CUTTING ROOM -THE- by HOFFMAN JILLIANE

Author:HOFFMAN JILLIANE
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HARPN - HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS
Published: 2012-05-14T04:00:00+00:00

28

When Daria opened her eyes, everything hurt. A tiny slice of sunlight had squeaked through the blinds and landed precisely on the nightstand clock that she stared at, blurring the red numbers beyond distinction. Next to it was a bottle of Tylenol, a half-filled bottle of Patron, her bra, and a paper cup with the Days Inn logo printed on it.

Then she remembered what had happened.

She turned and saw Manny was next to her in bed, sleeping. Presumably naked under the white sheets he was tangled up in.

Oh dear God. What have I done? She sat up much too quickly and put her throbbing head in her hands. Should she get up and leave? Take a taxi to the closest Enterprise Rent-a-Car and go home? Maybe leave a note on the pillow?

Damn. This was like being back in college. She was such an easy drunk. Why didn’t she just stop at two? How many more past two had she had? She looked over at the bottle of Patron. Tequila? Really, Daria? What the hell were you thinking?

How was she going to be able to drive home five hours in a car with him? What was she going to say? What was he going to say? What would he think of her now? Her eyes darted around the room like a trapped animal who realizes the cage door is slightly ajar. She should go before he woke up. Get a rental car and deal with it tomorrow, over the phone. She could put off actually seeing him on the Lunders case. There was no reason for them to physically get together until the next hearing. That could be weeks, months even. She could let him handle Bantling from here on, which is what she remembered him saying to her last night. Telling her to back off and let him handle it.

Okay, okay, okay. Don’t panic. It might not be so hard to ignore him once she got out of this cheap motel room …

She dry-swallowed two Tylenol and rubbed her aching head, trying to collect herself. Her panties were across the room on a chair, as was her blouse, and her skirt was nowhere to be seen. Manny Alvarez was so not her type. Big. Burly. Hairy. Bald. She’d never had a thing for cops, like other prosecutors did. The man-in-uniform-on-a-perpetual-power-trip crap was never her weakness. And he was so much older — she was guessing he had to be in his mid-forties at least. Maybe older.

She looked at him, sleeping on his side, facing where she’d been sleeping, eyes closed, his mouth lost somewhere under that oversized mustache. At least he wasn’t snoring. And he hadn’t given her his back, which she hated. It was a sign of disrespect when men slept on their side with their backs to you. Fuck the, ‘But I was sleeping!’ argument her past exes had tried. Her thought process was, if you do it when you’re unconscious, it’s only a matter of time before you turn your back in the daylight, too.

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.