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Jenny stared at the menu, her brow furrowed. Usually, she would crack a joke about some silly ingredient, but she didn’t say a word.
“I’m getting the sirloin,” I said. The rum was loosening my tongue.
She scrunched her nose up. “With the ‘root vegetable hash?’” she asked. “Why do they have to make it weird? What’s everybody got against a baked potato?”
I resisted the urge to laugh and to relax a little. “I don’t know. What are you going to get? They have grilled pizzas?—”
“They have a grilled pizza with beef tenderloin andmashed potatoon it.” Jenny grimaced. “Excuse you me, but that isdisgusting. I’m just going to have the carpaccio. I had that before at the resort. It was good.” She closed her menu and grabbed a glass of wine, guzzling it.
I followed suit. Maybe if we both got drunk, we’d be okay. I was loathe to let my guard down, but feeling buzzed was better than feelingthis. I would pay for it tomorrow, but that was tomorrow’s problem. Not tonight’s.
I had another sip of wine and sat back. I didn’t like to lose control. But since I didn’t seem to be running the show anyway…
Fuck it.
JENNY
Cole sure was being an ass.When we first pulled up at the Prudential, I refused to leave the car—I wanted to run away. What had I been thinking, coming back to work for him? I lied when I told myself I was doing it for Audrey. I’d lied when I told myself it was to keep up appearances so Cole didn’t find out about his father. No, I’d come back forme.
And there I was, getting exactly what I deserved.
I sat in the back of the Escalade, praying that Cole would start being nice to me and stop being so cold. That didn’t exactly happen—we snapped at each other on the sidewalk and gave each other the silent treatment in the elevator.
Still, I went inside the restaurant and obediently perused the menu. I had a job to do, after all. I had a million dollars to earn. I had Cole’s father, Lewis Scary-Dickhead Bryson, to appease. I needed to be Audrey’s maid of honor and keep Elena out of bankruptcy court. So I adjusted my expectations; my night was going to suck completely, but I would survive. That was the end of the story.
But then we started drinking…
I chased two double rum punches with a massive glass of wine. Cole did the same. Both of us could handle ouralcohol. We’d proven that on vacation, drinking even the boozy bridesmaids under the table. Still, I felt woozy once I started mynextglass of wine.
Woozy was better than heartbroken.
Cole had been so cold to me that I’d literally been shivering. But the rum and the wine started warming me up. It loosened our tongues, at least a little bit. And once we started talking—even though it was just about our dinner orders—some unease that had made my whole body tense subsided a little.
Cole poured me yet another glass of wine; I knew I was making a deal with the alcohol devil. I would pay for this in the morning. I hated being hungover. The only thing worse was losing control, which was what would happen next.
Still, I’d rather get shitfaced than feel my other Feelings. You know, the ones with a capital “F”—fear, frustration, fury… fondness. I didn’t want to feel any of those things. It wasn’t safe to.
So shitfaced it was.
“We’d like more wine,” I hiccuped to the server when he reappeared with our food.
“And four more double rum punches,” Cole added.
“Keep ’em coming.” I waved my fingers around in a little circle, the universal sign forwe fucking need it.The server nodded and hustled off, bless his heart.
“He loves us,” Cole said, jerking his thumb at our server’s retreating figure. “That wine costs nine hundred dollars a bottle.”
“Oops,” I hiccuped, “sorry.”
Cole shrugged. “I was going to order more, anyway.”
Once my hiccups subsided, I had a bite of my beef carpaccio. Even though eating was not on my newly scheduled agenda of drinking myself silly, I enjoyed it. “This is good,” I admitted. Thewords just slipped out; I wasn’t even sure whether talking to Cole was safe. Despite my growing buzz, I was still afraid to.
“This is good, too.” Cole cut a piece of steak and handed it to me. “Do you want to try it?”
“Sure,” I said, sounding more calm than I felt. The fact that Cole had said five consecutive words to me and was handing me a fork felt like an olive branch. It was the nicest he’d been to me all day.
The beef was tender and juicy. “It’s delish,” I declared.