its course, so I ended it. And we’ve remained friends ever since.” He takes another swig from the champagne bottle and hands it to me. “And, obviously, that turned out to be for the best, for both of us, seeing as how she’s now marrying the man of her dreams, and I’m here with you.”
My heart stops. Holy crap. “Where did you and Isabel first meet?”
“At that black-tie birthday party for CeeCee. The one I told you about already. The one I crashed, so I could meet CeeCee and convince her to write about RCR.”
I giggle. “Just think. Ten years later, I crashed a music school event to meet CeeCee and convince her to read my writing samples. We’re equally diabolical.”
“Yes, we are.” He kisses me. “Okay, it’s my turn to ask a question. And I want your brutally honest answer this time, okay?”
My stomach clenches in anticipation. “Okay.”
“This is important, Georgina. No fibbing.” He puts his fingertip underneath my chin and looks at me sternly. “Georgina Ricci, did you truly have a poster of C-Bomb on your teenage wall—or did you tell me that to fuck with me?”
I burst out laughing, both in amusement and relief, and shake my head. “I was totally fucking with you.”
“I knew it!” Reed says, joining me in laughter. “You’re evil!”
“I really did love RCR as a teenager, though. That part wasn’t a lie.”
“You’ll say or do anything to get what you want, won’t you? You’re shameless. Shameless and evil.”
“You can’t blame me for lying about that. I had to make sure you wouldn’t let me walk out that door and go to C-Bomb. I didn’t want to be Caleb Baumgarten’s Penny Lane for a week.” I nuzzle my nose against Reed’s. “I wanted to be yours.”
Reed runs his palm down my arm, before it disappears into the warm water of the hot tub and rests on my tailbone. “I was never going to let you go to Caleb, baby. Over my dead body.” He kisses me passionately, sending my spirit swirling through the night sky. “What the hell are you doing to me, Georgina?” he mutters.
I’m drunk. On all the alcohol I’ve ingested tonight, and on Reed himself. “I don’t know,” I whisper back, my smile hurting my cheeks. “All I can hope and pray is it’s half of what you’re doing to me.”
Chapter 21
Reed
I lay Georgina’s sleeping, drunken frame onto the bed in her guestroom. Oh, how I wish I were laying her naked body down onto the four-poster in my room. But, of course, that’s not an option. When she was perfectly sober last night, she asked for a room of her own, much to my extreme disappointment. And she didn’t retract that request before passing out in my arms in a lounger by the pool.
I get her situated comfortably in bed underneath a sheet, and then move to the foot of the bed to grab a folded blanket... when my foot bumps into something hard on the floor by the bed. The room is too dark for me to make out what I’ve bumped into, but it’s definitely not Georgina’s suitcase, the outline of which I can see across the room by the door.
Curious, I head to the nightstand and flip on a small lamp. Momentarily, when the lamp illuminates, I worry the light will awaken Georgina. But a quick glance at Drunken Sleeping Beauty tells me, no, this girl is out for the night.
I return to the mysterious obstacle at the foot of Georgina’s bed and discover it’s a cardboard box emblazoned with Courthouse Copy Service on its side. The exact same kind of box Leonard always has in his office. And, instantly, even before I’ve peeked inside the box, I know what I’m going to find inside. Stephanie Moreland’s lawsuit. But, still, just for kicks, I look anyway. And, yep. No surprise. There it is. Stephanie’s complaint, sitting right on top a stack of documents.
A puff of air escapes from my nose. I should have known Georgina had it. There’s no way Georgina would have seen reference on that printout to a settled sexual harassment lawsuit and not beelined to the clerk’s office to get a copy of it. But why didn’t she tell me she’d read it, when she asked me about the case? Because she thought, if I didn’t know she’d already read it, then I might lie to her about Stephanie. And she wanted to catch me in a lie.
For a moment, I feel betrayed.