CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHASE
It was the same studio.
Of course it was the same fucking studio.
An industrial loft on Broadway.
I wasn’t surprised. Mom had one assistant on her payroll—Berta—who was approximately eighty years old (not an exaggeration for the sake of making a point). She should’ve retired about three decades ago, but Berta was a widow, no kids, and Mom said the job kept her busy. Berta had a personal, ongoing feud with technology and used the Yellow Pages whenever she had to book anything outside the usual service providers the family used. Which meant that the studio—Events4U—was the same one she’d booked for every family occasion in the last century, including engagement shoots, Christmas cards, condolences, virtually every official picture taken of Booger Face, my college graduation pictures, and Katie’s Himalayan cat’s funeral photos (more on that never; I still hadn’t forgiven her for wasting everyone’s time while providing the feline with a proper burial).
I opened the door for Mad, dangerously close to crawling out of my own skin and bolting to the other side of the planet, thinking about the last time I’d been in this studio. Who I’d been with in this studio. It wasn’t that my family hadn’t visited here afterward, but I’d flat-out refused to set foot in this studio ever again on the grounds of I WASN’T A FUCKING MASOCHIST.
Until now.
Madison breezed in, her movements, like her being, swift and sunny. She leaned her entire upper body against the counter, greeting the person at the reception like she’d known her her entire life. Her pixie hair was growing a little longer than usual, sticking out playfully. It was fuck hot, and I wondered if she was going to let her hair grow and if that meant hair yanking during sex was in the cards for me.
Madison laughed at something the receptionist said, then fished her phone out of her bag and showed her something. The receptionist, I realized, was the same woman who’d taken my picture all those years ago. The memory slammed into me like a truck in a busy intersection. This was a one-person-operation business. The woman had been the one cooing at my (real) ex-fiancée and me—two nervous postgrads who’d made a fatal decision to get married before they’d known who they really were—to smile at the camera.
She won’t recognize you. She owns a studio on Broadway. She sees hundreds of people every week, some of them remarkably ugly, some of them remarkably beautiful. Your face doesn’t chart.
“Oh goodness.” The woman, who introduced herself as Becky, pushed her glasses up her nose, blinking up at me. She was fiftysomething, athletic looking, with a gray, conservative dress, hair the same color as her dress, and enough jewelry to sink the Titanic. “It is you again, Mr. Black.”
For fuck’s sake.
“Again?” Madison smiled politely, her gaze ping-ponging from Becky to me. “Is this your second engagement shoot here?” she inquired, processing as her suspicions received validation.
I wanted to pull Becky’s, Berta’s, and Mom’s guts out of their a-holes and make trendy scarves out of them. Rather than physically assaulting women triple my age, I took Mad’s hand in mine (third time, and it was growing on me—kind of) and let the comment roll off my shoulders.
“This one’s gonna stick,” I clipped.
“Don’t be so sure,” Mad muttered.
“Oh, it will. The girl before”—Becky shook her head, rounding the counter to show us to the studio—“she was no good for him. I knew it wasn’t meant to be. I have a feeling about those kinds of things. I do.” She stopped in front of a white screen that had been heavily lit by projectors. A stool and camera equipment sat across from it in the darkened corner of the room. Becky flicked the camera on the tripod alive, squinting as she adjusted it. “I wasn’t at all surprised seeing her back with someone else. You two, I just couldn’t see it. When a couple walks in, I don’t even have to talk to them. I see their body language and know if they’re going to make it or not. Never fails.” She tapped her manicured fingernail to her temple. I flashed her a polite, can’t-fucking-wait-to-get-out-of-here smirk. I’d have dodged this entire shoot if it weren’t for the fact it put a smile on Dad’s face.
When Mom had told me she’d booked us an engagement shoot as a present, I’d initially turned it down, but then Dad had looked so disappointed I’d had to say yes.
“And what do you make of our relationship?” Mad asked, standing with the white background behind her. She had a gray blouse, pearled neckline, and pink, peach-patterned pencil skirt I wanted very badly to rip off her body.
“You are definitely in it for the long run. This is your happily ever after.” The woman smiled behind the camera. Madison flashed me a pshhh look. She was amused by her. Off-base Becky wasn’t. I didn’t think it was all that funny.
Becky instructed us to stand close to each other, using excessive hand movements to make her point. She asked me to drape a hand over Madison’s shoulder while standing behind her (“Look at that height difference, whoa!”) and then asked me to put both hands on her shoulders and look into her eyes. It was cornier than popcorn, and every sarcastic bone in my body wanted to snap with rage, but I did it, knowing my parents would take great pleasure in seeing the final products and keeping in mind what Mad had told me about showing Dad how I felt.
We did as we were instructed, smiling painfully wide to the camera as Becky clicked away. Both our gazes were locked on the black eye of the camera as it flashed. Realizing we could be there for a while, Madison struck up a conversation.
“So. You’re here . . . again?” she asked through a teeth-closed smile.
“Lean over and kiss her cheek, Mr. Black!” Becky yelled behind the camera. I did as I was told, pressing my lips to Madison’s apple cheek. A jolt of something hot and unfamiliar ran between us when we made contact. Like her body swelled in my arms, becoming rounder and hotter and more alive, somehow.
“Drop it,” I murmured into her skin.
“You said you’d tell me about Amber if I did this shoot with you. Spill it,” she hissed, her smile still bright.
“Madison, turn around! Hug him! Look like you mean it. No, this is all wrong. It looks like you are trying to tackle him in a football game.” Becky continued her commentary. Mad turned around and circled her arms around me, placing her cheek against my heart. I stared at the top of her head, and sure enough, there were two grays. They glittered against her otherwise-brown hair.
“Are you nervous?” she whispered.
“No.” I scoffed.
“Your heart rate is through the roof.”
“Coffee.”
“When’s the last time you had coffee?”
Noon, probably. Still, I was allowed to have a goddamn heartbeat, especially when I had a gorgeous woman pressed against me. “Right before I picked you up. Two shots of the good stuff.”
“Liar.” I could feel her grinning through my shirt. “So, Amber.”
I wanted to shove her tiny frame into my pocket and zip it. She was infuriating.
“Mr. Black! Hug her back. I don’t remember you so frozen your first round.”
“Which you may want to stop mentioning for the sake of my current relationship,” I countered loudly.
She waved me off. “I’m too old not to be blunt.”
“I’m too hotheaded to have this conversation without a stiff drink,” I growled. Madison laughed. I put my arms around her, my lips brushing her hair. She smelled of flowers and coconut and my potential demise. I needed to rethink the whole pretend-real-girlfriend idea before she caved to it.
