The Price of Love (A Price Novel Book 1) (28 page)

We had a big test to study for, and I decided to pull an all-nighter at the dorm. Our normal little group showed up, and we buckled down for a long night of studying. When we were about an hour into it, Eric showed up. “Hey, is there room for one more? I’m having a hard time and need some help.”

Everyone looked at me. He looked so humble — I couldn’t tell him no. “Of course you can.” I shot him a genuine “glad to see you” smile. He smiled back but quickly looked away. Eric and I were still in many of the same classes, but we hadn’t spoken since the night I saw him in the bar.

I had gotten so into the study session that I jumped when my phone rang. It was Slayde. When I stood to go into the bathroom to talk, Eric cut his eyes at me for a second and then looked back at his notes.

“Hey, babe, what are you doing?” Slayde asked.

“Studying, what else?”

“Where are you?”

“What do you mean, where am I? Where are you?” Slayde wasn’t supposed to be home for three more days, and I couldn’t remember which city he was in.

“I’m at the house. I’m coming to get you.”

“I didn’t know you were coming home tonight. But I told you I had a major test to study for. I can’t come home right now. I’m in the middle of an all-night cram session.”

“Baby, you don’t need to study — come home. You can study here with me. Is it anatomy? We can start there.” He laughed. His offer sounded very tempting, but it would be totally crappy to leave everyone hanging.

“You know I can’t do that.”

“I haven’t seen you in a week, and I miss you. Please come home.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, but this test is important. I just can’t do it tonight. I’m sorry.”

“All right, but I’m leaving in the morning. I guess I will see you in a few days. Have a good study group.” As he hung up, his disappointment rang in my ears.

Great, now I wasn’t going to be good for anything. How could I study, knowing Slayde was less than a mile away? I hadn’t seen him in a week, and I really wanted to see him. Maybe I could just run to the house for a minute.

Milly came to the bathroom door. “Is everything all right? We need you in here.”

I paused. “I guess so. Slayde’s at the house, and he wants me to come home.”

“Are you going?” she asked.

“No!” I knew she would know how disappointed I was.

“Maybe we can take a break in a little while, and you can sneak off to see him.” Giving me a big smile, she pulled me out of the bathroom.

We studied for about another hour before we decided to take a break. As soon as I got to the house, I ran into our room and jumped on the bed. Slayde must have heard me come in, because I didn’t scare him. He smiled and pulled me under the covers and kissed me.

“Are you surprised?” I asked.

“Delightfully. I was just lying here, pouting.”

“I figured you were. It was kind of hard to study knowing you were so close. I had to come see you.”

“I guess I should have told you I was coming home. I just wanted to surprise you. I wish you would hurry up and finish school already,” he groaned.

“Well, baby, as soon as I finish school, I will be an intern and have even less time. I will spend up to seventy-two hours straight at the hospital sometimes.”

“You know you really don’t have to work. Why isn’t being a trophy wife good enough for you?” He was laughing. He knew what I thought about that.

“Why don’t you stay home and let me take care of you. Huh?” I started tickling him. He was so ticklish, and I loved to torture him. It never took him long to overpower me and get away, but I still enjoyed it while it lasted.

Once he got away, he immediately pulled me back to him and started kissing me. We made love before I went back to study, and I really wanted to stay and sleep next to him.

I thought he was asleep when I got up to leave, so I tried to sneak out.

“Hey, baby.” I stopped and looked back at him. “I love you. Good luck on your test tomorrow,” he said.

“I love you too. Call me when your plane lands.” Kissing his head, I headed out the door.

On the way back to the dorm, I couldn’t help but think about how easy life would be if I just quit school and went with him. I wondered if we would get sick of each other. We hardly ever fought about anything big, and we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other when we were together. But would that still be true if we saw each other every day? Those were things I really didn’t want to change.

Everyone had gone back to studying when I got back to the dorm. I guess I had been gone a little longer than I expected. I tried to slip in, but Milly and Eric both looked up. Milly gave me a knowing look and winked at me. Eric, on the other hand, gave me a cold stare and dismissed me. The others hadn’t even noticed me come in.

