Egomaniac - Vi Keeland Page 0,15
and slipped off her headset. “Is everything okay?”
Were her eyes always that blue? The black spectacles must have made the color pop even more than her fair skin already had. “Uh, yeah. The furniture company is here.”
She looked at me funny, but then walked out to the lobby. After she signed some paperwork, the workmen followed her to my office. They wrapped the desk in moving blankets and taped them in place.
Emerie sighed, looking on. “It’s a beautiful desk.”
I watched her watching them ready it for moving. “Gorgeous.”
In the last three days, she’d realized she’d been swindled for ten grand, gotten arrested, and found out her dream office belonged to someone else. Yet this was the first time I’d seen her truly saddened. It looked like she’d reached her limit. When I saw her eyes well with tears, I felt it in my chest. It affected me more than I could explain. And obviously it affected more than just my chest, it affected…
My sanity.
Because the bad idea I heard myself suggesting certainly wouldn’t have come out of my mouth had I not had a momentary lapse in sanity.
“Stay. You and your desk should stay. I have plenty of space here.”
Chapter 7
Drew, New Year’s Eve, Eight years ago
Some of the best times in life come from bad ideas.
The tall blonde with long legs that stretched like a ladder to heaven? She was definitely a bad idea. I’d been keeping tabs on her all night. She’d come with two friends—all three of them looked barely eighteen. Some local who was a friend of a friend of one of my fraternity brothers had brought them with him. The local had his eye on the blonde, and sometimes his hands, but she seemed to have more interest in getting to know Sigma Alpha guys than him.
I should have been studying for the LSAT. Should have left Atlanta and gone home for break like I normally did. But since it was our last semester in the house, all the seniors in my frat decided to stay for the winter break. One party led into another for ten straight days. And tonight, since it was New Year’s Eve, it was an odd crowd. Most of the students were back home, which made room for the locals. And Daisy Duke and her long legs screamed Georgia peach.
Our eyes caught as I took a swig from my beer. She smiled wide, and I had a sudden craving to eat some fruit. She came to me; I didn’t even have to get up.
“Is this seat taken?” Momentarily confused, I looked to my right and then my left. I was sitting in a recliner in the corner of the living room, watching the party around me. The closest seat was on the other side of the room.
“You’re welcome to sit anywhere you want.”
She did just that, plopping her shapely ass down on my lap. “I noticed you looking at me.”
“You’re a hard person to miss.”
“So are you. You’re the best-looking guy at this party.”
“Is that so?” I took another draw on my beer, and Little Miss Longlegs took it from my hand when I was done. She brought it to her lips and sucked down half the bottle. Finishing, she made a loud ahhh sound.
“What’s your name, legs?”
“Alexa. What’s yours?”
“Drew.” I took the beer back and finished it off. “Who’s the guy you came here with?”
“Oh, that’s just Levi.”
“Not a boyfriend or anything?”
She shook her head. “Nope. He’s just Levi. He lives in Douglasville, not too far from me. He’s good with cars. Sometimes he fixes mine.”
Just then, Levi tagged Alexa from the doorway. He didn’t look happy to find her sitting on my lap.
I lifted my chin in his direction. “You sure Levi doesn’t think you’re more than just friends? Looks like he’s a little pissed off right now.”
She had been sitting with her legs across my lap, but she shifted to face me and swung one over to straddle my hips, effectively blocking my view of her scowling mechanic. “Now you can’t see him.”
I clasped my hands behind her back. “My view just got a whole lot better.”
It was less than an hour later when she asked me to show her my room. Of course, I obliged. I’m nothing if not accommodating to beautiful women. I’d been living at college going on four years now. Some women were straightforward about what they wanted. I was busy and not looking for a relationship, and I appreciated a woman who