“So. You dated Amber,” she started, her warm breath tickling my chest.
“Was engaged to Amber,” I corrected.
“Get out.” She swatted my chest, looking up at me with shock.
“Madison! No battery in the studio. That’s why I don’t allow couples to drink before photo shoots. Things can get rowdy,” Becky shrieked, unplugging the camera from the tripod and circling us with it. “Whisper sweet nothings to her, Mr. Black.”
I put my lips to the shell of Madison’s ear, feeling her shivering in my arms. “We were fresh out of college. Amber was different back then. Pretty, natural, sane. Believe it or not, she wasn’t completely superficial. We took some classes together and always ended up on the same side of the argument. Although in retrospect, she’d have agreed that drowning babies as a form of contraception was a good idea if I’d promoted it. She was riding a full scholarship and wanted to marry up. That she did.” I chuckled bitterly.
“Did she cheat?” The air around Madison crackled with fury and surprise and delight, and fuck, fuck, fuck, why was everything about her so expressive? I wanted to lean down and bite her lower lip until she moaned, but I doubted that was what my parents had in mind when they asked for formal engagement pictures.
“Not that I’m aware of.” I ran my thumb across her cheek, knowing she was too engrossed in our conversation to push me away.
“What happened, then?”
“I was taking a few minutes to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Julian was a fully formed person. He bragged about becoming the next CEO of Black & Co. Said he’d been groomed and prepped for the job. Julian and Amber got close. I drifted apart from them.”
I brushed my thumb along her lower lip. She let me do that. I continued talking, but my mind was far away from the Julian-and-Amber story.
“I never corrected his assumption. Amber wanted to be at the top of the food chain. She asked me if I could promise her I’d be the CEO. That I’d give her the life of luxury she was after. I said I couldn’t. I also mentioned I might want to become a teacher. Julian made her believe he was calling the shots.”
“Was he? Is he?” Her eyes implored me.
I shook my head.
“Did you really want to become a teacher?” She sounded surprised and delighted by that. I couldn’t blame her.
I shrugged. “I thought about it, for half a minute. I was a bit of an idealist back in the day. Anyway, Amber broke off the engagement. I took a few months off. Traveled the world. By the time I came back, I knew I wanted to join Black & Co. Realized becoming a teacher wasn’t my calling. Amber was already engaged to Julian and heavily pregnant with Clementine. Having their son bring an out-of-wedlock baby into the world was going to kill my parents, so Julian and Amber tied the knot as soon as I landed back in the US.”
I could see her doing the math in her head, arching an eyebrow. “The pregnancy. It was a close call between you and Julian.”
I nodded. “That’s why I said I don’t know if she cheated.”
“You never asked?”
“I didn’t want to know the answer. Julian was my brother, and we’ve always had this bond. I let it go, but I stopped believing in marital love as a concept.”
“Did you go to the wedding?” she asked quietly. She looked destroyed on my behalf, and I wanted to slap my own face. Because to me, it didn’t really matter. It was water under the bridge. The Amber-Julian blow was nothing more than a faded scar these days.
“I was the best man.” I smirked. “Showing them I gave a fuck wasn’t on the menu for me.”
“Mr. Black! Miss Goldbloom! Would you mind?” Becky yelled in the background, and I realized, albeit belatedly, that we’d been having the last ten seconds of conversation with our lips hovering against one another. I pulled back, feeling flushed like a middle schooler who had been caught trying to figure out the ins and outs of masturbation. Madison looked down at her feet, turning deep red.
“Sweet nothings,” Becky repeated sternly, waving her camera in her hand. “Save the PDA for the honeymoon. Where is your honeymoon, by the way?”
“Malta,” Madison said.
“Fiji,” I said at the same time.
We both frowned at each other. I fought a smile. “Malta?”
“I want to take the Game of Thrones tour. You know, where they filmed big portions of the show. Fiji?”
“Yeah, I want to get a tan, get drunk, and bury myself inside you on the sand.”
“Oh, Lordy.” Becky looked like she was about to faint. “Focus! Sweet nothings. Not dirty nothings. Sweet.”
I moved my lips back to Mad’s ear. The thing about us, Madison and me, was that our bodies seemed to be in complete sync with one another. She turned around again and pressed against me, the curve of her ass touching my erection, and I stifled a curse, breathing through my nose and trying to think about sad things to stop myself from grinding all over her.
Children living below the poverty line.
Climate change.
Starving bears.
Dad.
The last one did it. Becky returned to her place beyond the bright light aimed at the white screen, click-clicking her camera from the shadows.
“So Amber broke you,” Mad whispered.
“I think I was already broken, but yeah, she was definitely the final hammer to smash any romantic bone I had in my body.”
“I hate her,” Mad said.
I didn’t. I felt nothing toward my ex-fiancée, whom I’d spent the majority of my college years with.
I had to do something to take the Amber edge off. I didn’t want to talk about her or Julian. It wasn’t even the heartbreak that had made me swear off love. It was the embarrassing aftermath. The gossip mill. The humiliation.
Poor Chase got dumped.
Never was quite as hardworking and hungry as Julian.
They say Amber had to make it official with his brother because he impregnated her while she was still engaged to Chase.
Maybe Chase didn’t deliver you-know-where.
Chase might’ve cheated first. She just did what was best for her.
I forgave Julian when he asked for forgiveness. He was the older brother I looked up to, and I was determined to let it slide and work things out between us. It was Amber I had the issue with. The fickleness of love, of what I thought love was, rubbed me the wrong way. I was infatuated with Amber in the way thirteen-year-old boys were crushing over the biggest pop star in the world. She had the looks and the lust for life, and I had the funds and ability to yank her out of her small town, thrusting her into the glamorous life she’d always dreamed of. After a brush with the four-letter word with Amber, I’d decided I wasn’t a huge fan of letting someone into my life, not when the risk of watching them go was possible. All Amber had needed was the faintest hint that the horse she’d bet on wasn’t going to win, that Julian was going to make it to the CEO finish line before me, and she’d dumped my ass to the curb.
Dad’s illness was a bitter reminder that love was not on the menu for me.
Love = pain.
Pain = suffering.
Suffering = not today, Satan. Not today.
I pressed my lips to Madison’s ear. She was staring at the camera, still smiling, but from my vantage point five hundred feet above her (she really was that small), I could see the horror of being stuck here for eternity in her eyes.
“I want to do very dirty things to you.”
She quivered, and I smiled, my teeth tracing the shell of her ear.
