San Amaro Singles: Slammed Part 25

"Of course I'm in." She tried to keep the irritation out of her tone. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Heard you were out partying it up at Aura last night."

"I was there for a while. Didn't stay that late. How'd you hear that?"

"There are a bunch of pictures online on various blogs and Facebook."

She frowned. "Pictures of me?"

"You're in a couple. You and Dylan. But most of them are of him. Guess he had quite the night. Uh...not sure Barrett's going to be impressed."

She tilted her head. "Why? Nothing happened." Other than she and Dylan pretending to ignore each other all night.

"Really? You better have a look. Check out Joe Cosner's blog." He named a well-known surfing blogger.

She reached for her mouse and opened her Internet browser. In moments she was staring at pictures of Dylan and herself that she recognized as having been taken at Aura last night. Must have been early in the evening, when he had his arm around her shoulder and was looking down at her with a warm smile. She paused and stared at that image for a long moment then closed her eyes. d.a.m.n. It looked like...well, never mind.

She scrolled down through more images, other people who'd been at the party, more of Dylan...and then even more of Dylan, with girls she didn't recognize, another of him smiling, his arm around a girl's neck while she kissed him. And another with him standing with a girl on either side of him...both girls topless.

When the h.e.l.l had that been taken?

Her stomach in a tight ball, she scanned the blog article. The party had apparently lasted all night and had gotten a tad rowdy. And raunchy. Good G.o.d. Dylan must have gone back there after he'd dropped her off.

A wave of heat washed over her and for a moment she couldn't even see the computer monitor. Her stomach cramped and she thought she might throw up. Seeing this on top of being tired and a bit hungover was not good.

Her chest ached too, at the thought that Dylan had driven her home, dumped her, then gone back to party without her. And once again she had to remind herself that there wasn't anything real between them. They'd slept together, had hot s.e.x together, pretended to date for the sake of Corey and Matt. No, the real reason she was so twisted up about this was because he was supposed to be behaving this week.

Holy floating jellyfish! If Barrett saw this...that was what Tim had been talking about.

She lifted a shaky hand and rubbed her forehead. G.o.d. Oh G.o.d. She was supposed to be keeping him out of trouble and...she'd failed.

Her eyes flew open and she continued reading and viewing the pictures, torturing herself, punishing herself maybe.

Dylan had left the party at about five in the morning with three hot girls, after an orgy had apparently broken out in the closed-to-the-public nightclub.

"f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k," she muttered and lowered her head to her desk.

Was there any way she could keep this from going viral? Was there any way she could keep Barrett from seeing this? Or any of the executive management team, who'd been all twitchy about Dylan's antics, prompting her rescue mission to Tahiti?

Probably not.

Unless she could hack into that blog and...but that was beyond her tech abilities, and besides, it was illegal.

She sat like that for a while, head on her arms, thoughts swirling around inside her aching head. She had to come up with some kind of damage control plan, but she had no idea what that would be at that moment. The hard evidence of her failure was posted online for the world to see.

"Brooke?" Tammy's voice made her lift her head. "Barrett wants to see you in his office."

She sucked briefly on her bottom lip then nodded and shoved her hair back from her face with both hands.

How bad was this going to be? He could be such an a.s.shole. He might fire her. He'd threatened that when they were making her go to Tahiti. But come on-how bad was it? Apart from the fact that she felt like her insides had been shredded, what Dylan had done hadn't been that bad. Just a little drunken, naked partying.

She pressed a hand to her heaving stomach and forced her legs to walk down the hall. She knocked on Barrett's open door to alert him she was there. He turned to face her from behind his desk. The corners of his mouth tipped down and a crease marred his forehead. Yeah, he was p.i.s.sed.

"Come in, Brooke."

She advanced into the office. It was much larger than hers, sunshine pouring in the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the intense green of Torrey Pines Park.

"Have a seat." He gestured at the chair.

She sank into the chair.

"I know you've seen the blogs," Barrett said. "I talked to Tim about them already."

She nodded. "I'm so sorry. I don't know how that happened."

"You don't know how that happened." He nodded, his jaw tight. "You don't know how that happened?"

She sighed. "Yes, I know how that sounds. I was at that party last night. I stayed until midnight. Dylan and I left together. I a.s.sumed he was going back to his hotel. I never thought he'd go back without me, and..." Her voice trailed off.

He nodded. "You a.s.sumed he was going back to his hotel." He inclined his head. "I had the impression that you two were sleeping together."

She kept her mouth from dropping open at his bluntness. "I don't even know what to say to that. That's not the issue here. And not your business."

"If you'd slept with him last night this wouldn't have happened."

She fought down a blaze of anger. "You do realize you sound like a pimp?"

"What?" His eyes widened, then narrowed and a vein throbbed in his temple.

G.o.d, she shouldn't have said that to her boss. "I really don't want to think that my job depends on me sleeping with certain people. I think there are laws against that kind of thing."

"Are you threatening us with a lawsuit?" he demanded.

"Are you firing me?"

He glared at her. "No. But I am taking you off this project."

Her throat constricted. She was about to remind him that she was the one who'd suggested sponsoring Dylan Sch.e.l.l, but that might not be the best move at this point. "What about Dylan?" she asked quietly, stomach tensing. "Are you going to withdraw his sponsorship?"

"I haven't decided that yet."

"He's in the middle of an important compet.i.tion. At least wait until it's over."

"I'll think about it. Tim will take over working with him. And maybe he'll do a better job of keeping Dylan from making a fool of himself in the press."

