Dark Promises

by Winter Renshaw

  “You’re relentless.” I fight a smile.

  The only reason I went on that date with him was because I wanted it to get back to Hunter, and judging by the sheer number of cell phone snaps taken during our dinner, it’s only a matter of time before that happens.

  “I’m not going to date you just because you brought me popcorn and ice cream,” I say. “And just because I let you in doesn’t mean this is going to be a regular thing, you and me hanging out.”

  His mouth curls at one side and he passes through my doorway, setting his things down on my kitchen island.

  I stand opposite him and our eyes hold for a moment.

  “You’re really pretty without makeup on,” he says in such a way that I wholeheartedly believe him.

  “Staaaahp,” I say, waving my hand. “Flattery gets you nowhere with me.”

  “It’s not flattery if it’s the truth.” He tosses a few buttery kernels in his mouth before grinning. “What are we watching?”

  Sighing, I glance back at the overabundant selection on the TV screen. “I don’t know yet.”

  Heading to the living room, I take a seat in the center of the sofa and grab the remote, flipping through options all over again. I’m in an indecisive mood for some reason.

  Keir takes his time making his way toward me, as if he doesn’t want to seem too forward, but once he’s here, he has no issue taking the seat beside me, sitting so close his cologne invades my lungs and his body heat mingles with mine.

  Smooth, Keir.

  Really.

  Fighting another smirk, I settle on a binge-worthy series under my recommendations and pretend like I don’t notice his sweat-pant-covered thigh pressed up against mine.

  8

  Keir

  “So how’d it go?” Connor gets down to business when he strolls into my apartment the following afternoon.

  “I didn’t stay the night, if that’s what you’re asking.” My words are dry, my patience thin.

  “Of course you didn’t. You’re a gentleman,” he reminds me. “But was there a kiss? Chemistry? Anything?”

  “She let me in,” I say. “So there was that.”

  Connor rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger after yanking off his glasses. “She’s putting you in the friend zone and … and … you’re just going to sit back and allow it?”

  “I’m trying. I’m doing everything you told me to do, saying all the stupid shit you tell me to say even if there’s fucking bile rising in the back of my throat when I say it.” I rise, pacing, ranting. “I’ve never given out my phone number to a woman I barely know. I’ve never chased anyone. I’ve never showed up at someone’s door with ice cream and stayed in watching Netflix on a Saturday night.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t have told you to do that. That one’s all you.” He exhales, his hands on his hips. “That was a pretty friend zone thing to do.”

  I throw my hands up. “You told me to be a gentleman. That’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to get to know her, trying not to make this whole thing … sexual … which is ironically what she wants. I’d love nothing more than to make her dream come true, but you’ve got me by the balls here, Connor. Maybe we should just find another girl? Or hell, hire a fucking actress and make her sign a non-disclosure.”

  “No, no. My team did extensive research. She’s perfect for what we need. You can’t fake authenticity,” he says. “People would see through an actress.”

  I begin to respond when the doorman buzzes me. “Give me a sec, Connor. Go ahead, Roger.”

  “I’ve got an Alexis Hartman here to see you. Should I send her up?” he replies.

  My mouth draws in to a tight smirk when I think about her ripe DDs. All natural. And that mouth. It’s like fucking a porn star, only her face belongs in a Victoria’s Secret catalog.

  “No! No, no, no!” Connor’s yell is more of a whisper, and he’s flailing his arms behind me like a goddamned toddler throwing a tantrum.

  I shoot him a look, a soundless scowl as if to make it perfectly clear that nobody tells me no.

  “Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea. Need I remind you you’re a changed man now? We’re in full reputation repair mode. You are not to engage in casual sex with random women who stop by your place in the middle of an afternoon on a Sunday. And who the hell does that?”

  “Keir, you still there?” Roger asks.

  I buzz him back, groaning. “Yeah. Tell her I’m busy.”

  Glancing at Connor, he doesn’t seem satisfied with my response.

  “Tell her … tell her I have a girlfriend,” I add. “And never to come here again.”