We crammed in another few hours of studying before we finally decided to call it a night. The sun would be up soon, but I still had a few hours before my test, so I decided to go get in bed with Slayde if he was still there.

Slayde was in the shower when I got to the house, so I lay on the bed to wait for him, and I fell asleep there. I woke up to him shaking me. It was daylight. “What are you doing, baby? Don’t you have a test?” he asked.

“Oh, hey,” I yawned. “Yeah, but I have a little time.” Yawning again, I put my hand over my mouth. I felt something heavy on my finger. I held my hand up to see what it was and almost passed out. It was a huge diamond ring. When I looked up at Slayde, he was down on his knee.

“A, I know we haven’t always had the easiest relationship, and I’m sure it will get more difficult at times. But I don’t care how hard it gets — I just want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

I started crying — big surprise. I couldn’t speak. I looked from my hand to Slayde and back to my hand again. I guess the time I was taking was making him nervous.

“Arden?”

I remembered he was waiting on an answer.

“Of course I will marry you.” I jumped off the bed and wrapped my body around him, and we fell to the floor.

I made it into the classroom just as the professor was handing out the test, so I didn’t have time to tell Milly or Karen about Slayde’s proposal. I raced through my test — I knew I would ace it — and then sat outside to wait for Milly.

She came out of the class a few minutes after me and ran right up to me like she knew what had happened. She put her arm around me. “So, how did you do on the test?” She gave me a big smile. She didn’t care about the test; she was bad at pretending.

I picked up my hand to show her my ring. I knew she had seen the ring before I had. She squealed, and we jumped up and down. “I love it, Arden. It’s the most gorgeous ring I have ever seen.”

“I know it is. I love it.” I couldn’t hide my excitement. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“Me? No — OK, maybe.” She laughed. “After you came back so quickly last night, I wasn’t sure what had happened. I thought he had decided to wait. He was so nervous. As if you would have said no.”

“Geez, Milly, how long have you known about this?” I asked.

“A month or so, I guess. Can you believe I was able to keep a secret from you that long? It was exhausting.”

“What exactly did you know? When and what did he tell you?” I wanted to know every detail.

“A month ago, he came home when you were studying, and I met him for supper.”

“And left me at the house?” I asked.

“Duh!” She looked at me like I was stupid. “Anyway. I knew something was up. He asked me if I thought you would freak out, and he showed me the ring. I thought if you did freak out, I would marry him so that rock wouldn’t go to waste. He said he was planning on taking you back to Paris for a weekend to do it, but your schedules never allowed for it. Last time he was home, he came into my room when you were in the shower and said he couldn’t wait any longer. He didn’t know what he was going to do yet, but he would figure it out. He was still scared you might say no. So, how did he do it?”

Milly and I went to grab some lunch, and I told her the whole story. I was happy about the way he had done it. I didn’t need Paris. I was totally surprised and delightfully happy.

Once word got out that Slayde and I were engaged, it was all over the tabloids. Every time we went to lunch or on a date, we were hounded by the paparazzi. It seemed like everyone had an opinion on everything that was no one’s business but ours. They said that my ring was too big and flashy and that we were too young, and people wondered if he was going to make me sign a prenup and if the marriage would ruin his career. Those people were relentless. It was like a sickness. I was going insane.

It got to where I wasn’t able to go anywhere at all except class and back. Campus security wasn’t having any of it, so the paparazzi usually stayed away from campus. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Milly and I went out for groceries and came out to find her car surrounded. We had to go back inside, have someone let us out the back door, and drive us home. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I didn’t understand why they were there when Slayde wasn’t even with me. It was starting to scare me a little. This was worse than them coming by the house. They’d multiplied and were all up in our faces. At least when we were just dealing with them at the house, we could still get in the house. Being blocked from our car was not OK.

When I got back to my dorm, I called Slayde to tell him what had happened. I knew he was going to feel bad, but I didn’t care. I was sick of all of this.

