“Not that kind,” he snapped.
Tap, tap, tap.
“Stop! Typing!” Yeah, he was losing his mind. “What the hell are you even doing? Typing in appointments? Playing solitaire?”
“Oh no.” Annie grinned widely, and her voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’m writing a novel about a prick who falls on his own sword and bleeds to death. It’s alarming how much you look like him.”
“You realize I could fire you, right?”
Annie hid her laugh behind her hand.
“Hell.” Brant needed a drink. Ten drinks. All the drinks. “Nadine Titus just checked in.”
Annie stopped laughing.
“And I need to find Nik.” So he could what? Yell at her again? Apologize for sleeping with her? Using her? Bribing her? The list was getting way too long. He didn’t know what the hell he would say. Maybe because he’d been trying to get revenge, to punish her for ruining them.
He’d discovered that as angry as he was, he didn’t want to let her go. He didn’t want to do the right thing.
The right thing would be walking out of that resort and never speaking to her again, expect possibly to give her an apology. He groaned.
“She’s with a client,” Annie said quickly. “She’s booked all afternoon, and if you interrupt her—”
“Yeah, yeah, it makes the resort look bad.” He grabbed one of the pens from the reception desk and scribbled down his number on a piece of paper. “Text me the minute she’s free so we can talk. Until then, I’m off to find Nadine Titus.”
“Going to confess to Nadine Titus? I’m impressed,” Annie said.
“Not a chance in hell.” Brant shook his head. “I know this might come as a shock, since clearly all you do is gossip—but I’m here to do a job, and she just happens to be my boss. Now, is there any other employee gossip you think I should know about before I give her a report?”
“Report,” Annie repeated. “As in a report on the employees…”
Brant smirked. “On all the employees. Yes.”
“N-no.” Annie hung her head, and he felt like a jackass all over again. Making her feel threatened, making her wonder about her job when she was just protecting a friend.
The woman he slept with. The one he couldn’t get out of his mind. The one whose scent refused to go away.
It had to be her. It had to be this resort.
Damn it, Nadine.
He really should have kept the auction money, done his pity date, and been done.
And yet, he had to wonder if it would have left him in the same predicament. Wanting what wasn’t his to want, not anymore. And finding ways to get it—even if it cost him everything.
He shoved the thought away.
Just like he shoved the emotions that came right along with it—sadness, anger, and most of all, guilt.
“Just text me when she’s done.” He felt the need to say it again, this time more gently.
Annie stared at him, like she could see right through him.
He turned around and walked off before she saw too much—before she saw the hole in his chest he’d been desperately trying to fill with everything but the one person who made it in the first place.
Chapter Nineteen
Everyone was staring at him.
Grandfather’s eye twitched. Nadine hid a smug smile behind her third glass of wine. And his brothers shared confused expressions with their significant others while Brant still waited on his drink.
The one he’d ordered forty minutes ago along with everyone else’s. They brought him the wrong one twice, adding enough lemon to kill a man in the first one, dumping salt in the second.
“Really, how hard is it to make a martini?” Nadine asked the room while Bentley eyed Brant with interest. “Has this been happening the whole time you’ve been here?”
Brant’s eye twitched. “Actually no, the bar service has been exceptional.” At least up until he slept with Nikki. Then everything went to hell. He left that part out, though.
The waiter returned to their table with fresh drinks for everyone but Brant. He placed the bread basket on the far end and then very casually removed every last piece of silverware in front of Brant’s chair and left.
Well, that was expected. Apparently if he wanted to have a good meal he was going to have to go to the bar across the street.
Nadine frowned. “Do you not…use silverware?”
Brant bit his tongue.
Jane, Brock’s wife, narrowed her eyes at him, then slid over her silverware and whispered, “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” he hissed under his breath.
The waiter returned and handed Brant a sippy cup. Humiliation complete.
Nadine’s eyes bugged, “My, my, do you get to order from the kids menu, too? I’ve heard the nuggets are wonderful.”