SWNOVELS The Chase: Chapter 28
“We’re going to be late,” I tell Summer’s closet. I’d like to tell Summer herself, but she’s been locked up in the cavernous walk-in for the past two hours.
At first I didn’t mind, because it gave me the opportunity to explore the penthouse, which I didn’t have a chance to do when I came here with Dean once. The place has a sleek, modern design, and it’s luxury to the max. I’d poked my head into their library, and then had to duck right back out, because I’d require about three full days to thoroughly examine the contents of the enormous, walnut-paneled room.
I can’t believe real people actually live here. And not even full time; Summer’s parents split their time between this surreal apartment and their mansion in Greenwich. I’m afraid to even see pictures of the latter. I hear it has a skating rink in the backyard.
It’s a stroke of luck that Kamal Jain’s fundraiser for leukemia is being held in one of the ballrooms downstairs. That means Summer and I didn’t have to spring for a room in this insanely priced hotel. Nope, we’re staying for free in the penthouse. Though that’s not a detail I plan to reveal to Kamal. I feel like he wouldn’t like the idea that I’m staying somewhere better than him, assuming he’s at this hotel. For all I know, he’s boarding his private jet after the shindig and flying to a villa in the Mediterranean.
“I’m almost ready,” Summer’s muffled voice replies.
“Three minutes, give or take five minutes.”
Laughter bubbles in my throat. This girl.
We got in last night, and we’ve been having a blast so far. I ate her out on the pool table, which was hot. She blew me on her California king mattress, and then we snuggled in bed and binged a show about child killers. Summer agreed to watch it with me in exchange for—ugh. I don’t even want to think about it. But I may or may not have agreed to watch the latest season of The Bachelor with her. Summer has that effect on me. My first instinct is to say yes to anything she asks, because I want to make her happy.
We’ve spent almost every waking hour together for the past three weeks. She sleeps in my bedroom. Her makeup clutters my bathroom counter. Every morning she rumples her bedsheets to make it look like she’s still sleeping in her own room. I think it’s for Hunter’s sake, but he’s not an idiot. He knows.
No matter how quiet we think we’re being when we have sex, I have no doubt both Hunter and Hollis are well aware that we’re sleeping together.
But short of moving out, or asking Summer to, I don’t how to make the situation with Hunter any better. And at the moment, I need to focus on impressing Kamal Jain.
“Summer,” I grumble. “Your three minutes are up. I know the event is right downstairs, but I think it’d make a bad impression if we were late to—”
My vocal cords seize, all coherent thought flying out of my brain
Summer’s closet is clearly a magical portal. She entered it wearing Lululemon pants, wool socks, and one of my hockey hoodies.
She exits it looking like a goddess.
A slinky silver dress is plastered to her body, hugging every tantalizing curve. A slit goes up to her thigh, revealing one long, tanned leg, and her silver stilettos add about another four inches to her already tall frame. Her golden hair is up in an elegant twist held together by an ornate clip that sparkles under the light fixture overhead. It takes me a moment to realize that her hairclip is sparkling because it’s encrusted with diamonds.
Summer notes my expression. Her makeup is subtle except for her bright red lips, which curve into a smile. It’s really fucking hot.
“You like?” She spins in a circle and her shimmery dress swirls around her ankles.
“I like,” I say gruffly.
“How much?” She plants a hand on her waist, cocks her hip, and thrusts a leg out in a pose that makes me groan. My dick twitches at the sight of her bare thigh emerging from the dress’s slit.
“I like a lot.” I clear the gravel from my throat. “How ‘bout me?”
She scrutinizes me from head to toe. Completely unnecessary considering she’s the one who chose every scrap of fabric on my body, from the Tom Ford shoes to the crisp black suit jacket to the navy-blue dress shirt with only the top button undone. Summer said that as hot as my chest tattoo is, she doesn’t want it peeking out tonight. Apparently, she’s been to this leukemia fundraiser before (why am I not surprised?), and she warned me that the crowd will consist of a lot of old people with very deep pockets—and very closed minds.
