Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (204 page)

“Yes.”
 
She thought about adding that it happened more to some people than
others, but she figured that would be taking it a little too far.
 
He might think he’d affected her, and
she really didn’t want that.
 
“Now,
I have a headache from all the recycled air in the department store, so I’m
going to take a bath and then try to get some sleep.
 
You can leave the check on the counter
for me to take in the morning.
 
I’ve
made arrangements for a car to pick me up.”
 
That was a lie.
 
But she would make arrangements.
 
She held her hand out.

“You want me to shake your hand?!”
 
Chad was looking at her in
astonishment.
 

“Yes.
 
This was a business deal, and that’s what people do at the end of a
business deal.”

“Kenley,” he said.
 
“Look, we need – “

“Chad,” she said, forcing her features into a
face blank of emotion.
 
“Please.
 
I’m really
tired.”
 
She nodded toward her
outstretched hand.

He reached out and took her it, a frisson of
electricity sparking between them.
 
God, he was gorgeous.
 
The
gray sweater he was wearing brought out his eyes, and his hair was slightly
messy, and she couldn’t help but think about what it felt like to kiss
him.
 
He held onto her hand longer
than was necessary, and for one wonderful, delicious moment, she thought he was
going to pull her close.
 
But
finally, he let go.

Kenley walked to her bedroom, shut the door
behind her and threw herself down on the bed.
 
After a few minutes, she started to cry.

***

Chad had been pacing outside of Kenley’s
bedroom door for the past two hours.
 
At first, when she’d disappeared into her room after giving him that big
speech about how them sleeping together hadn’t meant anything, Chad had been
angry.
 
He’d immediately written a
check out to her for a hundred thousand dollars and placed it on the counter
with a post-it note the said, “Good luck!!
 
Take care, Chad.”

He figured the message struck just the right
chord, namely that the money meant nothing to him and neither did she.
 
But now he was over his anger, and he
wanted to talk to her.
 
But every time
he’d gotten up the courage to knock on Kenley’s door, he’d stopped
himself.
 
It was completely fucking
ridiculous.
 
He was acting like some
kind of lovesick high school kid, instead of a thirty-year-old man with
millions of dollars and a major league baseball contract.

Just do
it
, he told himself.
 
Knock on the door and tell her how you
feel.
 
He raised his hand, poised to
knock.
 
Do it.
 
But at the last
second, he turned away.
 
Damn.
 
What the hell was wrong with him?

What he needed was a pep talk.

He grabbed his cell phone then slipped outside
of his apartment and into the hallway.
 
Since his was the only apartment on the floor, there was a lot of
privacy.
 
He settled down into one
of the chairs his decorator had insisted he put out here.
 
At the time, Chad thought it was the dumbest
idea he’d ever heard, since he figured no one was ever going to be sitting in
them.
 
But now he was glad the
chairs were there.
 
He dialed Jay.

“Yo,” Jay said when he answered.
 
The sound of the television in the
background filtered through the phone.

“I’m going to tell you something now, and when
I do, I need you to not react in any way.
 
I need you to not say anything, to not judge me, to not voice your
opinion or say ‘I told you so.’”

“Okay,” Jay said.
 
He sounded wary.
 
Not that Chad could blame him.

“I think I’m in love with Kenley,” Chad
said.
  
Silence.
 
“Say something!”

“You just told me not to!”

“I know, but…”
 
Chad shook his head, trying to clear his
thoughts.
 
“What am I supposed to
do?”
 
He was out of his chair now,
pacing up and down the hallway, his bare feet leaving marks in the plush
cream-colored carpet.

“Well,” Jay said.
 
“What’s the situation?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, does she know that you love her?”

“No.”

“Where is she?”

“In my guest room.
 
I’m pretty sure she hates me.”

“You left her in there?”

“What do you mean left her in there?”

“I assume you just had sex?”

“Why would assume that?”
 
Chad was incredibly insulted.
 
Never mind that he’d never really
mentioned a girl’s name to before unless he’d slept with her.
 
He’d just told Jay that he might be in
love with this woman.
 
What did sex
have to do with it?

“Did you?” Jay asked.

“What?”

“Have sex with her!”

“Yes, but not today, I …”
 
He leaned against the wall and then slid
down until he was sitting on the floor.
 
“I’m confused.”

“About?”

“I want to tell her.”

“That you love her?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

“I don’t…listen, can I come over?”

“Of course,” Jay said.
 
“We’re watching football, and Alyssa’s
making nachos.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

***

Kenley heard the front door of the apartment
open and close, signaling that Chad was leaving.
 
She’d been holed up in the guest room
for the past two hours.
 
First she’d
taken a long bath, and although the hot water had left her skin feeling smooth
and refreshed, it hadn’t done anything to relieve the sadness she’d felt.
 

She waited a few seconds to make sure Chad was
definitely gone, then padded out into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and
starting poking around.
 
She sliced
up a tomato and cut two slices from a loaf of crusty French bread that was in
the bread box.
 
