Beautiful Elixir (Beautiful Oblivion #3) (11 page)

The door swings wide, and my teeth stop chattering, my body electrifies with a heat wave of its own. Oh my wow.

Caleb is a demigod in his inky dark suit. The cut is a little sharper than those he wears to the office. His blue satin tie gleams in the light and sets off his eyes like sirens. I can’t drink him in quick enough, that dark stubble, that dark, glossy hair, those cut features of his that demand the attention of—well, hell, everybody.

“Nice suit,” I say. I am a class A liar—a skilled perjurer. This city turned country litigator never really stood a chance with me. Caleb is not wearing a “nice” suit. He is wearing a damn fine suit that makes me want to push him against the wall and commit a bodily assault, perhaps a little bodily
harm
via biting, some clawing for good measure, too.

His eyes wander up and down my body svelte as an elevator. “My God.” He offers a dramatic pause. “You are far too gorgeous for your own good.” He gives a crooked grin and those naughty sweet nothings come back to me, swift and heated.

“I suppose this is the part where you rattle off the carnal checklist of the things you’d like to do to me.” A girl can hope. “I believe it involved a very special seat that you’re holding for me.”

He gives a peaceable smile, his dimples blinking on and off like Christmas lights.

“No checklist for now.” He says it quick, his eyes nailed to mine. “But if you’d like, I’ll fill it out in detail for you later. It’s grown by miles.” He leans in, his mouth so close to mine my lungs refuse another breath. “My face is eager to greet you. Feel free to lounge as long as you like. My tongue is especially anxious to show off a few tricks for you. I have a game plan spanning head to beautiful foot that will take hours—days to complete, if you’ll let me.”

I swallow down my lust. His lids are heavy, his breathing already erratic. If I didn’t promise Reese the future ova and sperm that will knit in my belly, I might have considered knocking his cocky self back into that cabin. For now I’ll simply settle for putting him in his place.

“I don’t like game plans, Caleb. I like spontaneity. I like the whiplash kind of affection that comes with it. And when and if I let you bed me, there will be no premeditated head to foot fun loving involved and lots and lots of impromptu fucking.” He winces a little when I say the expletive and this excites me far more than any vibrator ever could. I touch my hand to the rough stubble on his cheek. “But you will not be so lucky counselor. I don’t know what makes you think I’m all that easy.” I pinch my eyes closed. “Don’t answer that.”

And with that we head to the ball.

M
illions of twinkle lights
, five-star catering, a band with a hit on the top one hundred—beluga caviar, Belgian chocolate, and a tower of Dom. My mother has checked off all the luxurious boxes to make sure this is an unforgettable high society event. Reese and Ace may have eloped, but they are paying in spades for that sin right about now. This is exactly how my mother threatened to host Reese’s pending nuptials to Warren. It didn’t matter who the groom was, my mother wanted her five hundred thousand dollar night.

At first, Caleb and I go virtually unnoticed, but the upper crust of Loveless can only be fooled for so long. Slowly, the titters begin. The small cliquish groups of women huddle and whisper as we pass them by. An entire legion of side-eye is cast my way. It’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be. I experienced something similar last fall when I wore white after Labor Day to a prominent event much like this one that my mother dragged me off to. No one short of a country club prima donna follows those silly rules anyway. And believe me, my mother’s country club is filled with silly rule-following prima donnas. The only difference being that my big faux pas on this occasion included me wearing nothing but my vagina—a penis, albeit small and a bit deflated, as my only accessory.

Gavin comes up and starts chewing the fat with Caleb, and I take a few brave, migratory steps away like a baby bird taking that first leap, fully anticipating to plunge to her death, and yet I’m still breathing, still standing on my own two Louboutin feet.

“Hey.” A deep voice rumbles from behind, and I spin to find myself face to face with none other than Keith Stearns—and, God, does he ever look pissed.

Shit!

His pink shirt is rolled up at the elbows, his chinos glow against the dark lawn. Keith has always been a poster boy for preppies everywhere.

My heart jumps into my throat, into my ears, as it deafens me while trying to pound its way out.

My eyes flit over the sea of bodies. Somehow I’ve drifted a little further than I thought from Caleb, and, now, here I am, face to face with my perpetrator, my victim.