“You look sharp, babe. Super professional. Oh, and sexy.”
I laugh. “Perfect. Sexy is what I’m going for. I plan on sleeping with Kamal Jain to get the job.”
“Let me know how that works out for you.”
The penthouse has an elevator requiring a key that only Summer’s family has access to. As we ride it downstairs, she takes her phone out of her silver clutch and opens Instagram. “Let’s take a selfie,” she announces, and the next thing I know she’s pulling me into frame and snapping a dozen photos of us.
“You’re the worst,” I tell her, because she knows I hate selfies.
She beams at me. “I think what you mean is, I’m the best.”
I snort. “My bad. That’s exactly what I meant.”
We reach the lobby. Summer’s heels click on the marble floor as she glides across it. The Heyward Plaza is hands down the fanciest hotel I’ve ever seen. I can’t fathom that Summer might inherit it one day.
She smiles and waves at the concierge. “Evening, Thomas.”
The white-haired man gives her a warm smile in return. “Evening, Miss Summer. Try not to cause too much trouble tonight, will you?”
I snicker under my breath.
“Thomas has worked here for more than twenty years,” she explains as we enter another hallway that holds another elevator bank.
“Really?”
She nods. “I was a baby when he got hired, so he pretty much watched me grow up.”
“Ah. So he’s had a front-row seat to all your troublemaking.”
“Oh yeah. My Greenwich friends and I used to sneak into the city and come to the hotel, and I thought I was bribing him to keep quiet by slipping him hundreds.” She makes an outraged face. “And then I found out he was double-crossing me.”
I snort. “Ratted you out to the parents, huh?”
“Every single time. But they never said a word. I didn’t realize they knew about it until years later, after I left for college. My parents are really cool,” she admits. “If I wanted to cut a day of school to go shopping with my friends, they didn’t mind as long as I was safe and didn’t make it a habit.”
The elevator shows up, and we walk inside. Summer presses the button for the “Heather Ballroom.” There are four other ballrooms on the list, all named after flowers. The Lily, the Rose, the Heather, and the Dahlia. Fancy.
The doors ding open, and we’re met by a crescendo of noise—a symphony of glass clinking, high heels clacking on hardwood, the hum of conversation, laughter.
Summer links her arm through mine as we approach the massive arched doorway of the ballroom. Beyond it, I see elegantly dressed people milling around in an elegantly decorated room. The stage is set up for a live band, but they’re not playing at the moment. Round tables with pristine tablecloths and ornate centerpieces are scattered on either side of the shiny dance floor. I don’t see anyone eating actual meals, but the waiters thread their way through the crowd carrying trays of hors d’oeuvres.
This totally isn’t my scene. A sea of gowns and tuxedos swells before me, fingers and earlobes and wrists sparkling and gleaming like the front window of a lighting store. And I thought Summer’s diamond hairclip was flashy. I gape as I spot a middle-aged woman wearing ruby earrings that are so enormous, her earlobes are actually stretching due to their heft.
“Is that him?” Summer whispers in my ear.
“Yup.” I’m not surprised that she’s picked Kamal out of the crowd. Despite his small stature, he’s got a big personality.
He holds court across the room near the largest of the three bars in the ballroom. Wild hand gestures and animated facial expressions accompany whatever long-winded anecdote he’s regaling his audience with.
We stand there watching as his half-dozen admirers all burst into laughter. “Must be a great story,” she remarks. “Or it’s boring as fuck, and they’re just sucking up to him because he’s a gazilliotrillionaire.”
I laugh. My girl has a way with words. Especially ones she makes up. “Could go either way.”
“Well, let’s say hello. He’s the reason you’re here, right?”
“Right.”