“In the shower,” I continued. “You could sit on my shower bench while I eat you out.”
“God”—she closed her eyes on a soft moan—“that’s so . . . hygienic.”
We both burst out into spontaneous laughter, making Becky scowl at us. “Too much teeth. Please, let’s keep it regal and classy.”
I peered into Madison’s face, curious to see what her next step would be.
“So now when you’re about to become the CEO, is Amber trying to win you back?” Mad asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you care?”
“Not particularly.”
“Does Julian know that Amber might be after you?”
Another shrug. “If he does, he doesn’t mind.”
“Why?”
“Because Amber was never his endgame. She was collateral in a more elaborate chess game I didn’t know I was playing. What he truly wanted was affirmation that he was better than me. More of a son to Ronan than I am. He wants to become CEO. He wants to be the blackest Black in the clan.”
“So why did Amber do it? Go with Julian? You’re so much more . . .” Mad trailed off.
“Fuckable?” I helped her.
“I was going to say tolerable. But even that sounds generous sometimes. He just seems like a weasel, you know.”
I said nothing. Becky yelled that it was a wrap, and I let go of Madison, taking a step back like she was made out of fire. But Mad was still stuck in the moment, staring at me with a vulnerable look I couldn’t stand.
“It just seems unfair that you don’t want to fall in love, get engaged, have kids . . . because your brother-cousin stole your fiancée. Not all women care about money and status.”
“But you can never be sure.” I smiled grimly. She wanted to continue this line of conversation, but I followed Becky to the reception area, choosing to put an end to it. There was nothing I wanted more than to escape the scrutiny of those green-rimmed hazel eyes. Mad trailed behind me, refusing to drop the subject.
“That’s all it took? One bad experience with love?”
“Yup.”
“That is so cowardly. It’s like hating all carbs because you had a slice of pizza you didn’t like.”
“I don’t like pizza either,” I said breezily. Technically, it was true. I didn’t like what pizza did to my hard-earned abs and wasn’t planning on eating it anytime soon.
“The blasphemy!” Madison cried behind me, trying—and failing—to catch up with my footsteps. “So that’s it? You sentenced yourself to a life of loneliness because of that?”
Had she listened to my story? Did she know many people who’d lost their brides to their siblings?
“Not loneliness,” I amended. “I have hookups all the time and a great family that I love, aside from my brousin and his wife.”
“But if you don’t fall in love, the bad guys win,” Madison insisted.
“Really?” I swiveled, pinning her with a sarcastic look. “Because they sure as fuck don’t look like they’re winning. They seem positively miserable, much to my delight.”
There was a pause. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said Mad was on the verge of tears. But that couldn’t be true. Why would she give enough fucks?
“You gonna grow out your hair?” I snapped, changing the subject all of a sudden.
“I don’t know.” She blinked, taken aback. “Maybe.”
“I like it short.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Really?” I asked.
“No,” she deadpanned.
I stalled back in the reception to go over the pictures with Becky just to put some space between me and Madison. When my pulse no longer jackrabbited against my eyelid, I joined Madison outside on the curb. Her back was to me. She looked on edge, bouncing on the balls of her feet, hugging her midriff. I stared at her, not making myself known. She took her phone out of her purse and began texting someone. Pediatric Dude? The thought of her seeing him, flirting with him, after taking engagement pictures with me made me murderous. I stepped forward, putting a hand on her shoulder. “How about we grab a bite?” I asked.
She twisted around, sucking in a surprised breath like I’d caught her doing things she wasn’t supposed to do. And for the most part, it felt that way too. Not that she owed me jack shit, but ever since this whole fake-engagement thing had started, I hadn’t been seeing other people. It didn’t even make any sense. I just didn’t feel like making the effort with someone brand new, when Mad was right there. I channeled all my energy into getting her back into my bed.
And I’d barely even kissed her.
I needed to rectify the situation. Fast.
“I have some leftovers at home.” She smiled politely. “I don’t want to be wasteful.”
I frowned. “That sounds a lot like rejection.”
She sighed, rubbing at her eyes tiredly. “Look, Chase, you’re a nice guy—”
“No, I’m not,” I said, cutting her off. She faltered.
“True. But you are a real catch. Not because of your money or status but because you are funny, quick witted, smart, fun, and—yes—look like you’re the product of an orgy consisting of all the Greek gods, Chris Hemsworth, and James Dean.”
“Thank you for the mental image I cannot bleach from my memory. By the way, which one of them got pregnant?”
She blinked at me.
“Which god?”
“Ah . . . Chris. I think he’d rock the hell out of a baby bump.”
Silence. People bypassed us on the busy street. I was officially the bastard I hated who blocked pedestrians’ way.
“Anyway”—she rubbed her temple—“that’s not the point. The point is, you’re a catch, and spending time with you is not a good idea, because I don’t want to catch feelings for you again, okay? So I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be your fake-real girlfriend. Or fiancée. Or anything. Goodbye, Chase.”
She turned around, walking to the subway. She bumped into a businessman. He cursed. Martyr Maddie apologized.
“Wait.” I chased her, hand encircling her elbow. It dawned on me that, ironically, even though my name was Chase, I’d never done any chasing. It was always the other way around. Until now. Until Mad.
She stopped, spun on her heel, and stared at me warily. Her eyes were so full I thought they were going to overflow with emotion. I couldn’t tell what it was she was full of. Intensity? Pain? Whatever it was, it made me feel like shit.
“If you care about me,” she said slowly through a ragged breath, “then you will stop pursuing me. Let me live my life. Let me get over you. You confuse and infuriate and delight me. You make me feel all those emotions that I have no business feeling, and I’m desperate to move on. I want to want Ethan. Let one of us find their happiness. Because it is so painfully clear you don’t want to ever find yours.”
Now there were definitely tears in her eyes. I swallowed hard. For all my loose morals and even looser principles, I didn’t consider myself a top-notch dick. I always made sure women knew where they stood with me (with the exception of Madison, apparently). I never promised anything I wasn’t ready to deliver. And Maddie was obviously not on board with my offer for her. Which meant that now it really was time to let go.
I took a step back. Then another one, still holding her gaze. The world shrank around her, blurring at the edges like a faded picture.
Turn the fuck around and start walking, you tool.
Still, I stood, waiting for her to make the first move. Wondering if she’d change her mind at the last minute.
“Maybe in another life.” Mad smiled sadly, her eyes shining.
“Definitely,” I said gruffly.
