Second Chance Mess (Bad News Billionaires #1) - Lucia Jordan Page 0,42
her house.
20
Chapter Fourteen (Brooke)
I hadn’t heard from Tim in days. From the rumors going around, he hadn’t been to his office in days either. I had texted Max to make sure that Tim was okay and that he wasn’t sick of anything, and Max let me know that he was fine, just preoccupied with another project. That definitely sounded like Tim, and it reminded me of how tunnel-visioned he had been just before the Spokane project. Speaking of which, I wondered how that project was going.
If Tim hadn’t been to the office all week, then that project was surely taking a hit. It surprised me to think that Tim would put the priority of anything else above the Spokane job. Whatever it was, it must have been a big deal or a very lucrative contract in order for him to be taking so much time away from everything else to focus on this.
Kate and Nick seemed more preoccupied than usual lately, too. They were both so caught up with each other that some nights it felt like they didn’t even know I was there in the room with them. The other night I had actually gotten up to leave right before they ended up having sex on the couch. I was guessing that Nick would be popping the question soon, and I could already see myself sitting in tears at Kate’s wedding for a multitude of reasons.
I found myself slipping more and more into melancholy and daydreaming about Tim as I went through the motions of my day. It was kind of amazing actually that I was still able to function so well with paying attention to so little. I would find that I had already made it home from work without even remembering the commute back to the apartment. Or that I would look down and see a half-done latte in my hands that I didn’t even remember starting. I guess it was my lack of paying any real attention to anything that is what kept me from noticing when Chelsea walked into the coffee shop.
I was standing behind the espresso bar, making drinks when I heard Kate take her order. She looked over in my direction for a minute, but she either didn’t recognize me or didn’t care who I was. She ordered a vanilla latte, and when the drink ticket came through, I pulled it off and looked at it as Chelsea went to go take a seat at one of the high-top tables until her drink was called.
“You want me to make this one?” Kate asked. She knew who it was, and she knew that I hated the woman.
“Nope,” I said. “I’ve got it.”
“You sure?”
I nodded and got started on Chelsea’s drink. I set the steam temperature to a scalding hot level. I watched over the espresso bar at her as she kept herself busy on her phone while she waited. When the drink was done, I started to walk out from behind the counter to hand it to her.
“What are you doing?” Kate asked since we usually don’t hand-deliver drinks.
I ignored her and kept walking.
When I got close enough to Chelsea to hand her the drink, she didn’t even look up from her phone. She waved an arrogant hand at the table and said to set the cup down. I stared at her for a few minutes, in her tight white skinny jeans with her faux fur and bright-red lipstick. She looked a little like one of those cheap knockoff dolls that they sold at the second- hand stores.
“Ugh,” she said as she peeled her eyes up from her phone and looked at me. “Don’t you know what this means?” she asked as she waved her hand toward the table again. “It means, set it there.”
I wasn’t sure what came over me, but I absolutely and completely lost it. I took the top off of her latte and threw the whole scalding drink at her. I watched as the chocolate brown stain sprayed onto her fur and the entire outfit. She screamed and held her face and neck as it burned from the scalding coffee.
“What are you doing?” she yelled at me.
I hadn’t moved at all. I just stood there squarely in my spot in front of her. Kate came running out from behind the counter with a roll of paper towels and started mopping up the mocha spill around Chelsea’s feet.
“You bitch!” Chelsea screamed at me. “Why in the world would you—” She stopped