Underestimated Too(103)

And then we had a fight. Morgan left her laptop on the table while she showered. I would have been fine with the email from Dawson, offering to let her go. It was hers that pissed me off. She was downright, yelling, telling him not to do this, not to throw what they had away. I was fighting a losing battle. I’d never win. The cards were stacked against me and good guy Dawson would win.

I took off walking, calling Felix to get the plane ready. The town wasn’t too far away and I hoped someone would pick me up. I made it to the stop sign, shaking my head when I saw the good guy sheriff’s car. The car parked behind his cruiser was also familiar. They never came up for air until I was right upon them. I was fuming. I was pissed. Morgan didn’t deserve this shit. Not only was Dawson supposed to be in love with her, Lauren was supposed to be her friend. Wasn’t there some sort of girl rule about that—?”

“Drew,” I had to interrupt. What did he mean? He knew about that before I did?

“I’m sorry, Morgan.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Don’t you think things would have gone a lot smoother and been a little easier on me, had you told me that Dawson was seeing Lauren behind my back?”

“No. I don’t think that at all. I think you would have called me a snake and a liar. You would have accused me of making it up to win.”

Hmm, Drew had a point. I would have done that then. “Go on,” I requested, waiting to hear the rest.

“Dawson made excuses. ‘This isn’t what you think. Is Morgan okay?’ Dawson asked. I wanted to punch him. He had his tongue halfway down Lauren’s throat, asking if Morgan was okay.

Lauren backed away from Dawson, looking sorry herself. I wanted to slap her too. How could she do this? How could either of them do this to her? Didn’t they think she’d been through enough?

‘I’ll talk to you later.’ Lauren smiled at Dawson and walked back to her car. I glared at her, shooting daggers at her.

‘Stay away from Morgan,’ I instantly fumed at Dawson. I didn’t care what kind of law enforcement he was. I was ready to beat the hell out of him. How could he do this? She was sitting at home confused as hell about what to do, and he was doing her supposedly best friend.

‘You don’t know shit. Lauren knows where I stand with her. She knows that if I have the slightest chance with Morgan, I’m taking it.’

‘You don’t have a fucking chance in hell with Morgan,’ I yelled, shoving him against his car.

He shoved me back. ‘And you think you deserve that chance? You remember one damn thing. I was the one there to calm her down when she woke terrified of the things you did to her. You think you deserve her? You deserve to rot in prison for what you did. I only got close to someone else while spending hours and hours looking for Riley, afraid she was with you and what you were doing to her. You stay away from her and let her decide.’

‘One, her name is not, and never has been Riley. And two, if she chooses me, you can just go next door to Lauren.’

‘Fuck you, man. You have no right to look down on me. None.’

Dawson kindly gave me a lift into town, and we bickered back and forth the whole five minutes. I could see how Morgan would fall for a guy like him. Had I not just caught him kissing her best friend, I would have thought him to be a nice guy. Nice guys didn’t fuck your best friend.

I did my best to leave Morgan alone and let her figure this out on her own. I was sure that Dawson would come clean with her and be out of the picture in no time. I did buy her a nice car and had it delivered. I wasn’t about to let her travel in that piece of shit Honda she was driving. I, however, didn’t realize it was going to take her six weeks to decide.

I spent my time, trying to get my new assistant on board and up to par. I have to say that out of every guy that I interviewed Celeste Johnson was the most qualified. Maybe qualified wasn’t the word, she was a hard ass, reminded me a lot of myself. She was ten times better than Derik ever was. I may have even been a little intimidated by her.

Our very first prospect together was an actor, proposing to his actress girlfriend. We’d flown to New York City together, wined and dined the guy, and then showed him the very expensive merchandise. I’d told Celeste to keep her mouth shut and to only observe. Thankfully he fell in love with the most expensive piece I brought. The only problem was he’d told Mystified Jewels of New York he would give them a chance as well and would take a look at what they had. I nodded, telling him that I understood.

‘We recognize your need to see what Mystified has to offer, however, Mr. Stewart, this piece will no longer be available after tomorrow. Would you like for me to put a hold on the next best thing for a couple days?’ Celeste spoke up.