This is probably the part where I should confess to some of the outlandish things that have happened up until now. Keith Stearns was not going to receive a cheat-on-Kennedy-Slade hall pass while I bowed out of the relationship like a good passive little doormat. But I’m not confessing to a thing just yet. I’ll wait for my attorney to be present and all that good shit.

“What?” I spit it out, not at all amused that he has the stones to speak to me in a public setting—
this
public setting no less.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” He hustles me just past the borders of the party as we leave the protective shelter of the tents behind. The brisk autumn air scrubs against my bare arms, my legs, harsh as sand paper. “I told you to call this shit off weeks ago. I get it. You are fucking pissed. I am a dog. But you are shaping up to be a one of a kind bitch.”

“Let go.” I pull my arm free. “I’m maintaining my innocence. Besides, word on the legal street is that you lawyered up with my father’s firm. Way to deal another low blow. My father? Really?”

The white of his eyes glows against the night sky as he examines me in this dim light.

“Oh, honey, your father is the one person on earth who truly understands you have a fucking screw loose.”

“Say another word about my father, and I will slap you into tomorrow. My handprint will leave an indentation on your children’s children. Test me on this.”

His hands spike in the air with surrender. “Look—lighting the Dean’s lawn on fire? That fucking sick pizza you sent? My kid sisters almost went to town on that one. And that Wikipedia page? Really? I fuck corpses?” His entire person goes rigid. “Ken, I know you’re hurt, but—”

I hold a hand up a moment trying to process all this. “You’re saying I did those things to you?”

“You
know
you did. Right along with an entire list of other juvenile shit.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out something long and plastic, and it takes a moment for it to register as a pregnancy test. “It’s positive. Are you kidding me? I always used a rubber. So whose is it?”

He tries to give me the stick, but I back away as if it were poison.

“That’s not mine.” I shake my head. “I didn’t do it, I swear.” It hurts to tell the truth after such a long string of lies. The truth feels barbed and twisted, sharp as a razor as it claws its way out of my throat. I’m the girl who cried wolf—only the wolf is me, and I’ve been eating myself alive with the guilt for years. “I have to go.”

He snatches my wrist again and twirls me into him as if we were dancing a psychotic waltz.

“You are fucking insane, Kennedy. You can’t deny all this shit and continue to get away with it. I did that little polygraph your attorney requested. As soon as he gets the results, my good name will be exonerated. And what about you, Ken? What are you going to do to clear your good name?” He pumps a dry smile—his face red with rage and vodka. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have a good name to uphold. Everyone close to you knows you’re a fucking liar. And when the truth comes out, everyone else will, too.”

I shake my head as I stumble backward. “No.” I turn and run toward the tents as the party rages on. Reese and Ace dance in the center on a raised wood floor as the crowd slowly fills in around them. The lights dim to a moody blue, and not one cell in my body desires to be here. My heart beats erratic over my chest, the seam of my dress bouncing with the rhythm.

Keith has taken a polygraph. This is unexpected, uncalled for perhaps, mostly it feels like a betrayal—although I’m not sure why. Keith is smart, book smart, not cock smart. He can’t understand the simple premise behind a committed relationship. I was his, and he was mine. Our hearts weren’t sold on the fine print though. I think that’s where everything went wrong. We signed the proverbial paperwork without committing to the very first rule of monogamy: fall in fucking love. Keith and I hardly had lust at times, and yet he still managed to shred me to pieces. But if he didn’t break my heart, what did he rip apart so ruthlessly? My ego? I suppose I’ve always known I had one.

Mel and Charlie head in this direction with a few of the other girls, and I struggle to leave but am suddenly landlocked by the crowd. Lucky for me, Mel and Charlie break off from the group and show up alone.

“What the hell?” Charlie pulls me in for a quick hug. “You look like you’re about to cry.”

Mel makes a face. “The Kennedy Slade we know isn’t a cry baby. She kicks ass and takes names, right?” She offers up a punch to my arm that hurts more than I care to admit.

“I just had a nasty run in with Keith.” I shake my head. “Unbelievable.” I’m just about to break it down for them, the whys and the whats when Charlie lets out a melodic groan at something in the distance.

