Page 14 of Bastard-in-Chief
The remorse in her eyes is clear, but the damage is done. Women want me for one thing and one thing only. Not that I expected this to be anything other than a business dinner, but for a moment, a flicker of hope had passed through me.
For a moment, I thought she was different, that this was a woman who might actually see me for me. But she’ll never see me as anything other than Theodore, self-made-billionaire or Theo, younger brother of Casey Sutton, America’s Sweetheart. I shove my disappointment down into the depths of my soul, where all my other heartaches live, and tip my head at her. “Consider it forgotten.” My voice is wooden, but at least it’s polite. “Shall we?” Again, I offer her my elbow, leading her towards the bar. I’m going to need another whiskey if I’m going to make it through the evening.
“Whiskey, neat,” I say as soon as I catch the bartender’s eye.
“Make that two please,” Sophie says when I indicate she should order. Something kicks in my chest at her words. I don’t know what I was expecting her to order, maybe a vodka soda or something lighter, but I’d be lying if the thought of her swallowing the whiskey, the burn of it sliding down her throat, doesn’t turn me on. I push the thought away. I’m Theodore fucking Sutton, time to act like it.
When she’s not shooting her cutting words into my soul with sniper-like precision, Sophie is every bit as charming as I expected her to be the moment I realized who she really was. She chats with everyone who crosses our path. From insurance executives and other high-profile donors, to their arm-candy dates, she talks to everyone with the exact same kindness and genuine interest. She even strikes up a conversation with one of the waitresses handing out glasses of champagne. I’ve never been to one of these things with a woman who wasn’t sizing up every other female in the room as competition, or mentally comparing the size of my wallet to every other available bachelor in the room. Irritatingly, she doesn’t seem to be interested in me at all.
But sometimes, when we have a moment alone, she gets this faraway look in her eyes and a blanket of sadness settles briefly around her shoulders.
It’s driving me crazy.
It must have something to do with whatever upset her earlier, and yet, she’s completely tight-lipped about herself. As the evening drags on I realize she only ever asks about the people around us, never offering up any tidbit about herself. The more she doesn’t say, the more I want to know. This tiny blonde, with curves that beg for me to touch them, doesn’t say a word about herself all evening.
I’ve seen her nearly every day for years and all I know about her is her name and her penchant for wearing bright colors. She’s a mystery I want to solve.
A mystery with an ass I want to bite and full red lips. Her breasts are cupped lovingly by her dress, but all I want is for my hands to be the ones lifting and holding them. I don’t know what this woman does to me, but I can’t stop fantasizing about her and it’s annoying as fuck. I don’t have time for this.
“Theo?” Morgan is saying as I drag my thoughts away from Sophie’s ass.
“What?” I’d been watching the way her hips swing gently from side to side as she walked away from our table and hadn’t heard a word Morgan had said.
“I said, that is a fine-looking woman you brought with you tonight. Where did you find her?”
Counting backwards from fifty in my head to try and force some of my blood flow back towards my brain, the real one, not the little one, I take a sip of water to buy myself time. “She’s one of the writers at Mailbox. She wrote the article about using Mailbox for storing patients' medical records, the one getting all the buzz right now. That’s why I brought her tonight. I wanted to see what the reaction was here at the hospital before taking any steps to either embrace the idea or guard against it.” I shrugged. “That she’s attractive wasn’t the point.”
I pull my carefully practiced persona back into place. The aloof billionaire, the genius, the man so smart he doesn’t have the patience for a conversation with just anybody. Morgan is one of the few who knew the real me back before Mailbox became what it is. He helped me trade in Teddy Sutton, lonely programming genius, for Theodore Sutton, business mogul and eligible bachelor. There are days I hate him for it, but being the cold-hearted bastard I’m known as these days has saved me more money and heartache than my very well-paid CPA.
“A writer, huh? Be careful—they get wordy on social media when you break their hearts.” He tips his glass of scotch in a salute. My whiskey turns sour in my gut, curdled by his words. “So what is the buzz? Are you going to pursue it?”
“Elinor got into an interesting discussion with Brett Carney about the hospital's current records storage.”
“Carney?”
“He’s the head of IT here at the hospital.” I wouldn’t have known that if Sophie hadn’t struck up a conversation with the man. He looked woefully out of place, his obviously rented tux ill-fitting and worn at the shoulder seams, the button straining to hold the jacket closed over his belly. It was his wife that Sophie spoke to first, complimenting her shoes and wiping the anxious look off the woman’s face.
“What the devil is the head of IT doing here?”
“Apparently, their oldest daughter was treated here for leukemia over thirty years ago.” I shake my head at Morgan’s curious look. “She passed away, but according to Brett’s wife, he kept fixing the computers at the nursing station while they were here and got himself a job while they were treating her.”
Before I can tell him any more of the interesting story, Morgan cuts me off with a question. “So what was so interesting about him?”
Does he even know how callous he sounds? Probably not.
“The hospital has an internal medical record storage software—Carney picked it out himself—but they haven’t been happy with it. The files are unwieldy, and they can’t embed photos, videos, or anything else to the record. It has to be uploaded separately and then a note made. He was complaining about the doctors always forgetting to make a note and then calling his department in a panic because they can’t find the file after the fact.”
This gets me an appraising look in return. “And you think you can solve that problem?”
Taking a sip of the whiskey I’ve been nursing all night, I nod. “I know I can. And make it more user friendly for the doctors. Whoever designed that software designed it for other IT people, not the actual users.”
“You’ve got that look in your eye, son. Is this going to make me money?”
I shrug. “Who knows? I have to design it first.”
“You have to design what?” Sophie slides into the chair next to me, a fresh glass in her hand. How many drinks has she had? I can count at least three, this makes four, since we’ve arrived. That doesn’t include what she was taking sips of in the limo.
Morgan answers for me as I study the glass in her hand. “Theo here is always getting ideas. It’s whether or not he can make money off them that matters.”