She turned around, disappearing into the subway. I stood there for ten minutes, then spun on my heel and stomped three blocks until I found an alleyway full of trash cans and privacy. I slumped against the wall, my forehead to the red bricks, and stood there for a half hour, waiting for my heart to stop galloping.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MADDIE
The next week crawled, minute by minute. It was exotically hot. Everything in the city looked liquefied. The concrete. The buildings. The people. Kind of like The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí, with the melting clocks.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
Had life always felt so hollow?
I made myself forget about the azaleas. About the bet with Chase. About myself.
I threw myself into work, sketching everywhere I could. The train to and from work. On the platform. In restaurants. On lunch breaks. Before bed. Work consumed me.
I sketched and erased and started over and laughed and cried over the DWD design, because it wasn’t just a design; it was my design. And sure, I’d designed many wedding dresses before, but there were always rules, laid out and crystal clear.
This spring our line is going to focus on sheath dresses.
This winter is all about ball gowns.
The lace collection will be mermaid-style.
This time, there were no rules to abide by. It was just me and the chaos teeming in my mind. It was the endgame. Kate Middleton on her wedding day met Grace Kelly in her carriage met Audrey Hepburn in her signature Balmain gown.
I tried hard not to think about Chase. I took Daisy out for longer walks, watching her chase Frank. I read the word of the day on Layla’s board dutifully, looking for telltale signs the nagging feeling that I was in the midst of making a terrible mistake was unfounded. I wanted to be there for Chase during this time. To be there for Katie and for Lori and for Clementine.
I even made a list of words Layla had hung up to try to sew them into a meaning.
Monday was regret.
Tuesday was relief.
Wednesday was chocolate (which, let’s admit it, played a huge role throughout my week as I tried to forget Chase).
Thursday was coward.
I decided not to check the board today. I was 70 percent sure Layla was being passive aggressive after I’d told her I’d run away from Chase after the engagement shoot, leaving him standing there, confused by my behavior.
To push away the Chaseness that’d been filling my brain, I went on two dates with Ethan. I was grateful for the distraction he provided. He was endlessly patient, caring, and full of stories about his work, his patients, and his time volunteering in Africa. On Tuesday, we went to watch a war movie. The night after, he took me to meet his friends at a bar. Finally, tonight, we’d agreed we’d go to a Thai place, then come back to my place for some wine.
Wine meant sex, and sex wasn’t something I was ready for with Ethan, seeing how Chase occupied every corner of my mind. A part of me wanted to take it minute by minute and just see how it played out. Maybe I would be in the mood. Maybe the wine would loosen me up, and we’d sleep together, and I’d realize that was all I’d really needed—a chance to be intimate with Ethan to feel connected to him.
Then why do I dread getting back to my apartment with Ethan in tow? Why does it feel like I’m on death row?
Ethan and I strolled to my building. I told him about my DWD project in detail.
“There will be a chapel train, and I’m thinking pleated sweetheart bodice that resembles a Victorian corset. Oh, Ethan, it’s going to be so pretty . . . ,” I gushed, noticing him stiffening beside me. I stopped right alongside him, blinking at my stairway.
It couldn’t be.
But that was exactly what I’d thought the first evening Chase had been waiting for me on my doorstep, luring me into his fake-engagement plan.
“I thought . . . ,” Ethan began.
I shook my head violently. Like there was something inside it I wanted to get rid of. There was. “You thought right. I told him to back off. Let me deal with this.”
I stomped my way to my door, feeling the anger coiling hotly in the pit of my stomach, blossoming, building up, and climbing up my throat. My entire body was buzzing with wrath. How could he? How could he do this to me again? Hadn’t I made myself clear? I didn’t want to see him. Had gone as far as admitting I had feelings for him just to make him take a step back. Was there anything more humiliating than admitting your unrequited feelings toward someone? That was the basis to every poem, love song, and angsty work of art in the universe.
How selfish could he be?
“What in the world do you think you’re doing here?” My voice came out high pitched, dancing on the verge of hysteria. Chase was still sitting on the stairway as I positioned myself above him. “I told you to take a step back. What is wrong with you?” I realized I was baring my teeth when Chase looked up from his phone, startled by my verbal attack. I froze.
He looked different. Disheveled and exhausted and . . . broken.
It was the broken part that undid me. I knew that look well. My father had worn it the entire year my mother had been dying. Really dying. It was still permanently inked into the place behind my rib cage. It was the hopeless look of someone whose fate had brought them to their knees.
My guard dropped. Armor clattering on the pavement at my feet.
“What happened?” I crouched down to Chase’s eye level, placing my elbows on his knees. My fingers were shaking as they held his jaw and tilted his face up. “Where is he?”
“Hospital.”
“Chase.”I wasn’t sure I was breathing. “Why aren’t you with him?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
I saw Ethan standing in my periphery, a lone candle, long and straight and unlit. He took the scene in. It scared me. How much I didn’t care what he thought, what he felt in that moment. Only Chase charted.
It was the first time I realized being Martyr Maddie was unsustainable, but perhaps being a good friend to those I cared about was something I could swing. I couldn’t protect everyone’s feelings.
But I would slay dragons for those who found their way into my heart.
“We need to go see him, okay?” I rubbed my thumbs over Chase’s cheeks. I thought I felt him nod. I took my phone out, scheduling an Uber to take us to the hospital he indicated his dad was in. After I was done, I turned to Ethan. “I’m so sorry.”
His head bowed. “I hope he gets better soon.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. Chase was too out of it to notice Ethan. I had to stuff him into the Uber. Wearing a ball cap, a hoodie, and a bored expression, the driver tried to make idle conversation about politics and the state of traffic.
“Your boyfriend looks trashed,” he said finally. “Too many drinks?” He pinned me with a look through the rearview mirror. “I don’t want no puking in my back seat.”
“He’s fine,” I clipped.
“So are you.” The driver grinned.
“I’m going to smoke your eyes like beef jerky if you as much as look at her that way again,” Chase groaned. It was the first time he’d spoken since we’d gotten in the car.
“Man, talk about jealousy issues.”
“We’re having a day,” I snapped, no longer caring about being polite, agreeable Martyr Maddie. “Mind keeping it quiet?”
“Sure. Sure.”
“Stop looking at her,” Chase warned again like a wounded animal. “Don’t even breathe in her direction.”
“You heard him,” I drawled at the driver, breaking out of my sweet shell.
The driver shook his head. “Jesus.”
Katie and Lori were already in Ronan’s hospital room, perched on a pastel-blue sofa that had seen better days. The antiseptic smell, bright, unforgiving fluorescent light, and morbid oldness that was glued to the walls made me nauseous. I hadn’t been to a hospital since Mom had died.
