Crave (His Second Chance with Heiress Bryn Christmas Duet #1) - Z.L. Arkadie Page 0,40

Alana studied him.

“Dale Rumor,” she muttered. Her eyes widened. “Oh, Dale Rumor.” She tilted her head when she looked at me. “Bryn? Do you have to go to the ladies’ room? I have to go to the ladies’ room.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.”

“So, Bryn,” Dale said extra loudly. “How are your brothers?”

I narrowed my eyes at him and wondered why he cared. Neither of my brothers liked him, not even Asher, who was prone to give anyone I wasn’t fond of the benefit of the doubt.

I faked a smile. “They’re fine.”

Alana looked at me with puzzlement. She wasn’t used to me being so curt with others.

Dale directed his attention to Jamison. “I thought I heard of you before. Didn’t you run her brother’s campaign? Is that how the two of you met?”

I could feel Eden grow rigid.

“Yes and yes,” Jamison said.

I wished I could have signaled for him not to respond. Dale was like a fish in a bowl, who’d keep eating if you kept feeding it. Pay Dale too much attention and he’d keep being a dick. I was certain he had an angle. I put my money on the theory that he’d spent the rest of the afternoon learning everything he could about Jamison Cox so that he could throw something salacious about my new boyfriend in my face. As for that fake apology he’d given me earlier that day, he could take it and shove it where the sun didn’t shine.

Dale rubbed the back of his neck as he grinned. “But I heard it didn’t end well.”

Jamison nodded calmly. “It’s all relative.”

“Relative to what?” Dale shot back.

“Relative to the contract between me and my client.”

I smiled. Score one for Jamison. His answer was enough to make Dale slouch in his chair and pout.

But I wanted to put the nail in Dale’s coffin, so I crossed my arms and asked, “By the way, what are you doing these days, Dale? Are you employed?”

Dale sneered, which made me feel disappointed in myself for taking that jab. He got a kick out of making me behave that way. Also, it gave him hope. If I got scrappy with him, he would take it as me giving a damn about him. And I couldn’t care less about who he banged or lied to or whatever new scheme he was cooking up and calling a job. I was certain that whatever he was doing with his life was making him very, very unhappy and was all the dopamine hits Dale needed to get through any day.

If that’s the case, then why am I still so angry? What’s that about?

“Well, glad you asked. My beautiful babe and I are writing and producing a movie. Not like the one we tried and failed at because, well… only one of us knew what we were doing,” Dale said.

Bait. Bait. Don’t take the bait.

Alana pointed her finger between Dale and me. “Whew. We’ve obviously got some bad blood here.”

Eden turned to me and then Dale. “You know what? Maybe this was fate. Maybe we can resolve the bad blood between the two of you so we can work in peace together for the next three weeks.”

The smug look on Dale’s face was an indication that he was not ready for any resolution. And then it struck me. I was angry because I knew that he’d intentionally used Eden to get to me. I could guess how he’d done it because I knew how he operated. First, he convinced her to buy the property. She’d told me that a friend had talked her into purchasing it, and I would have bet it was Dale. Then he convinced her that she should look into hiring an interior designer. He showed her magazines that featured my work.

And as far as entering into a film project with him, I wanted to wave the red flag at her. The poor thing hadn’t known he used to work for a slimy judge in Washington, DC, and was meanwhile using our relationship to learn as much as he could about my family. When his badly written and unauthorized screenplay was finally finished, he somehow wrangled a contact in Hollywood and set out to do what he’d always wanted to do—be famous. Since the story was based on my family, he talked me into signing on as one of the executive producers. Executive producer. What a big title. I hadn’t known that me being executive producer meant I would invest more money