Anxiety tickles my stomach as we approach the bar. The second he notices me, Kamal breaks off midsentence, his expression lighting up. He slaps the arm of the old dude beside him and says, “Gonna have to excuse me, brother. My guest has arrived.” He disengages from the group and strides toward me. “You made it!”
“Thanks again for inviting—”
He’s still talking, as he always does. “Was worried about you, man! Everyone else got here before the doors were even open, saw them lurking in the lobby like a bunch of creeps, but hey, better early than late, huh?” There’s a bite to his last statement.
“You can blame me for our tardiness,” Summer says sheepishly. “I held us up.”
Kamal does a double take, as if he’s suddenly realized I’m not alone. He scrutinizes Summer from head to toe, and there’s nothing subtle about the way he does it. His eyes linger on her cleavage. They linger even longer on the diamonds in her hair.
“And who might you be?” he finally asks.
“I’m Summer.” She extends one delicate hand. “Colin’s girlfriend.”
Kamal’s eyebrows soar. He takes her hand, but rather than shake it, he brings it to his lips and kisses her knuckles. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Her smile looks forced. “Likewise.”
He releases her hand and turns to address me. “You never mentioned you had a girlfriend.”
I shrug awkwardly. “Well. Yeah. It didn’t exactly come up in the interview.”
“No reason why it should have,” Summer says lightly. “Job interviews are about the candidate’s résumé, not their personal life. Right?”
“Right,” Kamal echoes. Once again, his tone has a bite to it. And his expression is darkening by the second.
I can’t figure out the source of his displeasure, but the longer he looks at Summer, the more his demeanor changes. I swear I see the corner of his mouth curl in a slight sneer. I guess the source is Summer? But I couldn’t tell you why.
“Is it just me, or is this really uncomfortable?” Summer hisses in my ear an hour later. She’d dragged me onto the dance floor and looped her arms around my neck, leaving me no choice but to rest my hands on her hips and pretend I know how to dance.
I understand her motivation, though—it was the only way to unglue ourselves from Kamal’s side. He hasn’t let us out of his sight since we arrived. That’s not to say he hasn’t been mingling. He has, only he’s been dragging me and Summer along with him to every conversation. The other job hopefuls trail behind us like baby ducklings, and I feel bad for them because he isn’t paying them a lick of attention. He seems utterly fascinated by Summer, yet at the same time I sense animosity rippling beneath the surface.
“It’s not just you. He’s acting strange.”
“No, he’s acting like a dick.” She bites her lip. “I feel like he’s judging us. I can’t really explain it…” She trails off.
I know precisely what she means. I’ve felt it too.
The song ends before I’m ready, and panic jolts through me when the bluesy lead singer announces they’re taking a ten-minute break. Summer laces her fingers through mine as we walk to the edge of the dance floor.
“Don’t hate me,” she says, “but…I really have to pee.”
I grip her hand. “Nope. You can’t abandon me here with these people.”
She giggles. “You say the word ‘people’ like it’s a disease.”
“People are a disease,” I grumble.
“You can survive without me for five minutes.” She kisses my cheek and then rubs her index finger over it, I suspect to wipe off the lipstick stain she left. “I’ll be right back. Promise.”
I watch in defeat as she saunters off. At the bar, I order a Sam Adams and a very efficient bartender in a white shirt and black tie hands me a bottle. “Thanks,” I tell her.
I’ve barely taken a sip before Kamal appears. I’m surprised he didn’t leech on to me the moment Summer and I stepped off the dance floor.
“That’s some dress your girlfriend’s wearing, Colin.” He swishes the tumbler of bourbon he’s holding. It’s not the first one he’s consumed tonight. I’ve seen him order at least three drinks since I got here, and who knows how many he ingested before that.
I make a noncommittal gesture, a cross between a shrug and a hand flutter, because accepting a compliment on Summer’s behalf feels weird.
“Who are you?”
The question comes out of left field. I furrow my brow and search his expression, but I can’t decipher it. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is…” He throws back the rest of his drink and then slams the glass on the bar. “Another one,” he barks at the bartender.
