One Night at Christmas by Tressie Lockwood

Author:Tressie Lockwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tressie Lockwood

Chapter Nine

Bryson set his pen down and rubbed his eyes. He reached for the bottle at his elbow and then stopped. Had he already taken the pain meds? If he did, they sure didn’t help. The ache in his skull seemed to have spread down his neck and into his shoulders. Stress, he thought. He needed a vacation, but he hadn’t taken off for the last four years. Not even for his honeymoon.

The thought of a honeymoon was absurd. He and Gretchen visited a justice of the peace and tied the knot. Their witnesses were their lawyers. How pathetic was that, he wondered. No friends, no family. Oh he had family. His parents lived in Florida, but he encouraged them not to come. His dad agreed with his decision because he was sort of cut from the same cloth. His mom dreamed of grandchildren, and a marriage by contract didn’t seem to call for them.

Bryson considered the terms of the contract. Kids weren’t included. As he and his wife discussed their future, neither had considered kids to be on the priority list. Neither cared if they ever had them. Of course producing a child crossed his mind that night he slept with Charon, but it was just a way to hold onto her, to prevent her from cutting him out of her life. It was a passing whimsy.

“Damn it,” he grumbled under his breath and moved to the window. His office on the thirty-eighth floor overlooked the busy street below. The people down there scurried about in a hurry. He had a good view between a few shorter buildings, but the scenery didn’t distract him from visualizing Charon. He recalled her as she was four years ago—beautiful, sexy, everything he could dream of in a woman and nothing like his wife.

He winced, recalling Gretchen. Some might consider her to be attractive. She turned him off in every way. After their attempt to consummate the marriage, they hadn’t been intimate. She’d cowered at his size and refused to even try, said he was unnatural and if she’d known…well, he could guess.

The phone behind him rang, and he considered ignoring it. His habit was to face a problem head on, so he picked it up. That didn’t stop the bark of annoyance when he connected. “Scott.”

“Mr. Scott.”

Bryson pulled the phone back to check the ID. His world stilled. He pressed the phone to his ear. “Yeah?”

“This is Darrin Underwood.”

“I dissolved our agreement four years ago after you assured me Charon is fine and that she did indeed marry. Wait, she’s still fine, isn’t she? I guess you wouldn’t know.” He chided himself for bumbling over his words like a boy. “Why are you calling, Underwood?”

“Sir, you seemed to care a great deal about the young lady you had me look into.”

Bryson sank into his chair. When his fingers cramped, he realized he held the phone too hard. If he wasn’t careful, he might crush it. He willed himself to relax a little. “And?”

“It’s just luck, mind you, but I happened to look in on the young lady.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.