She knew there was no point in arguing with him and at least she had her job. For now. But inside, she burned.

She rose to her feet. "Tim probably won't sleep with him either," she muttered under her breath as she moved to the door.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." She paused. "Once again, I apologize, Barrett."

He gave a curt nod. "We'll rea.s.sess things after the Pro." And he turned to his computer.

Back in her office, she slumped in her chair. Flerkinshmidt! She took a long deep breath and let it out slowly, her head falling back against her chair.

Okay. This was probably just as well. She had a lot of work to do and now she had no reason to go to the Pro this afternoon and do all that schmoozing. That would be up to Tim now.

Also she needed to stay away from Dylan. For her own sanity and safety.

She checked the time on her computer. It was nearly noon and she was meeting Fraya at a little place near the Pier for lunch. Somewhere away from the craziness that was happening at Breaker Beach. She grabbed her purse.

Fraya was already there, sitting in a booth next to a window in the diner-style restaurant. Brooke's heels clicked across the black-and-white tiled floor as she made her way to the booth.

"Hi Fray." She slid onto the purple vinyl seat in front of the hot pink and chrome table.

"Hey, you're here." Fraya looked up from the menu with a smile. "Tell me not to order the chili fries."

"I think we should get a double order. And onion rings. And milkshakes."

Fraya lowered her chin and gave Brooke a look. "Oy. Hungry today?"

"No. I'm p.i.s.sed. And...well, p.i.s.sed."

"What's wrong?" Fraya set down the menu, concern shadowing her eyes.

"Oh man. Long story. They don't serve booze here, do they?"

Fraya's lips quirked. "No. But we can go somewhere else if you want."

Brooke sighed. "That's okay. I have to go back to work."

"Me too. Client meeting at one thirty. But hey, milkshakes!"

A reluctant smile tugged at Brooke's lips. "Okay."

They ordered chili fries, onion rings and milkshakes. Fraya talked her out of adding a basket of sweet potato fries to the order.

"Okay, what's going on?" Fraya demanded when milkshakes topped with whipped cream sat in front of them.

Brooke dipped her straw in and out of her milkshake. "Okay. You met Dylan when he came for dinner that night."

Fraya's eyebrows shot up. "Oooh. This has to do with Dylan Sch.e.l.l?"

"Yes." She stared hard at her whipped cream. "When I went to Tahiti...my boss sent me there to get him." She looked up at Fraya. "This is just between us, right?"

Fraya bit her lip. "Can't I tell Kevin?"

"No."

"Huh. Okay. Go on."

"Okay. Jackson Cole was getting upset about the things Dylan was doing. They didn't think it was in line with the company image, and they wanted me to go bring him home and help clean up his behavior. So I went all the way to Tahiti to get him."

"Even though you're afraid of flying," Fraya murmured.

Brooke waved a hand. "I can do it. I just...anyway. I got there and I convinced him to come back with me, basically threatening him that he'd lose his sponsorship from Jackson Cole if he didn't clean up his act. He wasn't very happy, but he agreed." She hesitated, not sure how much she should share with Fraya, so she skipped ahead. "So we come back, and he's been actually pretty cooperative, getting involved with a couple of charities and staying out of trouble."

Fraya nodded.

"So." Brooke dropped her eyes to her milkshake again. "We've been seeing a lot of each other since we got back."

"Mmmhmm."

"I was doing my job," Brooke said defensively. "And it was working. Everything was going great until last night. We went to the party at Aura, and d.a.m.n him, he took me home at midnight and then went back to the party. Apparently he stayed all night and it turned into a drunken, debauched orgy or something. There are pictures all over the Internet and everyone's talking about it."

"Oh." Fraya pursed her lips around her straw.

Brooke cleared her throat. Her voice had gotten a little unsteady there, with all the emotion rising up inside her at telling the story. "My boss called me into his office this morning, all p.i.s.sed off because I'd fallen down on the job, basically. This wasn't the first time, but he pretty much told me he expected me to sleep with Dylan if I had to, to keep him out of trouble."

"Whaaaat!" Fraya choked on her milkshake. "Are you serious?"

Brooke's mouth twisted. "Yeah. Serious as Tropical Storm Joyce."

"They can't expect you to do that. That's just...good G.o.d, what kind of place is it you work for?"

"It's not the place. It's Barrett." She scowled. She'd complained about Barrett before to Fraya.

"a.s.shole."

"Yeah. That about sums it up."

"We're gonna sue his a.s.s for s.e.xual hara.s.sment. He can't talk to you like that! That's just outrageous."

Brooke held up a hand. "I don't want to sue anyone. At least, I don't think I do. I handled it, although I may have said a few things that'll come back to bite me. I told him he sounded like a pimp."

Fraya covered her smile with her hand. "Good for you." She shook her head. "I've said it before, Brooke. You don't have to stay there. You're smart and talented and educated. There are lots of places you can get another job."

Brooke sighed and sat back against the purple vinyl. "Yeah, you say that, but realistically there aren't many big companies like Jackson Cole that close to home. I do like the company. But man, he makes it hard. I really don't want to give up this job though."

Fraya's mouth drooped as she studied her. "You don't have to put up with that. You shouldn't put up with that."

"Well. There's a good chance I'll be fired. He took me off the project because of what happened last night and said we'd re-evaluate everything after the compet.i.tion. I made him promise not to yank Dylan's sponsorship right now, when he's trying to win this compet.i.tion."

Fraya tipped her head to one side. "You stuck up for him? After what he did?"

Brooke frowned and played with her straw again. "Well. Yeah."