She flinches at his sharp tone. “Right away, sir.”
“What I mean, Colin,” he continues, as if the woman hadn’t spoken, “is that I thought you were one of us.” He gestures to the other three job candidates—two males, one female. All college-aged like me. “Neil, Ahmed, Robin. Me. You. The outcasts who turned to video games because of people like the girl you showed up with tonight.”
My shoulders stiffen.
“All my life I’ve had to deal with those people. The pretty people.” He accepts his fresh drink and takes several deep swigs. “The jocks and the cheerleaders and the popular assholes who think they’re entitled to do whatever the fuck they want. They bully without consequences. They get everything handed to them on a silver platter. They float through life and expect everyone to step aside for them.”
I set my untouched beer on the bar and speak in a measured tone. “I’ve never floated through anything. My mom’s an ESL teacher, and my dad is a shift supervisor at a power plant. They work their asses off, and so do I. I spent all my free time in high school drawing and painting and playing video games. And playing hockey,” I relent, even though I know it’s a dirty word to him. “I play hockey because I love it, and I’m good at it. Same way I’m good at game design,” I finish with a shrug.
“You’ve got some real arrogance on you, kid.” A flash of steel enters his eyes.
Summer chooses that unfortunate moment to return to the ballroom. She draws the attention of every person, male and female, as she struts across the shiny floor. She’s stunning and nobody can look away. Everyone wants to be a part of that beauty, even if it’s simply admiring her as she sashays past them.
It’s her orbit.
That damn orbit.
Kamal slings back the rest of his drink. His disdain-heavy gaze never leaves Summer. “Look at her,” he mutters. “You think she’d be with you if you weren’t a jock? Bitches like her only want one thing, Colin.” He laughs coldly. “I bet if I snapped my fingers and told her I was interested, she’d be on my dick faster than you can say gold digger. Why would she waste her time on some low-rent college athlete when she can have a billionaire, right?”
My lips thin. “You don’t know her.”
He chuckles.
Summer is halfway to us now. Her blonde hair catches the light of the huge crystal chandelier over our heads. Her diamond hairclip winks like a strobe with each step she takes.
“Trust me, I know her. Lordy, lordy, do I know her. All I do is date women like her. They don’t give a shit about us, Colin. They’re gone the moment a sweeter deal comes along.”
I could argue, but what’s the point? He’s already made his assumptions about me and Summer, about what it means to be an athlete, a nerd, a pretty girl.
Summer reaches us, and she must glimpse something in my expression that worries her, because she takes my hand and gives it a comforting squeeze. “Everything okay?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Kamal guffaws, before tapping the bar to signal the bartender. He smacks it again and again and again, like a bratty kid trying to get his mom’s attention. “Bourbon,” he snaps at the harried woman. He turns back to us. “So what’s your major?” he asks Summer.
She blinks at the sudden change of topic. “Fashion—”
He interrupts before she’s done speaking. “Of course it’s fashion.” Scorn drips from every word.
“You got a problem with fashion?” she asks lightly, but I can tell from her rigid posture that she’s on guard. She manages a teasing laugh. “Because as far as I can tell, you sure do enjoy the company of models.”
He doesn’t laugh back. “I see. Someone like me can’t date beautiful women? Is that what you’re insinuating?”
“Not at all. And clearly you can date beautiful women, because you—”
“They’re only with me for my money? Is that what you think?”
“Of course not. I just—”
“Of course you would think that,” he snaps. His cheeks are slowly reddening. “And guess what, you’re right. That is the only thing pretty bitches like you are after—money. You won’t be signing any prenups, will you, Summer? No, no, no, bitches like you need to be taken care of. You need to spend all my hard-earned cash.”
I move closer to Summer in a protective gesture. “That’s enough,” I say in a low voice. He keeps throwing the word bitch around, and loudly. I suspect he’s talking about one specific woman—the girl from college who wouldn’t sign his prenuptial agreement. But I don’t give a shit if he had his heart broken by the Queen of fucking England. Nobody talks to or about Summer like that.