“That six pack you hired as your attorney is so freaking hot.” She’s shouting, obviously wasted. “Tell me you’re fucking him because, if not, all bets are off. I’ve never seen eyes that blue, dimples that deep, and that hair? Are you kidding me? My feet are dying to run through it.”

“Keep your panties on,” I warn.

“Oh, honey, those melted off five minutes ago. I can’t take my eyes off him. You better wrap him around your pinky extra tight, just saying. Keith was okay, but this guy is in another league.”

Mel wrinkles her nose as she takes him in from over my shoulder. “You’re really into this guy, aren’t you?” She bites her lip a moment continuing on with her ogling analysis. “What’s his name again?”

“Caleb,” Charlie says it dreamy while on her tiptoes, craning her neck, creating a spectacle of herself over a man I will never let her near. She’s too far gone on lust and Cosmopolitans. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see her with her clothes off, chasing him around the lake like some orangutan in heat. That’s my job. I’m the orangutan in heat around here.

“He is a looker,” Melanie adds. “Everyone is going to want him, now that you have him. You’re the
it
girl, Ken, you always have been. What you wear becomes that season’s classic. Who you’re seen with magically becomes the popular crowd. From the car you drive right down to your nail polish, everyone at Yeats wants in on the action. But I guess you’re used to it—everyone wanting to be you. Always getting your way. You really live the dream life.” She sighs with her gaze still set over my shoulder. “Heck, I want to be you, too.”

I glance down at her, annoyed. At the moment I very much don’t want to be me. Hell, no one knows the real me. If they did, they’d all run for cover. My lies, my secrets, they’ve woven themselves into a nest of screaming rats, entwined and entrapped with their own tails in one grotesque knot. A rat king—we studied that monstrosity once in science, eighth grade, the year my life turned into a thousand rats entangled, ensnared with their long rope-like tails until they became one large, screaming, moving knot that eventually died a horrible death locked in its own menace.

“You ready to hit the dance floor?” A warm voice, reminiscent of sipping spiced cider in front of the fireplace, strums from behind. With Caleb I can envision every romantic scenario far into the unknowable future. With Keith I could only foresee a dinner date that would end in a fight, perhaps a lakeside drive in his overpriced sports car.

I spin into Caleb with his
nice
suit, his devil-wears-blue-suede-eyes-tonight and crash my lips to his—softly at first for the briefest of moments before my tongue swims greedily in his mouth, and I force myself to pull away.

“I’m ready to hit it.” I glance down the length of his body as I pant those words.

His cheek glides up one side. Caleb’s eyes hood low for a moment, very much alerting me to the fact he’s ready to hit it, too.

“Everything okay?” His hands slip coolly into his pockets as if insisting on upholding an air of arrogance. As much as I hate the fact he didn’t overreact to that kiss, hell, react at all, a part of me is strangely aroused by this indifferent development. “Did you see anyone slip something into your drink?”

Ah, there he is. The sarcastic beast awakens.

He’s being facetious, but I can tell he’s bewildered by my spontaneous turnaround. I can’t help it. I need a very stiff drink to get me through this God awful night, and seeing that I don’t really care to get wasted, I’ll simply have to settle for something very stiff—and I do believe Caleb McCarthy is packing in that arena.

“Everything is great, counselor.” I pull him in by the neck, my fingers knotting up in his hair. “I think maybe it’s time we reconvene in your chambers. I’d like to present you with a body of evidence. You know, convince you to remain on my side.”

“Mmm.” He studies me a moment. “Why wouldn’t I be on your side?”

“Rumor has it you’re running with the enemy. Who is it you don’t believe? Him? Or me?” Here is his chance to fess up.

His eyes close a moment. “Back to that body of evidence.” His dimples cut in without the effort of a smile. “You sure about that?”

“I’m more sure of that than I am about my next breath. Just answer one question for me.”

“Anything.” His lids hang low, his lips still swollen from my harsh assault.

“Do you think you can be there for me no matter what?” There. It’s as vulnerable a question as any that have ever left my lips. It’s the crux of all the questions I have ever had for Caleb and was too afraid to ask. Caleb, who promised he’d be back for me one day. Caleb who is anxious as hell to land me in his bed. Caleb with his dirty, dirty mouth, his naughty list of promises he plans to deliver.