  Damn.

  She was one of the more ‘skilled’ ones too.

  “Is this seriously something I’m going to have to worry about with you?” Connor asks, taking a seat in my favorite chair without asking. I’m more preoccupied with the fact that he’s in my spot than the fact that his nasal lecture is completely unnecessary. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to go one damn year keeping your shit together. Not to mention maybe you should think about settling down. You want a career in politics? You need to walk a fine line or they’ll make a laughingstock out of you just like they did with your parents when that ridiculous book came out.”

  I know he’s right. Well aware. But the reality of taking a sexual sabbatical hasn’t sunk in until now, having been forced to turn Alexis away. I can only imagine her sauntering off in her fuck-me heels, scratching her head and wondering what the hell just happened.

  “Here.” Connor takes my cell off the kitchen counter and shoves it toward me. “Call her. Call Rowan. See if she wants to, I don’t know, have a drink.”

  Grabbing it out of his hand, I dial her number. I don’t appreciate that he’s acting like I’m an incompetent asshole. I know what I’m doing. I also know when a woman wants nothing to do with me. It’s incredibly rare, but it happens.

  The line rings.

  And rings.

  And rings.

  Her voicemail picks up. “Hi, you’ve reached Rowan Aldridge. Sorry I couldn’t take your call. Leave a message.”

  I sit the phone down and look him square in the eyes. “She didn’t answer.”

  9

  Rowan

  “Rowan!” My little brother, Isaac, runs into my arms the second Hannah and I cross the threshold of our parents’ Potomac estate.

  “Happy birthday, buddy.” I ruffle his sandy brown hair and wrap him in my arms. “How does it feel to be eleven?”

  I hope he’s always this sweet.

  I hope he never changes.

  I hope he never becomes a lying, cheating prick and he’s always content to play Legos and video games and baseball in the backyard for the rest of his life.

  Screw adulthood.

  “Do I look taller?” he asks, though he’s joking. When he was younger, maybe four or five, he woke up the morning of his birthday and tried to convince everyone he’d suddenly grown taller because he was older. We’ve teased him about it ever since.

  “Girls, glad you could make it,” our mother, Deborah, glides across the foyer in her Chanel flats, placing her hands on our shoulders and kissing the air beside each of our cheeks, which is shocking since no one’s around to watch, but I suppose she’s in “public” mode with all these guests here for Isaac’s party. “How was the ride over?”

  “Good. It was good.” Hannah glances over her shoulder, readjusting the brown leather duffel bag full of dirty laundry on her shoulder. “I’m just going to start a load really quick …”

  My sister ditches me and Isaac slips his hand in mine. With a sixteen-year age difference, we’re fortunate to be so close, but looking into his innocent emerald eyes, I’m awash with guilt at the fact that I don’t come home nearly as much as I should.

  While my parents’ house is nothing short of gorgeous, it symbolizes oppression to me; a stifled, stunted adolescence, unfair curfews, absentee parents, and irrationally strict house rules which we were never allowed
to question or challenge unless we wanted to be shipped off to boarding school. Case in point? We were never allowed to have friends over, not even on weekends, which made it doubly hard to make friends at West Potomac Prep.

  “You look … thinner,” my mother says, running her palm down her own flat stomach. Appearances are everything to her. So is competition. My father met her in the late eighties, when he was judging some local beauty pageant which my mother won by a landslide. She went on to run for Miss Maryland but didn’t make the cut, which was how she ended up at Wellesley studying human and family development. “Have you been eating?”

  What she’s really asking is, “Have you stumbled upon some miraculous diet and exercise regimen I’ve yet to hear about?”

  “It’s called being dumped by your boyfriend of almost two years when you least expect it,” I say, my tone dry and blunt.

  Her jaw hangs. “What? Hunter broke up with you? How did I not know about this?”

  I’d have figured Hannah would’ve told our other sister Adeline and Adeline would’ve told our other brother Deacon and at some point word would’ve made it back to my parents.

  But I guess not.

