Chapter 29

Fred had just finished a meeting with his hotel staff at the lobby when the entertainment news headline hobbled on television with pictures of Diana and Michael Davenport. Fred felt the urge to smooth something. His brown hair, the smooth wooden finish of the counter. He needed a drink.

He got a bottle of whiskey and went up to one of the presidential suites that was always exclusively reserved for him. Alone, he turned on the television, absorbing every bit of the news, holding a glass to his lips and drinking. The whiskey was strong. The kind that would burn a beginner alcoholic’s throat and possibly cause him to sway drunkenly after one bottle. A perpetual drinker like Fred, though, was now immune to such.

So Diana was now with Michael Davenport. Davenport. Of all the men in Texas, she had to go and pick that one. She had to decide to start a relationship with his archenemy, who wasn’t yet aware that he was his archenemy. Fred saw a photograph of them on television, l