What I Did for Love (Wynette, Texas #5)(15)

The thigh rubbed against her bottom. It felt exceptionally muscular, definitely an athlete’s thigh. But no matter how hard she concentrated, the last thing she remembered was Bram dragging her away from the party.

Kerry must have come after her. Yes, she was sure she remembered him stealing her from Bram. They’d come back here where they’d talked till dawn. He’d made her laugh and told her she had more fortitude than any woman he knew. He’d said she was intelligent, talented, and a lot prettier than most people realized. He’d said that Lance had made himself look like an idiot walking out on a woman like her. They’d started talking about having children together—beautiful biracial babies, unlike Lance’s future pasty-faced kid. They’d agreed to sell the photos of their beautiful baby to the highest bidder and donate the money to charity, which would be especially touching after the Drudge Report dug up news that Jade Gentry had used all the charity money she’d raised to buy herself a yacht. Then Georgie would win an Oscar, and Kerry would win the Super Bowl.

Okay, wrong sport, but her head was hammering, her stomach churning, and a hard knee was trying to wedge deeper into her bottom.

She had to put herself out of her misery, but that would involve turning over and dealing with the consequences of what she saw. She needed water. And Tylenol. An entire bottle.

It began to dawn on her that liquor didn’t give a person total amnesia. This was no ordinary hangover. She’d been drugged. And she knew only one person corrupt enough to drug a woman.

She drove her elbow into his chest with as much force as she could muster.

He gave an oof of pain and rolled over, taking the sheet with him.

She buried her face in the pillow. Soon the mattress sagged as he got up. She heard the muffled sound of his footsteps dragging toward the bathroom. When the door shut, she fumbled for the sheet and made herself sit up. The room tilted. Her stomach roiled. She wrapped the sheet around her, wobbled to her feet, and staggered to the second bathroom, where she leaned against the sink and buried her face in her hands.

What would Scooter do if she’d been drugged and woke up naked in bed with a stranger? Or not a stranger. Scooter wouldn’t do anything because nothing this horrible had ever happened to her. It was easy to be all feisty and optimistic when you had a full-time writing staff protecting you from the real crap life tossed out.

As she let her hands drop, a horrifying image greeted her in the mirror, like early Courtney Love. A witch’s brew of tangled cherry-cola hair didn’t hide the beard burn on her neck. Blotches of old mascara smudged her green eyes like mud around an algae pond. Her wide mouth sagged at the corners, and her complexion was the color of bad yogurt. She made herself drink a glass of water. All her toiletries were in the other bathroom, but she washed her face and swirled some hotel mouthwash.

She still didn’t feel capable of coping with whatever lurked on the other side of that door, so she pushed her hair out of her face and sat on the marble tub deck. She wanted to call someone, but she couldn’t burden Sasha right now, Meg was unreachable, and she wasn’t up to confessing her transgression to April, who would be so disappointed in her. A former rock-and-roll groupie had become her moral compass. As for her father…Never.

She made herself get up and tightened the sheet under her arms. The bedroom was empty, but her hopes that he’d left faded when she saw his clothes still on the floor. She shuffled across the carpet and out into the living room.

He stood at the windows with his back to her. He was tall. But he wasn’t NBA tall. He was her worst nightmare.

“Don’t say a word until the coffee gets here,” he said without turning. “I mean it, Georgie. I can’t deal with you right now. Unless you have a cigarette.”

Rage swept through her. She snatched up a couch pillow and hurled it at Bramwell Shepard’s rumpled tawny head. “You drugged me!”

He ducked, and the pillow hit the window.

She tried to go after him, but as he turned toward her, she tripped over the bedsheet, and it slipped to her waist.

“Put those away,” he said. “They’ve already gotten us into enough trouble.”

She had better luck connecting with one of his abandoned shoes.

“Ow!” He rubbed his chest and had the nerve to look outraged. “I didn’t drug you! Believe me, if I was going to drug a woman, it wouldn’t be you.”

She tugged the sheet into her armpits and looked around for something else to throw. “You’re lying. I was drugged.”

“Yeah, you were. We both were. But not by me. By Meredith, Marilyn, Mary-somebody.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“The redhead at the party last night. Remember those drinks she brought over? I took one and gave you the other—the one she made for herself.”

“Why would she drug herself?”

“Because she likes the feeling she gets!”

Georgie had her first inkling that, for once in his life, Bramwell Shepard might be telling the truth. She also remembered the way he’d confronted the woman and how angry he’d looked. She jerked up the sheet and lurched toward him. “You knew those drinks were drugged? You knew, and you didn’t put a stop to it?”

“I didn’t know. Not until I finished mine, looked at you, and realized I wasn’t totally repulsed!”

A rap sounded at the door, and a voice announced room service. “Get back in the bedroom,” she hissed. “And give me that robe! The tabloids have informants everywhere. Hurry up!”