Kamal isn’t intimidated by the menacing command. He laughs again. A high-pitched sound that grates on my nerves. “It’s enough when I say it’s enough.” He tosses back the last of his bourbon and then tries to place the empty tumbler on the bar. Except he’s about a foot away from it, because he’s drunk as a skunk and lacking all coordination. So he sets the glass down—on nothing.
It crashes to the floor and shatters. Glass shards shoot in all directions, and I quickly pull Summer away from the mess. I look at the bartender. “Could you please call someone to come and—”
“Oh, they’ll come!” Kamal hoots. “Someone always comes to clean up my messes. Wanna know why, Colin? Summer? Hazard a guess?” He starts cackling to himself. “Because I’m a billionaire! I’m a fucking god in the tech industry and I can buy and sell everyone in this fucking room! I—”
“You’re drunk,” I coldly interrupt.
“Oh, shut up, you dumb jock.” He’s so sloshed, he’s rocking on his feet, but when I reach out to try and steady him, he slaps my hand away. “Fuck off. I don’t need your help. And I don’t need you working for my company. You got that? The position’s been filled, Colin.” He chortles again. “Thank you for your interest.”
Summer takes a menacing step toward him. “What’s the matter, Mr. Jain? You won’t hire Colin because, what? He plays hockey and is better-looking than you?”
He takes a step back. Glass crunches beneath his expensive leather shoes. From the corner of my eye, I see several figures approaching. All around us, people are staring. Their curious gazes pierce into me. My spine won’t stop prickling.
“Ms. Heyward, are you all right?” A tall, bulky man in a black suit and tie appears in front of us.
I have no idea who he is, but Summer does. She gratefully touches his arm. “I’m fine, Diego. But there’s broken glass all over the floor. Could you ask maintenance to send someone ASAP?”
“Right away.” He flicks a wary look at Kamal.
Kamal’s busy staring at Summer. “Heyward?” he echoes. He furrows and unfurrows his brow, repeatedly. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Watch your language, Mr. Jain,” barks Diego.
“Who the fuck are you?” is the retort.
“I’m the head of security at this hotel,” the beefy man replies, baring his teeth in the scariest smile I’ve ever seen. “The hotel that Ms. Heyward’s family happens to own. And I do believe it’s time for you to retire for the evening, Mr. Jain. Why don’t I have one of my associates escort you to your suite?”
“Fuck you. I’m giving a fucking speech in ten fucking minutes.” He looks over at me and starts to laugh in loud, nasally snorts. “Well, good for you, Colin. Here I thought she was the gold digger, riding your big cock for your jock money, but you’re the gold digger, eh? Digging for gold in her heiress pussy.”
Summer flinches.
Diego steps forward.
Me, I sadly shake my head and meet Kamal’s glazed eyes. “It’s a really depressing world you live in, man. This world where everybody’s a gold digger, where everybody’s using each other, or competing against each other. This world where two people can’t be together because they might love each other.” I chuckle darkly. “Honestly? I’m glad you’re not giving me the job. I’d rather be out on the street than work for someone like you. I don’t even want to know what kind of toxic working environment you create for your employees.”
I think Kamal tries to keep arguing, but I tune him out. Besides, Diego and his “associates” are prompt in escorting the drunk and belligerent billionaire out of the Heather Ballroom. I don’t know what that means for the leukemia fundraising, but as much as I support the cause, I don’t care to stay a second longer at this stuffy, shitty event.
In unspoken agreement, Summer and I leave the ballroom. I can tell she’s upset because her teeth are digging into her bottom lip, but she doesn’t say a word. Not a single word, at least not until we’re riding the private elevator up to the penthouse.
The moment the doors ding open, Summer fixes me with a miserable look and says, “I’m breaking up with you.”