Marrying Mr. Wrong (Dirty Martini Running Club #3) - Claire Kingsley Page 0,67

that’s not what was weird. I’m pretty sure she was with your old business partner, Dominic Coates.”

“Couldn’t have been.”

“I really think it was.”

He shook his head and kept eating. “No. Althea can’t stand Dominic. She was more than happy to see him go.”

“Okay, but I’m telling you, I really think it was them. I’ve seen Althea there before and I Googled Dominic to make sure.”

“She doesn’t have any reason to meet with him.”

“Well, that’s kind of my point. Wouldn’t it be odd for your lawyer to be meeting with your former partner? Especially if you didn’t know about it?”

“Sugar, you don’t need to worry about it.”

My back stiffened at his dismissive tone. I leaned back and crossed my arms. “So you just… don’t believe me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You might as well have.”

“All I’m saying is that there’s nothing to worry about. Althea has worked for me for a long time.”

Maybe I should have dropped the subject. Cox knew her, and I didn’t. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on. And I didn’t like the way he was trying to blow me off.

“Oliver thinks she’s evil incarnate.”

“Oliver and Althea are oil and water. They’ve never liked each other.”

“But—”

He got up, picking up his plate, and took it to the kitchen.

Don’t let him walk away from you while you’re talking to him. He does that when someone is telling him something he doesn’t want to hear.

I stood, leaving my half-eaten dinner on the table, and followed him. “Cox.”

He stopped and turned to face me. His jaw was tight, his eyes flashing with annoyance. But I was annoyed with him too. “What?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t trust her blindly. I know Oliver doesn’t like her, but he said she’s ruthless and willing to bend the rules when it suits her. And I really think it matters what kind of people you surround yourself with. That’s why Mr. Calloway is so careful about who he does business with.”

“Is he, now? Well good for him. I suppose that’s a consequence of having a real wife to keep him in line.”

A real wife. My feelings snapped like a dry twig, making tears spring to my eyes. “I was just trying to look out for you. The least you could do is listen.”

Without another word, or waiting to hear what he had to say, I turned and walked away.

24

Cox

Well, shit.

I’d gone and said something remarkably stupid, hadn’t I?

Yep. I had.

Fuck.

I went to the liquor cabinet and poured myself two fingers of whiskey. A part of me wanted to follow her. Scoop her in my arms and do whatever it took to make her feel better.

But I’d never been good at apologies.

I took my whiskey to the living room and sat on the couch. This wasn’t how I thought tonight would go. Home from a week-long business trip and now I had a girl with hurt feelings in the other room.

Shit.

Sophie’s claim of seeing Althea with Dominic had been like a needle, poking an uncomfortable shaft of doubt into my head. I trusted Althea. With as deeply embedded as she was in my business and my personal affairs, I had to trust her.

But if she was meeting with Dominic behind my back…

Couldn’t be.

Except why would Sophie lie about that? Althea was prickly about Sophie and this whole marriage situation, but Sophie didn’t know that.

And damn it, that real wife comment had been a shitty thing to say. I’d known it as soon as I’d said it. I wasn’t sure why Sophie bringing up her boss had dug into my pride like that, but it had. It was like she was comparing me to another man and finding me lacking.

Once again, I was faced with an uncomfortable truth about my accidental wife. I cared.

It wasn’t that I didn’t care about anyone. I did. I cared about my mom, and Oliver, and the people who worked for me.

But I cared about Sophie in a way that was different. Deeper. I cared about her in a way I’d always avoided with women.

I took a healthy swallow of whiskey, enjoying the way it burned as it slid down my throat. It reminded me of Vegas. That crazy night when I’d done the unthinkable and gotten married.

When I’d left town on Sunday, I’d wondered if a week away would change things. If whatever fire she’d lit inside me would go out, and I’d come home feeling like my old self again. A committed bachelor, focused on and fulfilled by my work.