Free The Bluffing Game by Verona Vale Page A

over.
    Unless of course Sterling decided to hire his old lawyer back and fire me in the meantime. Either way, I had already billed the majority of my hours, and it didn’t matter. It fucking didn’t matter.
     
    ~
     
    When we landed in Boston, I caught a cab to my office and worked other cases until quitting time. Then I went to a bar. I downed one martini like a shot and sat with a second and stirred it, not even interested. A few guys tried to get on my good side, and I waved them away like flies. Some got angry, but that was their problem. I didn’t owe them anything.
    Finally I came home to my empty house in Cape Cod, my quiet bedroom, my bed that was only mine, and I tried not to cry as I lay under the covers. At last, I called Nick.
    “Are you gonna be okay?”
    “I wish you were here,” I said. “I wish I was in your arms.”
    He took a moment to respond. “You don’t really mean that.”
    “I’m just saying how I feel. I’m not asking you to come over.”
    “Okay.”
    “He’s so absorbed in himself, isn’t he? That’s not just me?”
    “I never met him, June. But billionaires do tend to get that way by focusing on themselves first.”
    “I just can’t believe it’s over. For some reason I was really hoping for... something long-term.”
    “I know, it sucks.”
    “Will you have lunch with me tomorrow?”
    I could almost see him rubbing his forehead. “I don’t know, June.”
    “Come on, Nick, I’m not trying to make you my fucking rebound.”
    “Are you sure about that?”
    “Yes, I’m sure.”
    He sighed. He had a right to be a little unsure after we had talked about my possibly pursuing a relationship for its own sake regardless of whom it was with. But he said, “Okay then. We’ll have lunch tomorrow.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Where you wanna go?”
    “Anywhere. No, make that anywhere except seafood. No lobster.”
    He laughed a bit, as I hoped he would. “Good night, June. You’ll feel better.”
    “I know.” And somewhere I did. Here I was nearly in tears over Victor, though. Like a schoolgirl. I had fallen for him way too hard. Way too hard.
    I woke in the morning having slept poorly, feeling for the first time that my already expensive bed was not up to snuff. Damn that resort.
    Unable to fall asleep, I got up and walked down the stairs through my graveyard-silent house and into the basement I’d turned into a gym. I put on workout clothes and ran on the treadmill until I couldn’t think or move anymore. That jumpstarted my autopilot mode, and I was able to shower and go to bed again exhausted, with a completely empty mind. Finally I could sleep.
     
    ~
     
    At work the next day, lunch couldn’t get here quick enough, to the point that I packed up my briefcase by ten in the morning and worked from the restaurant until Nick got there.
    I stood up and let every last word of my work fall away, and sunk into his arms, felt them around me, warm, strong, familiar, kind.
    “June?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Can I sit down?”
    I let the professional part of me wake back up and let go of him, my hands and arms empty without his body held tight in them. I sat down and closed my computer and put all my papers away.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t sleep very well.”
    “I can imagine.” He met my eyes only in little flicks of movement, quick acknowledgements that showed me he wasn’t ignoring me, but made it all too clear he couldn’t handle staring into my eyes the way he used to.
    “It’s really kind of weird,” I said. “My house never felt so...” I thought for a second. “…dead.”
    He picked up the menu. “Why do you think I got my dogs?”
    “I know, I’ve thought about it, but I travel so much, it just seems unfair. I’d need a nanny.”
    “Lots of people do it.”
    “I’d rather come home to a person.”
    “Wouldn’t we all.”
    Why was he cold? He hadn’t seemed jealous or bitter in years.
    “Nick, did something happen?”
    He looked at me for a