Now who nurtures a mean, nasty drunk?
What if I'd gotten this all wrong?
3
ASHER
My head throbbed as I stared out the window, letting time tick by while I obsessed over how reckless and foolish I'd been yesterday afternoon when my new "intern" stood a little too close to me.
Or that's what Clayton had called her, though I knew he thought of her more like a babysitter.
A grown man, and he was treating me like a child. It was infuriating. Especially when I acted like a child, proving him right.
I was stewing, drumming my fingers on my desk and staring at the occasional bird that flew past my window.
The board meeting started in less than twenty minutes and I felt seriously unprepared for it.
I should've spent my evening last night preparing to make the case for the new acquisition I'd been working on the past few months.
Instead, I sat agonizing while refilling my whiskey tumbler so many times, I eventually gave up and drank straight from the bottle, and now I was regretting it.
Besides the pulse behind my eyes that pinched when I breathed too hard, my entire body shook and I felt parched.
Hangovers were never something I got used to because I was usually smart enough to pace myself or at least drink a bunch of water while drowning my sorrows, but Veda Porter was a worm in my brain that ate me alive all night, even long after I fell asleep.
The heat of her body as she stood so close I could taste her, and the feel of her tits crushed against my chest when I pulled her in, had wrecked me.
I hadn’t touched a woman since Emma died, and I didn't know what came over me.
I almost kissed her.
And I was wasted on the clock when I did so.
Clayton would have a field day if he knew that.
He'd move immediately to have me terminated on a vote of non-confidence.
It was just the sort of thing he was waiting for to move in and snatch my position of power, and I was just foolish enough to deliver it to him on a silver platter.
"Christ," I grumbled to myself and stood, pacing to the window where the distraction was stronger.
At least here, the movement from the traffic on the street below would give me something to stare at so I wouldn't be stuck in my head so much.
I'd been spiraling again for weeks after a month or two of doing better.
The drinking slowed, at least for that short time, but it was approaching the anniversary of Emma's death and after just rebounding from the last anniversary I hated so much.
"Mr. Locke?" I heard, and it wasn't the soulful voice of my assistant, Penny.
I scowled at my own reflection as if warning myself not to get out of control as I turned to see Ms. Porter walk in carrying a cup of coffee in her hand.
After suffering that near catastrophe yesterday, I didn’t even know if she'd show up today, but here she was in her tight pink skirt and flowy silk blouse with ruby lips plumped up and eyes that skimmed my body from head to toe.
Veda Porter was a walking red flag to all that was good in my world, dangerous in the deadliest way, because I was a weak man around a strong woman and she was a powerhouse without trying.
"Put it on the desk," I told her, because I wasn't about to let her get close enough that I could smell the perfume she was wearing.
Yesterday, it undid me.
