Around the World in 80 Men Series: Books 11-20 (108 page)

“You're
right. I'd rather try to forget him, instead of figuring it all
out.” She sniffed loudly as she grabbed for the tissues beside
the bed. “But I think I should call him, and let him know that
it's over.. I would expect him to do the same if he didn't want to
see me any longer.” It was the one thing that she knew she had
to do since she had left Finlay's home. There was no way she would
continue with the whole
feelings
talk, and the
I miss you,
when can I see you
texts. Obviously, he was burning both ends of
the candle, and honesty was nowhere in the mix. She, however, would
keep her end of the bargain when it came to honesty, even if was
something that he wouldn't want to hear.

“Yeah,
you do that. And this is all I'm gonna say about this shit... Boo
Boo, a good man will mess up your lipstick, not your mascara. Now
wipe your snot and get a drink, call a bitch when you're feeling
better.” Morgan promised to do just that, and sent a weak kiss
over the phone. “Hey, one more thing baby girl, don't rush to
judgment. I know, I'm the queen of rushing everything, but I have
mad experience and I'm tellin' you, it's not always the best shit to
do.”

“I'll
try. I love you.” He told her that he loved her as well, and
after a few more quiet kisses, she hung up the phone and tucked it
back into her pocket.

She
looked down at her bags, and laughed sadly at her traveling life. In
the past, when she had a bad situation, she would look forward to
going home. It wasn't much, but to sit in her own place, with
familiar surroundings, was all that she wanted. “Home.”
She let out a long sigh as she realized where 'home' was. It was
Angel. The man had become her safe place, her refuge, her....
everything. It may have been too much to put on one person's
shoulders, but she couldn't deny that her Angel held her safe, and
private world in the palm of his hands. “What would I do
without you?” She put her hand up and traced the angel wings
that hung from the chain around her neck. “Thank you.”

Morgan
lined her bags in front of the dressers, and gave the idea of putting
her things away a second or two of thought. “Fuck you.”
The curse didn't help much, but it felt a little better to let it out
on something. She did open her zebra print bag to dig her favorite
red sweater out of. It was much nicer than the blue one that she had
on, and if she planned to drink Finlay away, then she had to at least
feel cute.

Feeling
cute went from changing her sweater, to changing her jeans from loose
fit, to low and tight. They looked better, she decided, with the
high heeled black boots that she had to wear while indulging in the
forget-all-about-him bottle of wine. Morgan stood in front of the
mirror, looking at the new outfit that she'd just put on, and then
lifted her straight hair out to the sides. “Curls.... lots and
lots of curls.” She ran back to her bag and pulled out her
spiral iron, and touched up her make up while waiting for it to heat.
Black boots, low cut sweater, curls, and tight jeans wouldn't be
complete without red lipstick. It was a color that she usually saved
for late evening wear, but it would work perfectly for her look right
then.

It
took an hour to get all of her hair curled, in fact, she'd never
actually curled all of her hair before. When it was done, she took a
long look in the mirror and was shocked at the final product. She
didn't even look like herself. “Angel would love it!”
With that thought, she took a picture of herself in the bathroom
mirror, and sent it to the man.
Getting drunk hair. You like?

She
stuffed her phone into her pocket, then went down to the first floor
to the little bar. “Do you have Moscato?” Morgan leaned
across the bar to get a better look at the options behind the
bartender. The man shook his head back and forth, then went back to
wiping off the surface of the counter. “No Moscato,” she
whispered, then narrowed her eyes at the liquor as if she were
challenging the bottles. “Wine probably wouldn't cut it tonight
anyway,” she told herself. Just as she was about to ask about
their beer selection, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket.
Baby
girl, I don't like it. I muthafuckin' love it. Next time I see your
ass, you best have your hair like that.

A
smile broke on her face. It never mattered how bad of a mood she was
in, he could always make her feel better. “You know,” she
got the bartender's attention again. “I think I'll take a
bottle of that whiskey,” she told him, pointing to a bottle she
recognized. It was the same kind of whiskey she'd had at Finlay's
home, the first time they'd met. It was sure to get her drunk, much
more quickly than the wine anyway.

“The
bottle?” he questioned her.

She
nodded, then told him yes. Surely, she couldn't drink the whole
bottle herself, but she wanted it anyway. He nodded, then grabbed a
full bottle from under the counter and slid it across the bar, then
told Morgan the price. She pulled out her card and slid it back to
him. In the mean time of making her payment, she looked back to her
phone. She needed to talk to Finlay, but she wasn't ready to hear his
voice. A text message should do just fine.
You know, I thought
guys who lied to me was a thing of my past.
She paused to take
her card back from the bartender, then tucked her bottle of whiskey
under her arm and began walking back toward the stairs.
I believed
you, joke's on me, I guess. Morgan.

*****

Finlay
felt his phone vibrate against his chest in the pocket of his
expensive jacket as Morgan's message came through. He was in the
middle of a meeting, so he couldn't reply, but that didn't stop him
from checking the message. Slowly, he reached into the front of his
jacket and pulled out his phone then brought it to his lap and
navigated to his messages. Morgan. He smiled when he'd read the name
of the pretty blonde woman. He looked up, making sure the other men
weren't paying attention to him, then lowered his eyes back to his
phone. He read her message three times, trying to make sense of what
she'd meant. What had he lied to her about? Finlay's mind raced with
possibilities, but he couldn't come up with anything.

“Mr.
Campbell?”

