Irresistible Bachelors: Books 1-5 by Landish, Lauren (bts books to read TXT) 📕

of money shouldn’t have made me feel this way. His note did seem sincere, but it bothers me. I don’t like handouts, never have. Add in sex the night before, and I can’t shake this feeling.

“Bri!” Mindy cries when she sees me walking into the coffee shop, a surprised look on her face. She’s helping what looks like a disgruntled middle-aged woman who is put together quite well. She’s wearing some nice slacks and a good blouse to go with the stuck-up look on her face.

I’d like to talk with Mindy immediately, but she has a long line of customers. “I’ll be right with you in a minute.”

I nod my head to her and take a seat in one of the booths, figuring it’ll be ten minutes or more before she can get to me. I place my head on the table feeling like crap, waiting to talk to Mindy. As I sit there, I start smelling the cleaner that’s used to scrub the tables and nausea begins to creep up from my stomach and through the rest of me. It seems half my life is soaked in this shit, and the other half . . .

I get up from my seat after a few minutes and begin to walk out. One of the reasons I came here is to talk to Mindy, but I’ll be a skeleton by the time she gets through serving the slew of people streaming through the doors. I picked a wrong time. The lunch hour is coming in, and she’s going to be slammed for a while.

“Bri, wait!” I hear her call behind me. “I have something to tell—”

Her voice is lost as I move through the doors and out into the lobby. There’s a crowd here as well, people talking in a babble of voices that roll over each other, impossible to keep track of. It looks like most of the production crew for Gavin’s movie. As I pass by, I hear people speaking his name, but I tune them out, intent on doing only one thing.

Near the elevators, I see Vandenburgh standing with a crew of camera people, smiling his face off while somebody interviews him for what I guess is a behind the scenes clip for the DVD home version of the movie. He’s got his best suit on, and his chest is so puffed up today that he’s nearly straining the buttons as he blathers on to the camera crew.

I stop in my tracks. He seems busy, but I’m not about to walk by him just in case. If he says anything to me, I’m going to be out of a job with the emotions whirling inside me.

That leaves only one option, and I let out a groan at the thought. The stairs.

I make it to the stairwell, pausing to look up at the six flights of hell in front of me before I laboriously begin my climb. Each step is a flex of muscles that don’t want to be flexed right now. I could take the elevator at the next floor, but I’m actually relishing the pain right now. It gives me something else to focus on.

By the time I reach the sixth floor and Gavin’s room, my ass and side are on fire. I’m completely out of breath too, a sheen of sweat on my skin.

I take my pass card out, looking at it in the dim light, and then I pause, thinking. I can get in trouble for this. I’m not on duty. Forget a write-up. Knowing Vandenburgh, he’d probably call the police.

But I have to do this. Gavin is leaving tomorrow. And this will be my last message to him.

I stick the card in the door and hear the click, glancing up and down the hallway once before pushing the door open, making as little sound as possible. The room is still unmade, and the faint aroma of his cologne hits me, making me slightly dizzy. It’s so . . . Gavin.

Walking in further, I see things that bring back memories of my first night with him. There, on the kitchen counter, are two wine glasses. I see the candles, still in their holders on the table. I sway, nearly overcome with emotion.

I walk over and sit on the bed, thinking about how things could be. What could be. What, in the idle moments afterward, I daydreamed about.

But I know the truth. And I’ve known it since the moment I met him. My daydreams are just that. Nothing more. The foolish musings of a girl who should have known the difference between a relationship and just getting a good deep dicking.

Mindy’s right. I did need it. Not for the orgasms, but to learn that hard lesson.

Taking a deep breath, I walk over to the desk and sit down. I grab the pen and paper and begin writing, but after a moment, I see water drip onto the paper and I wipe at my eyes.

“No,” I whisper, tearing the sheet off and balling it up. “No. I’m the one in control. I’m the one in charge.”

I start over, and it takes me two more tries to get the words just right and to make sure my hand doesn’t shake as I write it. The tears are back as I write the last words. There is really no point in stringing this along further.

A single tear escapes my cheek and rolls down onto the piece of paper. I go to crumple it up and re-write it for a fourth time, but I need to get out of here. I just don’t want him to think I was crying.

Sighing, I get up from my seat and leave the room—and my heart—behind me.Gavin

“We have a few more press junkets to do tomorrow, you know,” Miranda says as she pulls her rented Escalade in front of the Grand Waterways Hotel, “and then you can be free of this place.”

I’ve been discharged after a few hours. In fact, the sun is still