I hugged Lori and Katie as Chase collapsed on a seat next to his unconscious father’s bed. He closed his eyes, breathing through his nose.
“He had a heart attack.” Lori ran her fingers through Ronan’s thick white hair, frowning down at him. “The doctors said the heart attack itself was minor, but his systems are collapsing one by one. He is stabilized but not out of the woods. Grant is on his way.”
Chase didn’t react. He wasn’t completely there. I slunk out of the room in search of coffee and some snacks. I thought maybe Chase might wait for me to give them some space before he responded to this piece of news.
I was punching buttons on a vending machine when Katie appeared next to me, hugging her arms to her chest. She was wearing flannel pajamas and a rich coat over them. It was the first time I realized it was freezing in the hospital.
“He hasn’t been sleeping,” she said. “Chase.”
I pretended to focus on the machine. The pretzel bag wouldn’t come out. It was trapped between the glass and metallic wheel. I tried giving the machine a shake, but the thing barely even moved.
“Fuck,”I muttered. I didn’t curse. I never cursed. Katie flinched.
“I think it’s been a week since he last had an actual night of sleep,” she continued. “I don’t know if it’s just about Dad.”
Was she saying what I thought she was saying? It couldn’t be. I figured Katie had known Chase and I weren’t really together the moment I’d told her about the cheating ex I’d caught. But why would she tell me Chase was losing sleep the entire time he and I weren’t in contact? The obvious reason, because it might be true, just never occurred to me.
“I hate this for him. For all of you.” I kicked the bottom of the machine, stifling another curse when I realized my toes had fared much worse than the machine. Dammit.
“Yeah,” Katie mused, studying me closely. “I thought you’d know. Seeing as you guys are engaged. You’re engaged, right?”
I whipped my head in her direction, realizing what it was. Confrontation. Seeing as Katie hated confrontation, I knew what was at stake here.
“Oh.” I pretended to smile. “I still keep my apartment. I was home all week to work on my latest assignment.”
“So that cheating story . . .”
“You should forget about that story,” I bit out. I was ripped apart by the idea Katie was going to discover Chase’s secret. That anyone would. “Forget it altogether, Katie. I love your brother. We’re together.”
It didn’t feel like a lie anymore. No part of that sentence. And that scared me.
I was feeling restless. Almost violent. I placed my hands on either side of the vending machine and began to shake it with everything I had in me, letting out a scream that had been lodged inside my throat since the day I’d first seen Chase in that elevator a year ago. The walls in the hallway shook with my cry. The floor rocked beneath my feet. And yet I couldn’t stop. I didn’t even want to try. It was so liberating to let it all out.
The lies.
The pain.
The ache of wanting something you knew was bad for you. That was always in front of you, dangling like a forbidden fruit.
I screamed and shook the vending machine until there was no more voice in my throat. The bag of pretzels finally relented, falling down with a soft clink. I bent over to grab it and set it on a tray I’d placed on a seat next to the machine. It had three foam cups of lukewarm black coffee poured straight from a day-old pot and sandwiches that looked downright inedible. I began to make my way back to Ronan’s room like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t screamed. Like two nurses hadn’t poked their heads out of rooms, checking if everything was okay.
Katie followed me. “I won’t say anything,” she whispered.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.” The food and coffee were dancing on the tray, my hands shook so bad.
“The thing is . . . God, I don’t even know what the thing is. He seems happy when he is with you, and I think this part is real.” Katie swallowed. “I think it’s the only real part about him since him and Amber . . . and then after a few years, when he lost Julian too.”
I finally understood what Katie was saying. Why Chase refused to become attached. He hadn’t only lost his fiancée to his brother. He also lost his brother to the CEO title Ronan decided to invest him with. Everyone he loved wanted something, and when Chase didn’t relent, they were quick to turn their backs on him.
Even the person he’d grown up with.
Even the person he looked up to and saw as a big brother.
“What do you make of it?” I changed the subject, jerking my chin to the door we were approaching. Ronan’s room. “Did Grant say if this is . . . you know?”
The end.
Katie shook her head, folding her lower lip into her mouth. “You know doctors. They never say anything this way or the other.”
I did know doctors. And she was absolutely right.
After distributing the coffees, sandwiches, and pretzels, for which Katie and Lori were grateful, I pulled a barely conscious Chase by the sleeve. “You’re going to take a nap. Now.”
“I’m waiting for Grant,” he said icily, but he lacked that Chase Black frostbite that usually came with his tone.
“No, you’re not. Once Grant arrives, I’ll talk to him myself. If something important happens, I’ll wake you up. Otherwise, you need to sleep.”
He shook my touch from his arm, but I grabbed his elbow, tugging hard. His gaze slid up to mine. Whatever he saw in my face, he knew I wasn’t going to back off. Reluctantly, he stood up. I showed him to the room next to his father’s. I’d noticed it was empty when Katie and I had walked back with the snacks. I fluffed the pillows while he stood behind me awkwardly, watching. When he slid into the bed, I hesitated, then, knowing he was almost out of it, he was so drunk with exhaustion, I rolled the scratchy blanket over his body. He’d done the same to me when I’d been drunk in the Hamptons. Taken care of me without complaining about it once.
I was all but forcing myself to leave the room when Chase grabbed my wrist. The jolt his touch sent up my arm made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. My stomach dipped. It seemed monumental. Pivotal, even. The way his eyes, silvery like a sheet of ice, met my common brown ones. His mouth moved, and I dropped my gaze to follow it, too flustered to decipher his words. It was only one word. One I’d been dreaming of hearing for many months prior to our first breakup.
“Stay.”
“In the room, or . . . ?” In your life? I couldn’t breathe. I needed to breathe, but it was hard when I pinned all my hopes momentarily on his answer.
“In the hospital. Where I can find you.”
He looked so deliriously wrecked, with black-rimmed eyes, his skin hanging onto his cheekbones, like he’d lost weight overnight. I’d always wondered how you knew if you loved someone. I got my answer when he looked at me. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I loved Chase in that moment.
“I’ll stay.” I put my hand on his.
His eyes were half-closed, his throat bobbing like he was struggling to swallow. His lips looked dry, and I wanted to press mine against them. Crazy, crazy thoughts.
“You asked if I’m over Amber,” he croaked, his eyes drifting shut. The rest of him too. “I am. I don’t think I ever loved her. Not really. Not like I could love you.”
Thud. Thud. Thud. My heart was rioting in my chest.
