His Revenge (Power Play #1)

Chapter 24

“What a douchebag!” Kim handed Erin a drink and curled up on the couch next to her friend. “What kind of guy yells at a woman in the middle of the sidewalk?”

Erin took a sip of whiskey, feeling the comforting warmth of the alcohol spreading through her body. She still smarted from the encounter with Ethan, her mind going through the scene in her mind over and over. How could he claim not to have seen the note? She’d left the damn thing on the coffee table, right where he would see it as soon as he walked into the room. So what had happened? Was he lying to her?

After that encounter. Erin had been reluctant to go back to Nicky’s place…couldn’t stand to face her cousin’s depression and she’d needed someone to talk to. So, she’d called Kim and her best friend had asked her to come to her place instead. Now, safely ensconced on Kim’s sofa, listening to her friend rant and curse at Ethan made Erin realize she’d made the right choice.

“And he had the nerve to accuse you of trying to get one back at him?” Kim continued ranting despite Erin’s lack of response. “That’s sick.”

“I can’t really blame him for thinking that.” Erin murmured, shifting position to ease her legs which had gone to sleep. “We have been doing things to get back at each other since we met.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “Well, he should have called at least. I mean come on, how did he know you hadn’t gotten a call saying your dad was in the hospital, or someone was in an accident? Any reasonable guy would have called to make sure you were okay.”

Erin thought so too, but still a niggling feeling of guilt still lingered. She should have called him in the past week, remembered promising herself to call on her way to see Ryan on Wednesday, but then she’d been too overcome with dealing with Nicky that it had completely skipped her mind.

“Maybe I should have called him first.” Erin sighed, taking another sip of her drink. “I did mean to, but I’d totally forgotten.”

“No!” Kim shot from the couch to glare at Erin. “Stop playing devil’s advocate for the guy. Bottom line is…when you come back to your apartment and find the woman you’d spent the night with gone from your bed, the right thing to do would be to call her and find out why she’d gone, not wait a whole week then yell at her in the middle of the street. A guy doesn’t do that to the woman he’s taken home to meet his mother.”

“He didn’t take me to meet his mother Kim,” Erin replied, a small smile playing across her lips at her friend’s description. “But you’re right, he had no right to yell at me.”

And if she’d meant anything to him, he wouldn’t have let her walk away without a word. Which was even more depressing, given how hard she’d fallen for him, it hurt to realize he thought of her as nothing more than a woman he was playing a game with. Well, she was done with him, done with Ethan Lachlan and his annoying quest to hurt her in every way possible.

What she needed was to forget him and she had the perfect solution.

She drained her drink, holding out the glass for a refill. “More.”

“What? You’re going to drink away your misery?” Kim shook her head in disapproval, but took the glass anyway. She crossed to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later, handing her the drink.

“This is not you Erin,” She scolded lightly, as she watched Erin take a huge sip. “What’s really going on?”

Erin shrugged, unwilling to talk about Ethan anymore. She’d allowed him to dominate a large part of her thoughts and she was tired of talking about him. She had let her feelings interfere with the fact that he was an enemy…someone to keep the hell away from. She had to stop playing with fire…