He was almost 100 percent sure of it. Ninety-nine, at the very least.
Oh, God.
“Maybe we should go discuss this somewhere else.”
“Yes, please, do.” Peter rolled his eyes.
“No. There is nothing to discuss. You suck and I want you to die.” Stella turned to Peter. “What’s my tab?” she said with great dignity.
“Don’t worry about it,” Peter told her.
But she still dug in her purse and threw a ten down on the bar. Then shifting her shoulder so she wouldn’t touch Wyatt or Karen, she stomped past with her chin up, tugging the bottom of her T-shirt down.
“Stella . . .” Wyatt pleaded, but she ignored him.
“The necklace,” Karen sputtered.
“Let it go,” Wyatt said in a low voice. “It really does belong to her.”
The words gave Stella pause, but Saxon appeared in the doorway. She went to him, took his hand like he was her eight-year-old son, and said, “Come on, let’s go.”
Saxon frowned, but he went with her.
Wyatt was left to face his mistakes, whatever those might be. “Sorry about that,” he told Karen. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Sure.” She sat down on a stool and smoothed her hair. “The skinny bitch is stronger than she looks.”
Karen had no idea how strong Stella could be. Wyatt was grateful she was enough in control of herself to not hurt Karen, but other than that, he wasn’t grateful for much. “She’s grieving, you know. It’s only been a couple of days since she lost Johnny.”
“I get that. But if that necklace wasn’t yours to give away, why did you?”
Hell if he knew. Wyatt sighed, putting his feet on the rungs of the stool he was sitting on. “The thing is, Karen, I got loaded at Johnny’s wake last night. I don’t remember much after we left the boat. So I can’t really say as to why I would do that.”
“You don’t remember last night? Seriously? Well, that’s a little insulting.”
The sick sensation in his gut started to crawl up his throat. “Did we, uh, do anything that I should know about?”
Karen blinked at him. “Like what?”
She was going to make him spell it out. “Did we have sex?”
Now she looked aghast. “What kind of a slut do you take me for? Good Lord, we just hung out and had a couple of drinks. You at least need to buy me dinner if you want in my pants.”
Relief coursed through him. He hadn’t thought he would, but then again, he had never blacked out before either. “I wasn’t saying, I mean definitely I would buy you dinner, not that I would ever hit on you. I mean . . .” Wyatt clamped his mouth shut and regrouped his thoughts. “I’m glad to hear I wasn’t a total jackass, unlike right now.”
“You don’t remember anything, huh? I didn’t think you were that drunk, but then again, what do I know? Some people hide it well and I haven’t spent a lot of time with you.”
Now that the air was cleared on that potential disaster, his thoughts were wandering back to the matter at hand—Stella was pissed at him. Rightly so. Why had he had Johnny’s necklace? It hadn’t been in his apartment, he was sure of it. “In what context did I give you that necklace? And by the way, I’m sorry for dragging you into anything with Stella. It’s totally my fault and I can’t explain what I thought I was doing since I don’t even remember it.” That was definitely frustrating.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal. You were wearing it and I complimented it. Said it was cool. And then you asked me if I wanted it.”
That was just stupid. Wyatt shook his head. “Again, I’m sorry. I had no right to give that necklace away. Seems my head was really up my ass last night.”
Now he needed to go and explain to Stella. Beg for forgiveness.
Wyatt sighed.
“It’s okay. Happens to the best of us.” Karen lit her cigarette and took a hefty drag. “Can’t say I won’t hold that against Stella for a while though, grieving or not. She went batshit crazy on me.”
“Speaking of Stella, I really should go check up on her. Apologize. Make sure she’s okay.”
“Yeah, no problem.” Karen waved. “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Wyatt stood up and paid for Karen’s drink. He left Peter a large tip to compensate for the disturbance. “Have a good night, Karen.”
“Always do.”
Wyatt went off in search of absolution.
And flowers. Women liked flowers.
But he had a feeling it was going to take a hell of a lot more than a crappy bunch of hot pink carnations from Rouses Market to fix this mess.
So he got daisies, too.
* * *
“LYING, JERKFACE, SHITHEAD, ass**le, cocksucking loser,” Stella ranted as she tromped down Conti, dragging Saxon behind her. “I cannot believe he gave that person my brother’s necklace. I wonder if it was before or after he f**ked her.” The thought of which made her want to pick up a car and hurl it all the way to the river.
It was safe to say she had never been this furious in her entire life. Or hurt, damn it.
Even when the Chicago banker had thrown her over for the heiress it hadn’t felt like this—a searing stabbing sensation in her heart. A punch to the gut. A kick to the knees. A blow to the lungs, driving all breath out of her and replacing it with shock and agony.
“I mean, we had sex two nights ago, then tonight. How could he have sex with her last night, in between when we had sex? That makes her the meat of his sexual sandwich. I was just the bun, the dry, unpalatable bun. No one really wants the bread. It just holds everything else all together.” Stella paused at the corner, not really sure where she was going. She was just going.
“You’re hurting my hand.”
“I am not,” she snapped at Saxon. She stared at the keyboardist, her chest heaving, tears in her eyes. “Why would he do that?”
Saxon shook his head. “Maybe he’s building a mystery.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Wyatt had sex with Karen.”
“Who’s Karen?”
“The woman in there. She works at Famous Door. He had sex with her.”
“Why would he do that? Anybody can see that he’s crazy about you.”
That was a little balm to her ego. “Well, obviously not that crazy about me if he could have sex with someone else in between having sex with me.” The tears were going for real this time. Stella’s voice started to crack. “I forced him to have sex with me, didn’t I? I was a pity f**k because I threw myself at him and my brother had just died so he felt sorry for me.”