“I didn’t cheat, but I wanted to. I fucking wished I could, Mad. Because you were there, and you were real, and if the bullshit with Amber, whom I didn’t even love, hurt like a thousand bitches, you had the potential to totally detonate my life. You were a weakness. I was so . . .”
So?I held my breath, waiting for him to continue. But he never did. His breaths grew more labored, until they curled into soft, drained snores. I put my hand on my heart to keep it from exploding.
I closed my eyes, willing myself to stop what I was doing. Romanticizing what we were. Forgetting every moment I’d loathed him. I heard Layla scoffing in my head about returning to my old Martyr Maddie patterns. Putting other people before myself.
A flash of Boyfriend Chase flickered on the screen of my closed eyelids like an old film.
Him leaning his hips into mine, his whiskey breath caressing my neck at a party. “Let’s dip. Everyone’s a loser, and you’re the only person I can stand, which is funny.”
“Why is it funny?” I whispered thickly.
“Because what I want to do to you has nothing to do with either of us standing.”
I opened my eyes. Closed them again.
Chase with his back to me, watching Manhattan from his floor-to-ceiling window.
“You’re a wolf,” I groaned. His back was so broad, so corded with muscles I had to remind myself he was mortal like me.
“You’re the moon.” He grinned, tipping his head back to look at the white crystal-like ball. “You drive me fucking crazy.”
I opened my eyes, feeling tears stinging my nose, clogging my throat. I closed my eyes again.
Chase and me lying on the grass, staring at the starless New York skies.
“I want to go somewhere else. Somewhere where you can see the stars at night. Somewhere pure,” I said.
I could hear Chase’s smile when he answered. “Weird that you mention it. I bought a telescope the other day for that exact reason. I can’t see the stars, and it is driving me nuts. But I don’t want to give up city life.”
It was classic Chase to dislike something about his life and bend it to his own will. It was classic Maddie to dislike something about my life and give up, throw in the towel, and start over.
Another tear slid down my cheek. I couldn’t help it.
Chase and me in my bed, Daisy at our feet.
“Ever feel like you’re changing?” he asked.
“Always,” I answered. “We’re always changing. We just don’t notice it because we’re on the move.”
“I don’t want to change.”
“I don’t think you have much choice,” I said softly. “If you don’t change, you don’t live.”
“Maybe I don’t want to live.”
“You know you do.”
He got out of the bed and started dressing.
My eyes fluttered open again. It was us he’d been talking about. I’d been changing him.
Chase and me on the Cyclone roller coaster. Coney Island. It wasn’t a romantic getaway. I’d convinced him to come with, because I felt like having an old-school candy apple.
“You’re not scared of anything, are you?” He grinned at me. Our car was the first one. It went up painfully slowly, an inch at a time.
“Almost.” Our car was shaking. So was my heart. I looked down to take his hand, but he clasped his fingers together in his lap. Closed off to me in ways he didn’t even know I wanted him to open up for me. “Almost anything.”
I opened my eyes for the fourth time, frantic. I remembered what had happened next.
We’d both fallen.
I spent the next hours trying to get as much information as I could from Grant. Dawn broke on the horizon when Grant finally said we should go home to regroup. I texted Sven I’d be working from home and went to check on Chase. He was sitting on the hospital bed, frowning at his phone. He’d been out cold for nearly seven hours.
Chase glanced up from his phone, looking delicious. His hair was messy, his eyes glinting healthily. He seemed to have gained back whatever weight he’d lost last night. The color was back in his face.
“You said you’d keep me in the loop.” His voice cracked, undoubtedly to his dismay.
I strolled into the room, taking a seat on the edge of the bed next to him. “Provided there was news,” I agreed. “I kept my promise.”
“Is Dad conscious?”
“Getting there. He’s stable, though.”
“What did Grant say?”
“He said Ronan will most likely pull through.”
“Fuck. Okay. No news, then.”
I swiveled my head, giving him a Really? glare. He grabbed one of my hands and put it in his lap. Another current ran through me. Like the Cyclone when it dropped.
“I’m buying you breakfast.”
“Thanks, I’m not hungry.” I didn’t want more one-on-one time with him. Knew I was now tipping over. Taking that Cyclone dip, after which I wouldn’t be able to turn my back on him again. I couldn’t fall in love with a man who promised to never give me everything I wanted from life: A husband, a wedding. Children. Love.
“Food is rarely about food,” he said. “It’s about comfort. It’s about sex. It’s about revenge and lust and anger. But food is never about food.”
I smiled tiredly at his observation. We heard a shriek coming from Ronan’s room. Both our gazes flew in unison to the direction of Katie’s roar. Katie wasn’t one to make a scene. Chase jumped from the bed and bolted through the door. I followed him. Katie, Amber, and Julian were standing in the hallway. Katie was panting heavily, her chest rising and falling. Her cheek was marred with red clawing marks, like she was so frustrated she’d tried to rip at her own flesh.
“You have some nerve! I can’t believe you, Julian. That’s a step too far, even for you.”
“I just did what everyone else around here was too chicken to do.” Julian sounded desperate, clutching Amber’s hand a little too tightly. Amber shook his touch off the minute she saw Chase and me. Her face fell when she looked between us. I realized we were holding hands. I hadn’t even been aware we were doing that.
“What’s going on?” Chase let go of my hand, placing himself as a buffer between Julian and Katie. Katie leaned forward and snagged a cluster of documents Julian had been holding, waving it in Chase’s face.
“Bastard brought a legally binding contract for Dad to sign, which puts him as an emergency CEO of Black & Co. He tried to slip into the room while Mom was away picking up stuff for Dad. I was outside making phone calls.”
“Now, before you get your panties in a twist—” Julian was in the process of swiveling toward Chase. Bad idea. Chase sent a sucker punch straight to his face. Julian staggered back, crashing against the wall. He held his nose with both hands, gasping for breath. “Asshole!”
Chase snatched the papers from Katie’s hands and ripped them to shreds. They rained at his feet, gathering around his loafers like snowflakes. Amber stared at him, wide eyed, her eyes rimmed with careful makeup and tears.
Julian dragged his back down the wall, still holding his nose. Blood trickled between his fingers, down to his shirt and the floor. “Feeling threatened, coz?” he hissed.
It was the first time I’d heard Julian referring to Chase as a cousin and not a brother, and I had a feeling it had been a long time coming. When I stared at Julian, such a perfect, one-dimensional Shakespearean villain in my eyes, I had to remind myself he had a life story too. That it was probably difficult to live in the shadow of your cousin, who was a decade younger, successful, gorgeous, and born into American royalty.
That Chase was seen as more talented, more capable, and more authoritative. And perhaps worst of all, that at least from the outside, Chase was unfazed by the fact Julian had stolen his fiancée.