  “Sweetheart.” She slips into her comforting mother skin and wraps her arms around me, holding me tight. I inhale her Chanel No. 5, wishing it brought me reprieve instead of making me nauseous. “I had no idea. You two were so perfect together—political parties aside. Did he say why?”

  “He wants to focus on his campaign,” I say.

  “What a shame.” She clucks her tongue, looking at me now. I almost believe her sympathy is genuine. “Why don’t you come in, grab some food, and make the rounds. Aunt Cindy and Aunt Vicki flew in from Seattle. They’d love to catch up with you.”

  Drawing in a deep breath, I prepare myself for the Spanish Inquisition that is Cindy and Vicki. Separate? I can handle them. Together? I better be quick on my feet.

  The kitchen table is sporting not one but two extenders and at least a dozen or more seats, all but one of them filled, surround it. Guests fill every room in this house from the study to the family room to the two-story covered patio out back and the stamped cement that surrounds the lagoon pool.

  Leave it to my mother to throw a hundred-person soiree for her baby’s eleventh birthday. Lord knows we didn’t get these kinds of parties. Sometimes I think she’s going all out and making up for forgetting the rest of our birthdays most of the time.

  “Rowan, is that you? Oh. My. Goodness.” Aunt Vicki rises from her seat at the end of the kitchen table, arms outstretched, and waddles toward me. Wrapping me in a bear hug and rubbing her cheap perfume all over my blouse, she kisses my cheek before cupping my face in her hands. “Look how beautiful you’ve become.”

  “She’s always been a beauty,” my mother muses from the doorway, her arms folded and a Mother of the Year smile on her face. “She’s only gotten better with age. It’s a shame she never got into pageantry. My Rowan would’ve owned the stage.”

  Aunt Vicki poo-poos my mother. “Rowan was meant for bigger things than beauty pageants.”

  Mom laughs, like she’s amused by Vicki’s comment, but I can tell by her eyes that she’s basking in the fact that beauty pageant or no, she’s the prettiest, smartest, most successful sister of the three.

  “Where’s the food? I’m starving,” I say. My appetite’s been nonexistent lately, but I need a break from the spotlight already. Heading to the kitchen where an elaborate, obviously catered spread covers the marble island, I grab a plate and load it with cucumber sandwiches, macarons, and various vegetables cut into fancy shapes.

  “So Rowan, get back over here and tell us what you’ve been up to,” Aunt Cindy calls from the table. “How’s that boyfriend of yours? The one with the Southern accent and those big, broad shoulders? What was his name? Brett?”

  I almost choke on the flower-shaped carrot I’ve just put in my mouth.

  “Hunter,” my mother says, her gaze flicking to me. “And they’ve recently parted ways, so she’s back on the market.”

  “I’m sure someone’ll snatch her up in no time,” Aunt Cindy says. “You’re too good of a catch. Highly doubt you’ll be waiting much longer.”

  Taking a seat between my aunts, I grab another cracker. “I have no intentions of dating again anytime soon. I kind of just want to work and focus on myself.”

  My mother exhales, tucking her pointed chin against her chest. Work is a sore subject for her given the fact that I turned in my notice last month.

  I don’t want to work for family anymore.

  I want to actually use my degree and work my way to the top and rest on my own laurels for once. It was kind of them to give me a job out of college, but I’ve realized they’re doing me no favors in the long run. Plus, a change would be good for me. Maybe I’ll even get out of DC one of these days.

  Wouldn’t that be something …

  “Tell them about the president’s son,” Hannah says, appearing in the doorway with a shit-eating grin. I’m glad she’s amused by this.

  “Hannah,” I say her name under my breath.

  “What?” She shrugs a lanky shoulder. “Those are some major bragging rights, Row.”

  “Should I tell them about the entire night or just the—”

  Quickly remembering the reason why the Secret Service agents had to escort her from a party to the back of Keir’s SUV, she blushes. “The condensed version.”

  That’s what I thought.

