Page 6 of Dial F for Finance

“Nothing.”

Logan snorts into his beer. “That’s obviously false.”

I take a drink. “Has Jenna left?”

Audrey’s brows rise. “I think so.”

“Helpful.”

“She said she was tired,” Audrey says. “Which, translated from Jenna, usually means either she is genuinely tired or she would like to murder someone privately.”

Logan tips his head. “From the look on your face, probably the second one. Did something happen?”

I don’t answer. I just glance toward the main doors. “Did she drive?”

“No,” Audrey says. “Bennett has drivers for everyone. Why?”

I could lie. I’m generally excellent at lying when it counts. But I don’t. Logan is my closest friend, and he’d see right through me anyway. So I look at them and admit the truth.

“I think I fucked everything up.”

JENNA

I wake up to a headache, a mouth that tastes like regret and Moët, and the immediate, full-body recollection of kissing Dominic Cruz on a terrace and asking him to fuck me upstairs.

“Oh God.”

For approximately three seconds, I lie perfectly still and attempt to convince myself it was a dream. A vivid, champagne-induced hallucination produced by an overworked brain, an underused libido, and the ambient romantic pressure of watching four couples slow-dance to a string quartet while lake light turned everything gold.

Then I remember his hand in my hair and his mouth on mine and the sound he made—low, wrecked, like something he’d been holding for years—and my whole body goes hot with the dual recognition that it absolutely happened and that it was the best kiss of my entire life.

Followed immediately by the memory of him saying no.

I groan into my pillow.

Then I fling an arm over my eyes and catalog the damage.

Headache: moderate.

Dignity: critical.

Memory: unfortunately intact.

There are a handful of moments in my life I would like to retrieve, shred, and incinerate. Accidentally replying all to a board-wide email in my first year at Mercer. Calling Landon “needlessly theatrical” before realizing he was standing behind me. Wearing suede shoes to a January site visit.

Last night has just taken the top position by a comfortable margin.

I roll over and stare at my ceiling, which—rude—looks perfectly composed. Sunlight filters through the gap in the curtains with all the cheerful indifference of a universe that hasn’t personally made an ass of itself on a terrace.

I kissed Dominic.

No, that’s too passive, as if the kiss happened to me like weather.

I kissed Dominic back like I’d been waiting to do it for years and was angry with both of us for the delay.

Then I propositioned him with all the subtlety of a drunk heiress in a bad movie.

Then he declined on ethical grounds.