Chase strolled toward him, smiling coldly. “Try to tamper with Black & Co.’s management one more time, Julian. I fucking dare you. And you”—he turned to Amber, who stepped back, clutching her diamond necklace with her three-inch nails—“keep him away from me if you don’t want to become a widow.”
With that, he took my hand and stormed down the hallway. I flailed behind him, trying to catch up with his steps.
“Where are we going?”
“My apartment.”
“Your apart . . . Chase, no.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He stopped and turned around to me sharply. “Because,” he gritted through his teeth.
“Because?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t sleep.” He spat the words out, annoyed.
“And?”
“And I can when you are there.” The rest of the words rolled out of his mouth grudgingly. “I don’t know how to explain it, nor do I want to. May I be graced with your presence so I can stock up on some sleeping hours?”
I licked my lips, staring at him.
“I will not try to sleep with you.” He raised a hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“For the last time, you weren’t—”
“I was,” he bit out. “For a year. Horrible time. And to this day, I misuse the knowledge of how to tie shit up.”
I stifled something between a groan and a chuckle. “Okay.”
He took my hand again, resuming his quest for a taxi outside, and I couldn’t remember a time we’d held hands so much since our stupid agreement had started.
The devil didn’t have to drag me down to hell.
I had come with him willingly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHASE
Another four hours of sleep and a shower later, I was feeling more human and less like a bag of bones and anger and untapped come.
After checking for phone calls from Grant, Katie, and Mom and getting an update in text form that Dad was still stable, I slid into one of my black suits (why other colors existed was beyond me. Black was suitable for every occasion. The only exception I made was with gray sweatpants, because those were practically considered lingerie for men) and wandered out of the master bedroom. I descended down the three marble steps to the living room. Black, sleek chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, and upholstered black leather couches and recliners filled the room. The three walls that weren’t floor-to-ceiling windows were bare, raw concrete. Everything about my place was dark, indulgent, and dangerous. An apartment carefully designed in the aesthetic of a modern douchebag.
Inside the gloom and darkness sat a woman wearing an apron-like yellow A-line dress from her last night’s date, with a pattern of dripping ice creams on it, her face scrunched in concentration in front of her sketch pad. Her tongue was peeking out from the side of her mouth—her MO when she was concentrating. I buttoned my shirt and watched her, not making myself known. There was something perversely predatory about watching her without being watched. My mind roamed to places it shouldn’t have gone. Pleasures I hadn’t taken since I’d found out Dad was ill.
Her phone began to ring. “Greek Tragedy” by the Wombats was her ringtone. It was those little quirks about Mad that made her so supremely fuckable. She wasn’t exactly hipster, although I knew she dressed like one and knew her way around an indie playlist. She wasn’t highbrow, but she could hold her own in a conversation with just about anyone in the world, beggar or king. She wasn’t upper class. She wasn’t lower class. She was Maddie class. An entirely unique, sexy species. I had to get her out of my system. I had to fuck her again.
She jumped from the distraction before swiping across the screen and tucking her AirPods into her ears. They obviously weren’t charged, because Ethan’s castrated voice filled my living room.
“Just checking in. Are you back home?” he asked. She looked around her. I might or might not have been standing behind a statue. The Weeping Angel with a cigarette tucked between her fingers, her face propped above a bar counter. An impulsive, tongue-in-cheek purchase after I’d come back from South America to find my ex-fiancée knocked up with my brousin’s baby. The need to shell out a lot of money on something meaningless had been overwhelming back then. As if to say: So fucking what? I can still drop five hundred K on a piece of shit most people won’t agree to wipe their ass with.
“Spent the night at the hospital, then came back to Chase’s apartment this morning,” she said apologetically. “I wanted to make sure he was feeling all right.”
Another thing I didn’t hate about Madison Goldbloom—she didn’t pin the blame on other people. I was the one who’d twisted her arm about coming here. But she didn’t mention that to Ethan.
“Oh,” he said. How eloquent. Seriously, how the heck did she date this guy?
“Ronan is fine, by the way.” She pinched her lips.
“Of course. I was about to ask,” he said. Then paused. No, he hadn’t been. He didn’t care about my father. “Has anything happened between you and Chase?”
“No, of course not.” She sighed.
Silence stretched across the room. These two had the sexual chemistry of a tampon and a ketchup stain together. I couldn’t fathom how she didn’t see it. Madison was fire, and Ethan was . . . what the fuck was he, anyway? Not water. Not earth. He was a shadow. A by-product of something else.
“Do you want to see each other tonight? We were about to—”
Hell to the goddamn no. I stepped out from behind the statue, clearing my throat. “I’m sorry, Ethan. Tonight is not going to work for us.” I rolled my shirtsleeves up my veiny arms, nonchalantly making my way to Mad. I’d promised not to fuck her; I’d never said anything about not preventing anyone else from doing just that tonight. I dropped a chaste kiss to her forehead, which she wiped with a frown, her eyes blazing with horror and annoyance. I held her gaze. “See, Madison will be with me tonight.”
“Chase!” she snapped. “Sorry about that, Ethan. I would love to—”
“Have a relationship in which I am both attracted to and interested in the man I am seeing,” I completed for her, grinning. “I know, Mad. It’d make things so much easier.”
“Nothing is more difficult than you.” She tried swatting me away, but you could hear the grin in her voice. Her face was glowing. Mission accomplished.
“The word you are looking for is hard,” I quipped. “And thank you.”
“You are a nightmare.” She chuckled.
“But the sexy kind, right? Where you wake up with puckered nipples and ruined panties?” I egged her on. She was getting flushed, her eyes wide and full.
“I’ll leave you to deal with this, Maddie,” Ethan said coldly, hanging up before she could salvage the conversation.
Mad stood up, waving her phone in the air. “Stop clam-jamming me!” She pretended to slap my chest.
I grabbed her hand, biting the tips of her fingers playfully. “If I’m not getting some, no one in this fake engagement is.”
“We have no relationship!” She threw her head back, growling. “I cannot believe I tried so hard to keep you when we were together, only to find out you wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Give it a few weeks,” I jested.
“Stop saying that. It is disrespectful to your father. He could live for months. Even years.”
“No, he can’t.”
“Chase.”
“Mad.”
She stopped, scrunching her forehead. “Why do you call me Mad? Why not Mads? Maddie? Madison? Virtually all my other nicknames.”
