Michael went up to Téa and started brushing the dirt off of her shoulders. She stood there for a moment with a stony look on her face. He’d invited her to a party and then disappeared for over an hour. He whispered into her ear, “Sorry. Playing host took longer than I expected. If you let me, I’ll make it up to you.”
A smile threatened to break through her face, but she wouldn’t let it. He wasn’t going to get off the hook that easily. But this was her song, and she wasn’t going to waste it. Téa started to bob her head to beat of the song.
Her dance partner was pissed that Michael was trying to hoard in on him. Michael gave him a look that all but said “kick rocks” before pulling Téa into his body. She wrapped her arms around his neck and they moved to the beat of the song.
When the song ended, the DJ decided to slow the party down. It wasn’t possible for Téa and Michael to get any closer. Jessie was happy that it looked like Téa had made a connection.
As much as Jessie would have liked to have thrown all caution to the wind with her sexy dance partner, she just wasn’t ready. He looked disappointed but let her walk off the floor without too much fuss. All she could think of was that she hoped she had some fresh batteries.
Chapter 5
Brian was sitting at his special table, surrounded by all manner of groupies. As much as he appreciated Michael wanting to surprise him for his birthday, he was just over the party scene. His agent, manager, lawyers, and accountants were all there. Surprise, surprise; they all wanted to talk about business. There was a blonde on his left and a red head on his right, both vying for his attention. He was exhausted and not in the mood to even pretend that he cared about any of the conversations going on around him. Brian zoned out and watched as his brother ran after his special guest.
He had a bird’s eye view of the entire scene that unfolded between Michael and the young blonde. Brian also figured out that the stunning woman in the black dress dancing next to them was the best friend. He saw her leaving the floor and heading in his direction. Great, now he was going to have to entertain another one of Michael’s ‘friends’. But, to Brian’s surprise, the woman veered to the left and didn’t attempt to come over to his table. She went and sat over on the other side of VIP.
It had been so long that Jessie couldn’t even remember the last time she’d danced this much or this hard. She just wanted to sit for a minute. Unfortunately, it was too crowded where she’d been sitting before, but there was another table in a less crowded area of the VIP. Jessie took a seat and grabbed a glass of wine as the waiter passed by.
Jessie had a nasty habit of constantly checking her phone for messages. She made a concerted effort not to look at her phone for the next couple of days but was feeling just a little bit antsy. It had only been 24 hours, but she was shocked that she hadn’t received any phone calls from MEGA HQ. Though, seconds after the thought passed through her mind, her phone began to vibrate in the bottom of her purse. Jessie pulled it out as if she willed the phone to vibrate. It was a text from Max.
“Hope everything is going well. Don’t tell Téa I sent you this message. She gave strict orders not to contact you this weekend; however, we need your authorization for the China agreement.”
Jessie texted back, “No problem. It’ll just be our secret. Send me the authorization link.”
A few seconds later Jessie received a second text with the link. She pulled it up and punched in her authorization code.
“Excuse me...Miss. Is anyone sitting in this chair?”
Jessie looked up from her phone to see who was speaking and what chair he wanted to use. He was a nice looking guy and seemed pretty harmless.
Jessie smiled. “Please feel free to use it. No one else is right now.”
“Thanks.” The hunky man took a seat and sat down next to Jessie “This is a great party. Do you know the honoree?”
She couldn’t believe she fell for that line. Now she felt obligated to speak with him. “Actually, no. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet.”
“Good. I’m sure if he took one look at you, I wouldn’t stand a chance of asking you to dance.” Okay, so the guy was pretty smooth. However, his timing was off because the music ended and the lights were turned on just as he’d asked her to dance. Not only were they not going to dance, but the DJ announced the end of the party.
“Okay...so maybe a dance is out, but how about letting me take you out for a late coffee or dinner?”
Jessie was flattered, but the only place she was going was home. She was still trying to recover from her last job on top of this being the anniversary of the worst weekend of her life.
“Thank you so much for the invite, but it’s been a really long day. As soon as I find my girlfriend, we are going to head home.”
“Are you sure I can’t convince you? How about your phone number and I’ll call you to set something up?”
Jessie wished that she felt that zing or something. The guy was really attractive, but there wasn’t even the faintest hint of a physical attraction. He was pretty smooth though, a little too smooth for Jessie’s taste. He also had this determined look in his eyes. Time to change tactics.
“I’m sorry, but my girlfriend doesn’t like me accepting
