“Excuse me?” Peyton was bowled over by this last bit.
She was never one to gossip but now it seemed that if she’d paid a little more attention and focused on numbers a little less, she’d have known all about Luke “Alexander” my-middle-name-is-Meaningless my-last-name-is-fucking-Fling. Oh, and did I mention I’m one of those freaking Prestons?
“Yes,” Gary said, “apparently he was having sex with some random stranger and one of the woman’s lovers got in there and shot him. Missed his heart by a hair. He’s been called a ‘Walking Miracle’ but I’d say the miracle happened when the man was born—goodness.”
Simmering with indignant rage, Peyton hastily recovered the magazine and headed toward her office. “Thank you, get back to work.”
They called him the Walking Miracle?
They should call him the Cock-Sucking Pig!
It was too much, knowing her handsome, drop-dead-gorgeous fling was the closest thing to a male prostitute. And that he was so close, yet she couldn’t see him and had to somehow find a way to forget him. It was about the hardest thing she’d ever set her mind to in her whole career and life. But still, she made an effort.
Two weeks passed, and Peyton could only lie in her bed at night and stare up at the ceiling of her small but luxurious apartment, thinking of him. She would get wet and shaky just remembering. One night she was in so much need and yet so furious at him for lying to her, for invading her life so, for branding her body with his touch, that she rose, yanked out the advertisement from the magazine, tore his face and perfect body into tiny little pieces, and flung the pieces into the trash can, only to return to her big, lonely, king-sized bed, feeling just as bad or even worse.
“Miss Lane, may I have a word with you?” Gary asked this morning as she headed toward her office. She actually liked this man very much. She’d talked to him several times recently—making sure she didn’t discuss Luke, of course—and he was a likeable, funny sort with a very sensitive heart.
“Sure,” she said, suddenly concerned as she studied his pale face. He seemed nervous.
“I’ve been invited to this huge party. It’s a major event in the party circles, actually,” he said, speaking the words to her ever so slowly as if she were a child. “And, well, if you don’t have any plans for tonight I was wondering if you’d like to come.”
She stared at him, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. Whatever did he mean by this? Was he implying that he was seeing Luke tonight? Was he asking if she’d want to go? Why would she want to see that lying, sneaky…
“I’m gay, Ms. Lane,” he blurted, then smiled sheepishly. “But at least if I bring a hot woman you-know-who will love me a little for it. I’ve been told he loves variety.”
Oh, he does, does he? That stinky, filthy…oh, she couldn’t even think of a word!!!
“I’m sorry, Gary, but I have work to catch up on. But thank you.” She touched his arm gently so he wouldn’t feel hurt by her rejection, but when she pivoted to leave, her legs wouldn’t walk. Because…damn Luke Preston, she could hardly get her mind in order since she’d met him.
She gritted her teeth, thrust her chin up in determination, and turned back to Gary with a cold, calculated smile. “At what time would this be, Gary?”
Gary’s grin was about a mile wide. “Eight thirty?”
Peyton nodded. She had to see him.
The moment Gary offered her the chance, her initial reaction had been No way, but deep down she knew it was inevitable.
She had to see him, one more time, at least to get him out of her system. And to get to see the real Luke, not the role he’d played with her. Just one more time, she inwardly promised herself.
One last time.
“You’ve been in a shitty mood all night, Luke. If you were going to be such a sour tart and be wearing a sweater, you shouldn’t have said it was a ‘pajama party,’ ” Patty, his neighbor from the third floor, said to him from across the living room of his apartment.
“Fine, I’ll put on my damned pajamas,” Luke grumbled, yanking off his orange long-sleeved turtleneck and unzipping his jeans. He slept in his tighty whities and that’s the pajamas he’d always worn to his famed and acclaimed “pajama parties,” where people came in their sleep attire and stayed all night doing whatever the fuck they wanted.
“There. You guys happy now?” he asked both his neighbors, Patty and Natalie, with a harsh glare as he kicked his jeans off.
He’d come up with this party idea while flying back from Cancún. But Luke was a little bit disappointed that he wasn’t really into it. He was in a rotten mood, and he’d been in it constantly during the past weeks.
It was as though he’d been shot in the damned head, because lately he’d been swamped with idiotic thoughts that were disgustingly cliché and extremely unlike him; like what purpose he had in life and how he’d be much happier if he had someone to share it with—that someone being a dark-haired seductress whose name he didn’t even want to remember since just thinking it bugged him to no end.
He kept thinking these imbecilic thoughts and asking himself why, for some reason, the drinks, the parties, and the girls had suddenly lost all of their glitz. It was all her fault.
Every aching bone in his body seemed to cry out for her, and Luke hadn’t realized until now that the dark-haired weekend angel, whom he’d once thought had been sent from Heaven just to please him, had been sent to him as a penance, probably for having broken so many hearts when he hadn’t known better.
Luke couldn’t be more pissed with her, with Heaven, and with his goddamned life as it was.
He rested back against the sofa and glowered at everything within view while people starting filling up his pad, one by one. Models in their sheer nighties came over and fawned over him, cooed over him, rubbed his muscles, called him all kinds of sexy pet names, kissed him on the mouth.
He used to enjoy this, he really did. But now he couldn’t see why. It seemed so…superfluous. Unnatural and meaningless. He could see the looks in these women’s eyes, and he could almost see money signs pop out of their pupils when they spotted him. He couldn’t even be quiet with them as they asked in their whiny voices, “What’s the matter? Don’t you like me anymore?” They expected him to be fun all the fucking time, and to have a fucking hard-on all the time, and lately he just didn’t feel like having either.