Counting On You (Counting the Billions 2)

“Oh, what the hell,” I said to the bartender. “Let me buy the next round for the whole place.”

Austin shook his head, but he refrained from saying anything.

He also let the topic of my relationship, or non-relationship, with Abby drop, for which I was grateful. But that didn’t mean I could quit thinking about her. And the more I thought about her, from her business decisions to her long legs and back again, the more I drank. I bought another couple of rounds for the bar, telling Austin that I didn’t want to be drinking alone.

He gave me a look. “You’re not drinking alone,” he reminded me. “I’m right here.”

I shook my head. “That’s not the same,” I insisted. “If you were the only person getting drunk with me, then I would spend the whole night talking to you. But I don’t want to talk right now. I’ve lost Abby, man, and all I want is to get fucking drunk and then go home and go to bed.”

Austin sighed and plucked my half-empty beer glass out of my hand, dumping it in the sink behind the bar before I could even form a protest on my lips. “I think it’s time to get you home to bed now,” he said.

I frowned at him and folded my arms across my chest. “There was a time when you would have encouraged me to get drunker and drunker,” I said, knowing by the petulance in my words that I was already pretty well sloshed and that Austin was probably right. Time to get me home.

Not that I was going to admit that to him.

Instead, I stuck out my arm, trying to flag down the bartender so I could get another beer, since someone had dumped mine out. The bartender was focused on his conversation with the brunette at the far end of the bar, though.

She was cute, I had to admit. But all I could do was compare her to Abby. God, that woman had ruined me for life. I hadn’t even felt this bad when I had broken things off with Ivy. But then again, when I had broken things off with Ivy, I had been angry. With Abby, I just felt empty. Powerless to change things.

I wasn’t used to feeling powerless, in my line of business.

Suddenly, I didn't want to be there anymore. The bar was noisy, even considering that it was a Monday night. Everyone around me was drunk, with the possible exception of Austin. I wondered how many of them would go home with strangers that night. Abruptly, I didn’t want to be part of any of it.

I wheeled around and headed toward the door with Austin at my heels, just as the bartender finally turned away from the cute brunette. I barely noticed that, though. I let Austin bundle me into a taxi and send me home.

Unfortunately, since we had come all the way across town from work, it took a while to get home. And in that time, I could practically feel myself sobering up. The empty house did nothing to soothe my melancholy of the night. I stood in the doorway of my office, staring at my desk. If only I could go back to that focus I’d had, earlier in my life. Before Ivy had come along and wrecked everything.

I poured myself another drink, this time a scotch neat. Then, I settled into my favorite leather armchair, staring out at the lonely night, wondering if behind every light in this city of Chicago, there was someone as lonely as me.

In that moment, though, it didn’t feel like anyone else in the world could possibly feel the way I did.

Chapter 8

Abby

I TOLD MYSELF ON TUESDAY morning that I wasn’t going to check the papers. I wasn’t going to actively try to find out if Daniel had been out with someone the night before. If he had been, it was his own business. It didn’t change things between us, either way. I couldn’t let it change things between us.

But of course, when I woke up on Tuesday morning, I was so jittery just trying to predict how the day would go that I figured one little look wouldn’t hurt.

I felt disgusted with myself, but I was happy to see that there was no new news about Daniel McGregor that morning. I smiled smugly to myself and headed into the office ready to face a new day. I shouldn’t be looking forward to seeing Daniel, but I couldn’t help it; I was.

When I got to the office, Daniel wasn’t in yet. That wasn’t entirely unusual. I checked his schedule to see what our morning looked like and was surprised to see that there weren’t any meetings scheduled. Odd. I didn’t think that had ever happened since I’d started working for the company.

Maybe Daniel meant to give me time to catch up on all the changes that had taken place in the two weeks I’d been gone? But I was sure that I’d been mostly caught up on all of that the previous day. Sure, I could take my time leisurely going over everything I had missed or catching up on some of the other business accounts that I hadn’t touched yet. I could research into the companies that we’d be meeting with over the coming week.

But what the hell was Daniel planning on doing during that

time?

He still wasn't there by 9:00 a.m. I frowned toward his empty office, drumming my fingers against the edge of my desk. Finally, I went over to Erin’s desk. “Hey, any idea where Daniel is?” I asked.

Erin glanced over her shoulder at the darkened office and then shrugged. “He called a little while ago,” she said. “He said he’d be in a little later today.”

I stared at her as though she had grown two heads. Daniel never came in late. “Does he have an appointment or something?” I asked. But it was odd for that not to be on his calendar. He didn’t keep a separate work and personal calendar, figuring that if someone needed to get in contact with him, they could determine whether it was a good time to bother him. Besides, Erin was the one scheduling most of his business meetings, so she needed to know if he wasn’t going to be there.

Erin shook her head, though. “Nah, no appointment. He just said that he was going to be late.”

I felt as though someone had dropped a bucketful of ice right into my belly. Maybe I had been wrong after all. Maybe Daniel had been out with someone the previous night and someone managed to evade the press. Or maybe he’d invited someone he knew directly over to his place. Why else would he be late this morning?