Page 7 of In Bed with the Enemy

By the time I'd turned back to the crowd from looking at the organizer, Ethan was nowhere to be found.

6

ETHAN

"Yeah, it's done," I said into my cell phone as I looked out the window. The hotel towered over the city. Everything seemed so small below me. I used to love that feeling. Feeling like the world was mine to conquer, but today, it just wasn't doing it for me.

"You don't seem all that happy about it," my brother replied. "You usually live for things like this."

"Yeah," I said, hating the fact that he was right. "I guess this one just wasn't as fun as I thought it would be."

"Relax, baby, in a second," Harrison said to someone clearly in the room with him. "I think you're losing your edge, bro," he said.

I sighed. "Nah, I don't think so," I said, turning away from the window and pulling the blinds to shut out the city lights. "This one just felt different, that's all. I'm not sure what I did was the right thing to do." The words were past my lips before I had a second to really think them through.

Harrison let out a bark of laughter. "When the fuck has that ever mattered to you?"

"Fuck if I know," I replied honestly. "This may have bought us a little bit of time. But, I need the R&D people to do what they're supposed to be doing and fast."

"Yeah, yeah," my brother said, brushing off my comments. "You worry too much."

"You worry too little."

"Sounds like we balance one another out, then," he chuckled.

I rolled my eyes at his antics.

"You think anyone's gonna try and buy from this guy?"

"It's not a guy, and maybe," I said honestly. "Not everyone attends the conference. If she markets things right, I could see the device becoming fairly widespread."

"Wait, repeat that again."

"I could see the device becoming fairly widespread."

"Dude, no. The first part. It's not a guy?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"You're telling me the A. Reid from the patent applications is a girl?"

"A woman named Amy, yes," I said, really not wanting to get into this with him.

"Oh, now this is all starting to make sense," Harrison said.

"What's starting to make sense?"

He was quiet for a beat and I could almost hear his smirk through the phone. "She hot?"

"Give it a rest, Harrison," I sighed, turning away from the window and running my fingers through my hair.

"You wanna know what I think?" my brother asked.

"No," I snapped at him. "Actually, I don't. What I wanna know is when you're gonna get the R&D guys to get their shit together."

"I think--" he started to say, but I hung up the phone on him. I didn't want to hear what he thought. Harrison was a grade-A asshole, but he was actually quite perceptive. He liked to rile people up, which generally meant he needed to understand them. And right now, I didn't want to know what he was going to say about Amy.

Fuck, not Amy. Ms. Reid.