CHAPTER TWO: in which they meet in the present- JAMESON

Present day

JAMESON

Vegas?

That’s not her, right?

Here, of all places.

Vegas Shipley. That sexy siren who had ended my yearlong drought. The woman who had turned me out, leaving me sated like a fat man with a belly full of smokehouse ribs.

Vegas.

She was the best sex I ever had.

Not a day went by when I didn’t think of her. How her beautiful face transformed into something ethereal when she shuddered around me. The way her jazz-infused voice called my name each time she came undone. Walls so warm and tight, she had wrung me completely dry. With each position we explored, she took in all of me, begging for more. Unlike—

“Shelia!” A petite woman with the body of a ten-year-old boy flung herself into the toned, tanned arms of my ex-wife.

“Gertrude!” My ex said, peeling herself out of the woman-boy’s embrace. “It’s been too long, really.”

Even as I watched Vegas and the hulk of a man she was with, I had to laugh at Shelia’s tone. In Shelia speak, too long, wasn’t long enough.

I listened to their catch up chatter with half an ear while surreptitiously watching Vegas from across the room. The guy by her side had to come from football stock. He either played professionally or it was in his past. He had a thick neck, bald head, and his hands were the size of Christmas hams.

His tanned skin was a perfect foil for the expensive charcoal grey suit he wore. Armani, by the looks of it. His size twelve’s, encased in black Italian leather and shinier than a newly minted penny, seemed to shudder the ground on which he walked. He was somebody, this guy. Already his impressive figure had several pairs of female eyes following his every move.

Vegas lifted a canapé to his mouth, feeding him from her hand. The bitter jealousy that coursed through me like a tsunami had me nearly biting through the glass of my Champagne flute. He smiled, and holding up her hand, he licked her fingers. I turned away with a curse on my lips and a sharp zig-zag like pain striking my chest.

My refusal to ogle Vegas didn’t last long. Her bell tinkle giggle had me staring like a stalker once again.

She is so beautiful.

The jeweled-toned pink, slightly above the knee cocktail dress she wore, flared out, accentuating her small waist. The dress’s halter top, studded with crystals, left her smooth back bare.

I knew it was smooth. I had kissed and suckled every inch of her body—at least twice.

“Jameson?” Shelia’s call to attention had me nearly clicking my heels and bowing. “This is Gertrude Eisenberg. You remember her? Her family donated a wing to St. Vincent’s.”

Shelia was an ER doctor at St. Vincent’s. That meant long days and even longer nights. Her work had contributed to our marriage’s demise.

No, not her work.

It was her many, many extra-marital affairs, including the one with a resident doctor I had witnessed.

I nodded my greeting at the diminutive woman. “Yes, Mrs. Eisenberg. So nice to see you again.”

Mrs. Eisenberg latched onto my arm, exerting enough pressure to raise my diastolic reading by twenty points. “I hope you know your wife is a gift from heaven. She saved my little grandson, Abel.” Gertrude’s watery blue eyes grew even mistier and her gravelly voice faltered, “Our family will always be in her debt.”

If that was a thin GOT reference ...

As things turned out, I wasn’t too far wrong.