“Baby, I will send someone to walk with you to class and go to town with you and stuff until this dies down,” Slayde said.

“That isn’t a solution. I didn’t sign up for this. Why do these people give a crap what I do? Or what I look like with no makeup on? I’m no one special. I’m not the celebrity here — you are. Don’t people have lives of their own? I’m minding my own business, and I just want to be left alone. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” I felt like my life wasn’t my own anymore, like I was always being watched. It wasn’t fair, and it made me angry. I hadn’t signed up for this.

“Are you saying you want me to leave you alone?” He sounded a little snappy, but I didn’t care.

“You know what I’m saying, Slayde. Don’t put words into my mouth. I can’t talk about this anymore. I’m late for class.” I hung up.

Milly and I didn’t go to the house anymore if Slayde wasn’t there, and Milly wouldn’t have gone at all if I hadn’t guilt-tripped her into it. It wasn’t all working out the way we had planned when we first moved in together. I had envisioned getting to play house and test the waters on all of this marriage stuff he always talked about, while still having my best friend right there. I thought we would have friends over to study and cook out. But now, no one wanted to come over and deal with all of this mess. None of our real friends, anyway. Apparently that was just the price we had to pay for being a part of his life. I loved him with all of my heart, and I knew I didn’t want anyone in this world but him, but sometimes I wondered what our lives would have been like if he hadn’t become “Jake Brandon,” if he hadn’t become famous. I had thought he was pretty special before anyone knew who he was, and now that the whole world thought he was special too, it didn’t seem so great anymore. I would never let him know that I felt that way, but I hated sharing him with everyone else. I wanted him all to myself, and he would have felt the same way if he were me.

We weren’t dating — we were on display, and I was miserable. I could just forget about him taking me out for a romantic dinner. It wasn’t happening. Someone always interrupted us, wanting his autograph or a picture. Hell, sometimes I even had to be the one who took the damn picture.

On our anniversary, I tried to tell myself that this was not going to happen. It was going to be different. He was going to take me to my favorite restaurant. He made reservations under a fake name, borrowed his dad’s car, and even had Milly bring me to a hotel so that we wouldn’t have to go near our house.

I was pretty excited. I really thought this might turn out to be a great night. Was I ever wrong.

It all seemed like a normal date until we ordered our drinks — the waitress recognized Slayde and asked for his autograph. After that, she left him alone and did her job and gave us great service, and I gradually relaxed. But when we went to leave, all hell broke loose.

They had pulled our car around, but so many paparazzi were crowded outside that we couldn’t get to it. The valet was freaking out. He was doing his best, but it wasn’t enough. Eventually we turned to go back inside, but now the paparazzi had blocked us from the restaurant. We were stuck. It was awful. I was having a serious anxiety attack, and I could tell Slayde was doing his best to keep calm.

When we finally fought our way into the car and forced everyone out of our way by driving forward, I broke down. “I can’t do this. Just take me home. I can’t go anywhere with you ever again. I want to go home,” I cried.

Neither of us spoke the rest of the ride home, and when Slayde parked in front of my dorm, he said, “I don’t even know what to say.”

“Please don’t say anything.” I managed to get out between sobs. I ran inside.

When I burst into our room, Milly jumped up. “What in the world? Did you not like the necklace?”

What is she talking about?
“I didn’t like the date. I can’t do this. I can’t be with him anymore.”

“You don’t mean that, Arden. You love him.”

“I do love him, but I hate being his fiancé.”

“I can’t believe you are saying this. What happened?”

I started getting undressed. “I don’t really want to talk about it. I just want to be left alone to think for a little while.”

Once I got into the tub and relaxed, I heard Milly talking. At first I thought she was on the phone, but then I heard Slayde. Part of me thought about just drowning myself and ending the misery.

Eventually I got out of the tub, knowing I had to go face him. He’d gotten comfortable on my bed, and Milly was gone — to Karen’s, if I had to guess.

“You OK?” he asked.

“No, I’m not OK.” I went and sat beside him. I started crying again. “I know this isn’t your fault, but I don’t want this life. This is not me.”