could resolve.”
“Yes, I’m afraid that’s the case.”
I sat on the edge of the bed with my hands clasped in my lap, listening to her words but not wanting to hear them. If she was lying she was doing a damn good job of it. I could usually spot a lie even as it left someone’s lips. Her body language was solid, unflinching. Her tone without waver. She was telling the truth. And it explained a lot. Devin didn’t realize we had history when he chose me to be The One. He was already touching me sexually before I realized who he was. Son of a bitch. There was no real connection there. It was all about sex. Just sex. The time we spent together before, whatever memory was made, whatever connection I might have felt, was just smoke and mirrors to the great Devin McMasters.
“What should I do?” I asked quietly, swiping a knuckle under my eyes.
“You have to leave, my dear,” she said firmly. She put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I have a car waiting for you at the side entrance that will ferry you home. And if you are the self-respecting young woman that I believe you to be, you will never speak to Devin McMasters again. I am sincerely sorry that he used you in such a horrid manner. I can only hope that you received some satisfaction from his actions, however ill-intentioned they turned out to be.”
“Yes, thank you, I understand… I’ll pack right away.”
She gave my shoulder another squeeze, then started for the door. With her hand on the knob, she turned back to say, “I will try to get Devin the help he needs, Miss Casey. I’m afraid it’s up to you to help yourself.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Cassandra
“What the fuck, Cass?”
“Hello to you, too,” I said, stepping aside so Lulu could storm into my apartment like the Tasmanian Devil. It was almost midnight, Monday night, and I assumed she had come to my place straight from her weekend at Paradiso. I should have felt bad about leaving without letting her know what had happened. I had left her a note that I had to rush back to the city and would see her back at the office on Tuesday. Because Paradiso had no cell service, she couldn’t contact me to find out what the hell was going on.
I closed the door and followed her into the kitchen. She was still wearing a t-shirt and khaki shorts and flip flops. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail and her skin had a healthy glow, although the redness of her cheeks was more from anxiety than a seaweed facial. She plucked a beer from the fridge and leaned back against the sink to pop the top and glare at me.
“Where the fuck did you go?” she asked, sloshing beer over her hand. “What the fuck happened?”
I slid onto a stool across the kitchen island and let go a long breath. “Things just got out of hand,” I said. “It was best that I leave.”
She wrinkled her nose at me from over the beer can. “What happened? What got out of hand? Why did you leave?”
For the next hour, I told her about Genevieve St. Claire’s visit to my room and everything she said about Devin. Lulu listened quietly, grunted here and there, and shook her head. By the time I finished, I found myself wiping tears from my eyes. Yes, there were tears. Of anger and sorrow. I felt betrayed. Used. Sad. Regretful. And I still wanted Devin McMasters in my arms, even if he was a deviant pussy hound.
“Wow, that makes sense I guess,” Lulu said. “Devin came looking for you on Saturday night. I told him you had to rush home because of some emergency. I showed him the note. He didn’t say anything. He just gave me a weird look, but I got the feeling that under the surface, he was seething, really mad at someone.”
“Yeah, I guess he expected me to be waiting for him to finish rubbing other women’s pussies so he could then come rub his stink on mine.”
Lulu giggled. “Wow, so different from the googly-eyed girl I had breakfast with on Saturday morning.”
“Well, that googly-eyed girl was a fucking fool,” I said seriously. “I left her at Paradiso. Trust me, this girl,” I patted my chest, “will never again give Devin McMasters the time of day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Devin
“Devin? Devin? Dude, are you listening to me?” Ben was standing at the white board in the Paradiso conference room with a red marker in his hand and a frustrated look on his face. He had been scratching out ideas on the board with Amy and Beth, two girls from our marketing department who handled our social media campaigns.
Personally, I don’t know Facebook from Facetime, so I let Ben handle all that stuff. The only reason I was in the room was that he had been trying to get me more involved in the day-to-day operations since I said I wanted to leave.
Now that Cassandra Casey was out of the picture—she hadn’t answered my calls in two weeks—the talk of leaving had fell by the wayside. I no longer had a reason to leave. Or a reason to do much of anything else.
“I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing my hands over my eyes. I stared at the whiteboard through my fingers. “Yes, whatever, that looks great.”
Ben took a deep breath and put the cap back on the marker. He worked up a smile for the girls and said they could go on about their day. He followed them to the door, then closed the door behind them.
“Okay, what’s going on?” he asked, slumping in a chair across the table from me. “You’ve been dragging around here for the last two weeks like a man who’s lost his best friend.”
“I’m staring at my best friend,” I said.
Ben sighed. “That’s what I mean. You don’t treat me like your best friend anymore. Hell, you don’t treat anyone like a friend. You don’t even speak to anyone. You just lock yourself in your villa and only come out when I drag you out.” He shook his head and gave me a desperate look. “Jesus, Dev, we have a new session starting in a week. You’ve got to pull yourself together.”
“I’m fine,” I said, even though my tone hinted otherwise. I sounded far more pissed off than fine. With a dash of self-loathing and self-pity thrown in for good measure. “Look, don’t worry about me. I’ll show up, I’ll do what’s expected, and everyone will go home happy. May the cash registers continue to ring.”
He studied my face for a moment, as if he might find the truth tattooed there. He leaned his elbows on the table and cocked his head to one side. “This is about that woman,” he said. He picked up a blue marker and tapped it to his forehead. “Cassandra Casey. You’ve been moping around like a little kid ever since she left.”
“Leave her out of it, Ben,” I said. “She left, so whatever I thought we might have had together was just my mistake. She was a good fuck. Let’s leave it at that.”
Ben rolled the marker between his palms and watched it spin. “You really liked her, huh.”
I blew out a long breath and leaned my head back on the chair’s headrest to stare at the ceiling. “Yeah, Ben, I really liked her. She made me… feel…”
The marker went still. I could feel him staring at me. “What, Dev? She made you feel what?”
“She made me feel,” I said, my voice cracking a bit, like a kid hitting the first screech of puberty. “That’s it. And I haven’t felt anything in a very long time.” I suddenly felt tears stinging my eyes. I’m not one to cry—I dislocated my shoulder during a high school football game and didn’t miss a play—so it was a bit of a shock to me and Ben when the tears came. He had never seen me cry, not even close. I didn’t blubber or anything like that. I just had tears streaming down my cheeks. I wiped the tears away and sniffed back the snot that came with them.
“Dude, are you… crying?” Ben asked.
“No, motherfucker, I’m leaking,” I said, pressing my palms to my eyes.
“Shit, Dev, I had no idea you felt that way about her,” Ben said, stammering out the words. “I mean, I never would have agreed to… I mean... holy shit…”
I rolled my head to the side to look at him. I could tell he had something on his mind, something he wanted to say but wasn’t sure he should. I swiveled toward the table and held out my hands. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re not going to be happy,” he said with a heavy sigh, his head swiveling from side to side. He rubbed his hands over his cheeks, then looked me in the eye. “Okay, look… I know why Cassandra Casey left.”