  All eyes rest on me, wide and eager to hear the story. There’s no getting out of this. Too bad my sister, Adeline, isn’t here. She’s always been good at reading my mind and gracefully changing subjects without people noticing.

  Alas, she’s in Seattle, stuck at work.

  “I ran into Keir Montgomery the other night and we had coffee,” I lie, giving them alternative facts. What they don’t know won’t hurt them. “Before any of you get your hopes up, you should know it was completely innocent.”

  The room is quiet except for the sliding glass door behind us and one of the kids from the backyard running in with muddy shoes and a sweaty face. One of my mom’s friends rises from the table to assist him, telling him to remove his shoes before he tracks mud all over Deborah’s beautiful floors. My mother insists it’s fine, and for the tiniest moment the attention isn’t focused on me.

  I finish most of the food on my plate in record time and dump the rest in the trash in the kitchen, hoping I can sneak upstairs and lock myself in my room for a second so I can have one moment of silence amidst the chaos of the party.

  I don’t want to talk about Hunter. I don’t want to talk about being single. I don’t want to talk about the president’s son.

  No one ever fixates on Adeline or Hannah’s dating lives.

  Always mine.

  The heat in the house is stifling as the late August sun burns through the back windows of the house, creating a makeshift sauna.

  “Rowan, where are you going?” Mom stops me, digging her manicured hand into my forearm before leaning closer. “You can’t wander off with all these people here. It’s rude.”

  “I just need a second,” I say, jerking my arm away and heading toward the stairs. I don’t wait for her to respond. She probably wouldn’t anyway. Deborah Aldridge wouldn’t be caught dead making a scene in front of all these people, not when she wrote the gold standard book on how to handle a parent-child conflict the peaceful way.

  Climbing the left half of the grand staircase off the foyer, I turn at the top and head to the last door on the left. The south half of the upstairs housed all the children’s bedrooms. The north half was my parents’ private wing along with two seldom-used guest rooms that were mostly for show.

  When I finally make it to my old room, I kick off my ballet flats and lock the door behind me before curling up on my bed. Everything smells the same, a mixture of raspberry body spray and fabric softener and watermelon Bubble Yum. It’s amazing how the scents of my childhood have seeped into
the carpet, the walls, the pile of stuffed animals in the corner, just lingering.

  Resting my head on my pillow, I glance down at my outfit. White shorts and a red striped Breton top, a carefully crafted New England-chic outfit intended not to invite curious stares from my mother when no one’s looking.

  I’m somewhere lost in thought when my phone vibrates in my pocket.

  Checking it, I suck in a startled breath when I find Keir’s name flashing across my screen.

  My thumb hovers over the answer button. He was so sweet last night, bringing over ice cream and popcorn and cracking jokes. And he seemed, for a moment, so down to earth.

  I spent most of the night wondering who the real Keir Montgomery was because the one sitting next to me didn’t match the one I’d read dozens of gossip articles about.

  The phone stops buzzing before I’ve had a chance to make my decision.

  It’s for the best, anyway.

  I don’t want to date him.

  I don’t want to date anybody.

  10

  Keir

  “She’s at the Beatrix Cafe on Lexington and Sixty-second,” Connor tells me Monday evening just past six o’clock. His voice plays over my speaker phone as I adjust my tie. I’m meeting him and some potential donor for dinner downtown around seven, and I need to look the part of a serious contender.

  “I’m getting ready for our dinner.”

  “Okay, but it’s not for an hour. Have your driver take you there.”

  “Dressed like this? In a suit and tie? That won’t be obvious.” Rowan didn’t answer when I called last night, and the more I think about it, the more I realize Connor was right: she did put me in the friend zone.

  Fuck.

  “I’m starting to think she’s not worth my time,” I say. “Beating a dead horse has never been my thing. Not when there are a million other options.”

  “But there’s only one Rowan Aldridge.” Connor exhales into the phone. “Just … go. It’s right down the street from you. Grab your security detail and go there. I’m told she’s dressed in navy blue, sitting at a table and reading something on her iPad.”