“Aye?”
His eyes went back to the men. It was clear they were waiting for him
to give his opinion on something, but he had no idea what that was.
He hadn't been paying attention and he knew, that until he knew what
Morgan was talking about, he wouldn't be able to focus. It was
another hour and a half though before he even had the chance to write
her back.

*****

“Well,
well, well! Knock, knock, motherfucker. Who's there?” Drunk
Morgan grabbed her phone off of the nightstand when she heard a
message come through, then plopped back down on the pillow.
“Finny-Fin-Fin!I knew it, ya bastard.” She dropped her
phone back down beside her after seeing his name, then flipped her
legs over the side of the bed and got up to get herself another drink
of whiskey. She'd already had more than enough to get her in the
'forget about him' stage, but one more wouldn't hurt.

Morgan
stumbled over to the little desk, then twisted open the bottle and
poured another serving into her glass. The first couple of drinks
she'd made had been hard to swallow, but by that point, the whiskey
was going down like water. She spilled a good amount across the desk,
then, without thinking, she rubbed it off with the sleeve of her red
sweater.

“Shit.”
She looked down at her wet sleeve, and tried to shake out the liquid,
but of course, that didn't work, so she lifted the sweater over her
head and threw it across the room, in the general direction of her
bags. Morgan completely forgot she'd poured herself a cup of whiskey
and fell back on the bed, wearing only her light pink bra over her
chest. At least her jeans and boots were still on, that was a plus.
“Let's see whatcha got to say,” she slurred as she picked
up her phone again.

“Lass,
I doona know what yer talkin' a-boot. I havena lied ta ye.”
Morgan read his message aloud in her horrible, drunk, Scottish
accent. “The fuck 'ye
doona
know what I'm talking
a-boot! AYE Fin! Ye do!”

She
laid down on her stomach and took a deep breath, mostly to try and
help the spinning around her, then tried to focus on the buttons of
her phone. If Angel had been there, he would have told her she was
too drunk to text, but she probably wouldn't have listened anyway.

Chapter
Two

“
Finlay
Campbell!” she spoke out loud as she typed in his name. “I
came here to see you and....and....you lied! You're a liar!”
Yeah, that sounded good to her. “I hope your dogs bite her.”
That sounded good too. She finished typing the message, then sent it.
“She'd probably give them rabies.... my poor babies.”

Morgan
was just about to send Angel a text when her stomach let her know
that texting was not in her future. “Alright... geez...”
She got up from the bed and nearly stumbled to the door. When she
opened it, a young housekeeper happened by and stopped to look.
“What? Haven't you ever seen a drunk American before?”
She laughed at her non-joke, and the young woman smiled.

“Aye,
but no' one without a shert.” Morgan looked down at herself
and starting laughing again.

“Good
point.” She nodded at the girl, and shut the door, then
grabbed the first thing she saw as she opened the flap to her bag.
It was a paper thin white sweater, that was meant to be worn with a
shirt underneath... of which Morgan was not. She pulled it over her
head, and tapped her ass to make sure her key was still there. It
was, and the girl was in the lobby again, staring at the menu within
minutes.

*****

“Liar?!
She wants muh dogs te.... what the fu...?!” Finlay read the
message again as he left the meeting, and something registered
through the whole confusing ordeal. “Bite her?” He
didn't put everything together, but it was enough that he knew two
things; Morgan was in Scotland, and someone was at his house. The
man walked to a nearby pub, and ordered a whiskey, there was no way
he was going to play detective without one. Once he was situated with
his drink, he called Burke to see if the man could shed light on the
situation.

Burke
never called the Campbell, but that day, he wished he would have
broken his own rule. The old man was moments away from doing just
that, as Erika recently demanded a dinner of Veal Marsala, something
that he couldn't make nor find anywhere. The idea of telling the
woman that she must think of something else to eat was not a thing
that he was willing to do. When the phone rang, and Burke saw who it
was, he nearly ripped it from the wall in the process of answering
it. “'Ello? Ye need te come home. I cannae see to the woman,
no' one minute more.” Finlay held the phone from his ear as
the old man managed a decent shout-whisper through the phone. He
took a deep breath, and asked what he needed to.

“Who's
at the hoose?” Suddenly, Finlay knew who was there by the
screeching he heard before Burke could answer.

“My
dinner isn't going to make itself! You lazy bastard!” Erika's
voice was even more loud than Burke's, even though she was still
descending the stairs in the foyer when Finlay heard her through the
phone. He closed his eyes and ran his large hand over his eyes, then
down his face.

“Tell
her that yer goin' for her food, then meet me at the office, aye?”
Burke quickly agreed, then ended the call. He was only around the
corner from where they would meet, so he finished his drink before
returning to his building.

Less
than ten minutes later, a very disheveled Burke entered Finlay's
office. He offered the old man a chair, then asked when Erika had
arrived to his home. “Only moments after ye left.” The
younger man shook his head, he never would have guessed that the mean
spirited woman would have shown up uninvited, and to make it worse,
Morgan had done the same thing... on the same day.

“Did
ye see Morgan, then?” Burke nodded, and the look on his face
told Finlay that Erika had most likely been cruel to his welcome
guest. “Do ye know where she went?” Burke shook his
head, then a smile crossed his lips as his head changed direction
into a nod.

“She
knows of only one place.. Saint..”
“Aye, yer right.”
Finlay stood, and told the old man that he was to drive him to the
hotel, and wait for further instruction. Burke was never more
pleased to find out that Erika had not been invited, which meant, the
Campbell would deal with her. He was also happy that his boss seemed
most willing to see to Morgan first.