Ten
Afew dayspassed without me hearing from Finn. I kept telling myself that he was just busy shooting and to not worry about it. There was no way I was going to blow up his phone and seem like a stage five clinger, so I let it go.
When I landed in Nashville, I powered my phone back on and saw that I had a missed call and a message from Finn.
“Hey, love. Sorry it’s taken me so long to call. The shoot has been really busy.”
Some lady’s voice was in the background calling Finn to hurry up.
“Work calls. Chat soon. Miss you, love.”
Hearing his husky accent through the receiver made my heart putter. I shot off a text.
Me: Just got to Tennessee, call me when you get time.
I got all the way to the hotel before a reply came through.
Finn: I’ll try to call you tonight. Don’t work too hard.
I set up my laptop and googled how far Boone was from Nashville. He was a five and a half hour drive away—a little too far to just drive to him, but I definitely thought about it.
I had a busy afternoon of meeting with the bride and her wedding coordinator followed by a boudoir shoot with her. I’d have the following day for touring the city or driving to Finn since the wedding wasn’t until the day after. Originally, I’d been overly excited about taking in the country music capital’s sites, but all of that excitement had flown out the window once I’d gotten love drunk on a sexy Irishman.
The shoot zoomed by with the most bubbly, adorable bride I had ever worked for. She’d had kind of the same upbringing that I’d had: old money that that she refused to let control her. Her mother would have freaked if she’d known that we were doing a sexy shoot for her husband to be, so she had to pay me in cash, which was totally fine by me.
After a nice long bubble bath in my suite’s Jacuzzi tub, I slipped into my silk pajamas. I had fought the urge to call Finn for hours, but I desperately wanted to see if he would be up for me taking a day trip to Boone.
I gave in to my desperation and dialed his number. It rang three times before an unexpected voice came onto the line.
“Finn O’Shea’s phone.” A perky woman’s voice startled me.
“This is Jolene. Finn is expecting my call.”
“He’s in the shower right now. Can I take a message?”
“No. No message. I’ll try him later.”
Click.
What the hell? Why was a woman answering his phone?
Well, that was that. Why would I have ever thought that Finn O’Shea would be any different from any other two-timing jerkface of the world?
* * *
The wedding had been beautiful, but I was so relieved to be walking through my apartment door. Dozer leapt off the couch where he had been sitting with Brett.
“Hey! How were my boys? I missed you!”
I got down on the floor without shutting the front door or bringing my bags all the way in.
“How did the wedding go?”
“It was a lot of fun. Great shoot.”
“And?” Brett was standing over me, hand on his popped out hip.
“And nothing. I haven’t heard from him since another woman answered his phone while he was in the shower.”