Alex was about to wad up the letter and envelope and toss them into the garbage bin, but decided not to. Instead, he tucked them into an empty folder in his desk drawer.
Something told him to keep them.
As if he needed evidence of what some people thought of him.
Biting back his disgust, he returned to his work, but eventually his head dropped to his hands.
He could deal with someone trying to scare him.
His breaths grew shallow.
If anything, it was the shame that would do him in.
***
Tommy: Hi Dana. I was hoping we could talk.
No matter how long Dana stared at the incoming text, she couldn’t absorb its message. She hadn’t had any contact with Tommy since the day at the hospital. Seeing his name on her cellphone display was as bizarre and off-putting as finding a ghost in her closet.
He hadn’t bothered to check on her once, and now he wanted to talk to her?
“I don’t think so.”
Whatever he had to say, it was too little, too late.
Gnawing on her lip, she put her phone down. She walked over to her suite window, hoping the scenery would take her mind off Tommy.
It didn’t work. No matter how hard she concentrated on the looping, red whorls of the rollercoaster at New York-New York, she couldn’t shake the crackling ball of anger in the pit of her stomach.
“Stop it. Just stop it.”
She had Alex’s party to attend tonight, and she still had to put on her makeup. There was no room on her agenda for wondering about Tommy.
Tonight, she would start over.
After being stuck in the mire for weeks, she’d promised herself this party would be her changing moment.
Grabbing her makeup case from her luggage, Dana marched into the bathroom and turned on the light. In her line of work, she’d seen a lot of hotel rooms but she’d never encountered such flattering lighting as in the Vice bathrooms. Instead of washing her in a sickly glow, the light bathed her in soft tones that made her skin look smoother and unblemished. It was almost as if someone had sprinkled fairy dust in there. She didn’t know what kind of crack Alex was piping into the hotel bathrooms, but she should ask him if he was willing to bottle the stuff so she could bring some home.
She’d get a chance tonight at his party.
She hadn’t been far off the mark when she’d expected Bea and Jessica to flip when they heard about the event. When she’d told them about his invitation, their jaws had dropped in unison. It had taken everything in her not to grab some tissue, roll it into tiny balls, and lob them into their mouths.
Bea had gripped Dana by the shoulders, giving her a little shake. “Please tell me you said yes.”
“I told him I wasn’t sure.”
“Mija,” said Jessica. She’d cupped Dana’s cheek. “Are you nuts?”
“Call him,” Bea had urged. “Call him now or we’ll never forgive you. Seriously, I have a very long memory for this kind of shit.”
Anise hadn’t been quite as enthusiastic. As the others had bubbled with delight, her sister had remained quiet.
“Are you up for a bit of clubbing?” Dana had asked Anise.
“I’m supposed to be up for anything, right? Those are the rules.”
The old Anise would have swung from the rafters. She would have become the unofficial queen of Covet.