I knew the answer. I’d known it for some time now. But sharing it with her felt like crossing a line, especially when I suspected I’d let my mouth run freely yesterday before I’d passed out on that hospital bed. I looked down, caught a glimpse of the wedding dress she was sketching, then looked back up. “You’re talented,” I said, changing the subject.
“And that’s surprising?” She took the hint.
“No.” Yes. “Your sketches are clean. Elegant. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“I can be clean and elegant. I choose to dress quirky and all over the place.”
“Why?”
“Because it is my personality in textile form.”
“Are you bipolar?” I deadpanned.
“Offensive.” She pretended to gag. We were good together, and she knew it. I knew it, too, which was why it was exceptionally dumb of me to continue pursuing her. She looked back at the page, frowning. “I don’t think people are going to like it. Sven, specifically.”
“Why?”
“Too many details.” She gestured toward the sketch with her hand, pointing at the sleeves, the collar, and the tulle. “Traditionally, the Dream Wedding Dress is much simpler. Cleaner lines, minimal detail, not much character. The emphasis is on the cut and the superior fit. Plus, all the dresses Croquis ever showed were pure, swan white. This one isn’t.”
“What is it, then?”
“Crème.” She bit her lower lip. My eyes slid up from the sketch to meet her gaze. She waved the sketch off. “It’s fine. Worst-case scenario, I’ll cut some of the detail.”
“No,” I said. “You won’t. It’s perfect, and it’s you. Keep it.”
Her throat worked. My eyes dipped to her delicate neck. I wanted to kiss it.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Thanks.”
“Got any sleep?”
“Yeah, some.”
“Wanna hop into the shower? Maybe I could drop you off at yours?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good. Let’s go to work. We can still recoup some of the day.”
I grabbed my keys. I knew she’d follow. She never missed a chance to cease communication with me. But for the first time, I gave a shit.
I mean, of course I gave shits.
I gave a shit about Dad.
About Black & Co.
But never about a woman. Never about a date. The uneven rattle in my chest was a warning sign. My heart tested itself. Tap, tap, tap. Is this shit working?
I gritted my teeth and punched the elevator button, not looking behind me to see if she was there.
Three days later, Dad was conscious and good to leave the hospital. I picked him up while Mom prepared the house, whatever that meant. I drove around in circles, buying time, and he didn’t seem to mind, even though his time was precious. It occurred to me we hadn’t had a meaningful conversation about something that wasn’t work since the C-word had struck. Work was a safe topic. I doubted he could remember anything from when Julian had barged into his hospital room with his contract. Dad had still been unconscious when that had happened. Grant had advised me to go easy on him and not talk about things that might spike his blood pressure. Bothering him with the Julian bullshit wasn’t on my agenda.
We were circling the same side street, passing the same Pret coffee shop and the swell of the same cluster of students huddling together, and waiting on the same traffic light. There was something depressing about other people’s joy while you were miserable. It was all very in your face.
“I wish we could get out of the city,” Dad murmured, looking out the window. “It feels filthy in the summers without the rain or snow to clean it up. Doesn’t it feel filthy to you?”
As he said that, smoke billowed from three different manholes, and some drunken frat boy hurled a beer can across the street at his friend, laughing.
“We can get out of here, if that’s what you want,” I said, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. I didn’t want to leave the business with Julian sniffing around the management floor. I didn’t want to leave Madison to fall in comfort with mediocre Ethan. What kind of name was Madison Goodman, anyway? I couldn’t let her go through with it. But Dad’s wishes had to take the front seat.
“Julian suggested we go to the ranch house in Lake George for the weekend. He even had it prepared for us,” Dad added.
Julian would drown you in the lake if it means inheriting the business,I was tempted to reply. I smiled serenely. “He did that? Great idea.”
“You can bring Madison, of course. I think she’d like it there. Lots to do. Very outdoorsy. Where is she from again?”
“Pennsylvania,” I answered. “Just outside Philadelphia.”
“Does she have any siblings?”
“No. Her mother struggled with . . .” I stopped.
Dad finished for me. “Breast cancer, right?”
“Yeah.” I was an idiot. An idiot who needed to change the subject. “Her parents owned a flower shop. Well, her dad still owns it.”
“Are they close?” Dad asked.
“Yup, real tight. She goes to see him and his girlfriend every other month. They take vacations together every year.”
“You know a lot about her, don’t you?” He turned to look at me, smiling. I did. I didn’t remember listening to what she had to say—not intentionally, anyway—but I remembered everything she’d told me about herself. Which wasn’t much, because talking was never something I’d encouraged in our relationship. But right now the burning question was whether Mad was going to humor me by joining me for another weekend outside the city. I didn’t think she would.
My father’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he picked it up on speaker. “Jul,” he said, his voice softening. He definitely didn’t remember the contract. “How is Clemmy?”
“Huh? Oh yeah. She’s fine.” Dad must’ve cockblocked the real reason he was calling. I wondered if Booger Face was ever in Julian’s mind. “Hey, look, Amb spoke to the maintenance company. The house in Lake George is good and ready. Should I pick you and Lori up, say, Friday morning?”
He was going to whisk my parents off for a weekend with his family? Sans Katie and me, while Dad was on the brink of dying and pretty much in hospice care? Hell no. I could smell his plan from miles away. Julian wanted to butter Dad up before he went for the CEO kill. Somewhere my sister and I couldn’t stop him.
“Sounds good,” Dad said. “Have you spoken to Katie?”
“No. I think she has a volunteering gig with Saint Jude’s this weekend,” Julian said. It sounded like he was sifting through papers in the background. Possibly more bullshit he wanted my father to sign. “You know how Katie is. Always a do-gooder.”
“You should try again. Katie usually volunteers every end of the month.” I butted into their conversation.
There was a pause from Julian’s end. Then he recovered. “Chase. I didn’t realize you were there.”
“He is my father.”
“Biologically, anyway.” Julian laughed good-naturedly. “You two are very different, though.”
“What’s that?” I asked, taking one last turn onto that side street before making my way to my parents’ apartment building. “Would I like to join you at the ranch? Of course I would. How nice of you to offer, Julian.”
There was a pause and then, “Bring Maddie with you. Amber’s been dying to see the engagement pictures.”
“I will.” Will I? Last I checked, Madison was going to extreme lengths to avoid me. She’d been dodging my calls and text messages. At this point, the only thing stopping her from slapping a restraining order against my ass was the fact we worked in the same building. Still, I couldn’t not be there. She had to understand.
“Great. Looking forward to it.” Julian’s voice was too relaxed. Too blasé.
But I was too enraged to realize it was a trap.
Too goddamn rabid to know what I was willingly walking into.
/p