She added some
cheese and mayonnaise to her sandwich, then heated up a can of chicken noodle
soup.

It was going to be fine, she told herself as
she ate.
 
Getting all worked up over
a guy she’d only known for a week was crazy, and she would be over it in no
time.
 
Not that she really believed
that it mattered how long you knew someone when it came to relationships.
 
She’d known Jeremy for months before
they’d started dating, and it still hadn’t worked out.

But this was different.
 
Obviously the reason she was feeling
this way about Chad was because she’d had sex with him. Everyone knew that
women got crazy when it came to sex, that they got immediately attached to the
person they’d slept with, whether they wanted to or not.
 
It was biology or hormones or Darwinism
or something.

She sighed.
 
Whatever.
 
She’d be over it once she got back to
Connecticut and got away from Chad.
 
She was wiping up the crumbs from her sandwich and just about to head
back to the bedroom when she saw it.
 
A check, sitting on the counter.
 
One hundred thousand dollars, made out to her from the account of Chad
Parnell.
 
She ran her hands over the
number.
 
She’d never seen so many
zeroes in her life.
 
She imagined
them sitting in her bank account, the feeling she’d get checking her balance
and realizing she didn’t have to worry about money, at least not for a while.

Then she noticed the post-it on top.
 
“Good luck!” it said. “Take care, Chad.”

She stared at it in disbelief.
 
Her eyes fill with prickly tears, and
then anger blazed through her body.
 
Good luck?
 
Take care?
 
What the fuck?

She stomped angrily into the bedroom and picked
up the phone.
  
“Melissa?” she
said when her sister answered.
 
“Can
you pick me up at the airport in a few hours?”

“I guess,” Melissa said, sounding like it was
an inconvenience even though she would be done with work by then.
 

“Great,” Kenley said.
 
She was packing up the little stuff that
she had, throwing her pajamas into her suitcase angrily, and sliding her laptop
into its case so hard that for a second she was afraid she might have broken
it.
 
“I’ll call you back in a little
bit once I figure out my flight.”

“What happened?” Melissa asked.
 
“Is it over?
 
Are you rich now?
 
I saw the pictures of you guys outside
of that restaurant, you looked amazing.
 
Are you allowed to keep those boots?”

“No,” Kenley said.
 
But then she thought about it.
 
Why shouldn’t she keep the boots?
  
There was no way she was going to
take Chad’s money, not now, but she could at least take the boots.
 
She threw them in her suitcase and then
zipped it up, feeling satisfied.

“Really?” Melissa sounded disappointed.
 
“I thought you’d at least be able to
keep some of the clothes.”
 

“Yeah, well, I can’t.”
 
But as she was saying the words, she was
starting to get angrier.
 
Who did he
think he was?
 
Just because he was
good-looking and rich and used to people fawning all over him didn’t give him
the right to treat people like shit.
 
She stomped over to the closet and pulled down a few of the more
expensive-looking dresses, then added another pair of shoes, a couple sweaters,
and some jeans.

“Are you okay?” Melissa asked.
 
“Because you sound a little frantic.”

“I’m not frantic!”

“Well, you sound frantic.
 
What’s all that commotion?”

“I’m packing.”
 
Kenley was in the bathroom now, adding a
bunch of lotions and bubble baths to the pile of clothes in her arms.
 
Then she realized that with all the
security regulations, she probably wouldn’t be able to take the beauty products
on the plane.
 
Damn.
 
She reluctantly put them back and looked
around the room for something else to steal.
 
Her eyes landed on a loofah, and she
grabbed it.

“Don’t you want to know what people are saying
about you?”

“What people?”
 
Kenley unzipped her suitcase and dumped
in her contraband.
 
But with all the
extra clothes, she was having a hard time zipping it up.
 
She sat on the suitcase and tugged at
the zipper.
 
It didn’t budge.
 
But Kenley was determined.
 
She pushed all her weight down until
finally, little by little, inch by inch, it zipped.
 
Ha!
 
she thought, feeling satisfied.
 
Take that!

“The tabloid people.”

“What tabloid people?”

“US Weekly has you on their website.”
 
Melissa cleared her throat and started
to read off the website.
 
“Who’s
Chad Parnell’s new lady friend?
 
Sources
tell us it’s Kenley Mitchell, a financier from Connecticut.”

“Financier?”
 
Kenley snorted.
 
“Try unemployed mortgage broker.
 
And what sources?”

“We dig her fresh-faced look,” Melissa went
on.
 
“Who says you have to be
Jessica Alba to land a hot rich man?”

“Wow,” Kenley said, shaking her head.
 
“Talk about a back-handed
compliment.
 
Not to mention that
whole statement is extremely sexist.”

“I thought it was nice,” Melissa said.
 
“They were saying that you look pretty
naturally, that you don’t have to be some airbrushed model type to get a hot
guy.
 
Although, now that I think
about it, they really might have airbrushed you.
 
Didn’t you have a zit on your chin when
you left?”