Forget where I am.
Forget why my heart still hurts . . .
Giving myself a final once-over in the mirror, I tuck a blonde wave over my right shoulder and pull the door wide.
And he’s right there, practically filling the doorway, wearing his signature devil-may-care smirk.
Almost instantly, my lips draw up in the corners and our eyes meet.
“I was wondering when you were going to make your move,” I say.
“You’re a distraction.” His eyes are wild, trained on me.
I lift a brow. “I beg your pardon?”
“I came here for a drink. Was supposed to meet someone,” he says. “And then I saw you.”
I try to contain the frivolous satisfaction building deep in my chest before it radiates from the tips of my toes to the top of my head.
“Bold,” I say, pushing past him as if I’m not entertained by any of this. If my plan is going to work, he has to chase me. Men don’t like to be pursued, especially men like Keir.
Men are hunters by nature and hunters choose their prey, not the other way around.
“Maybe I didn’t want you to get away.” He reaches for me, clamping his hand around my wrist and steering me to a dark corner as a group of women in tight dresses push past us with wide, staring eyes. He doesn’t so much as blink in their direction. “Not before I had my chance.”
“What makes you think you have a chance?” I try not to snicker, though I love the direction we’re headed.
His gaze holds mine. I allow his aftershave to drown my senses as my hands ache to touch the body of a man they’ve never known.
“Keir,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “I’m Rowan.”
“I know.”
It takes everything I have to keep my jaw from coming unhinged.
He knows me?
“You’re an Aldridge,” he says. His stare is magnetic, unapologetic. “Your parents worked on my father’s last campaign. You were away in college. They showed me pictures. A man doesn’t forget a face like that.”
That had to have been four years ago. Maybe more?
“You want to get out of here?” he asks.
The background blurs, and I exhale. I can’t take my eyes off him, those dreamy blues, that strong jaw, that weighted stare …
“It’s loud,” he adds, “and I want to talk to you.”
“Why?” I fight a smirk.
“Does it matter?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“Come with me.” He slips his hand into mine and nods at one of his agents. In an instant, we’re dashing out the back door, hopping over rain puddles, and getting into a black SUV.
His hand rests on my knee as we ride, and I focus on the swish of the windshield wipers.
Everything’s happening so fast.
I figured there’d be a little more song, a little more dance. A little more push, a little more pull.
I suppose he didn’t get his reputation by wooing and taking his sweet time.
The city lights are a blur outside the passenger windows, and within minutes, the SUV stops in front of a brick building called The Hightower. I’ve probably passed this building a thousand times before, never realizing he lived here. His personal address was the only thing I couldn’t dig up on him.
One of the agents leaves the front seat and gets the door. Keir climbs out first, then he takes my hand, leading me beneath a black awning.
None of this feels real, but I remind myself this is what I came for.
He pulls me close against him, the heat from our bodies mixing as we rush through the rain to get inside. Once we’ve made it, he leads me toward a lobby elevator, his agents flanking our sides. As we rise, Keir glances down at me, his lips lifting in one corner and a wicked little dimple flashing. My heart flutters. He says nothing, only exhales.
“Don’t be nervous,” he says, voice low.
“What makes you think I’m nervous?”
His breath is warm against my cheek, and his thumb caresses the inside of my wrist with slow, deliberate strokes. He hasn’t taken his hands, or his eyes, off me since we left the bar.
The elevator doors part, and his agents lead us to an apartment door at the end of a hall. He swipes his key card and the lock beeps. The men wait outside, and we disappear into a dark apartment with a twinkling view of Washington, DC.
It’s romantic.
But I didn’t seek Keir because I wanted hearts and flowers and moonlit cityscapes.
I have an agenda, and I’m sticking to it. I won’t let a little dreamy ambience throw me off my game.
“Drink?” he asks, moving toward a cart against the wall. This man wastes zero time.
“Please.” I place my clutch on a kitchen island and make my way toward the floor to ceiling windows in the living room. I’ve never seen the city from these heights before. Everything seems smaller, less significant. Down below, hundreds of thousands of people are doing hundreds of thousands of things, but up here, it’s just the two of us and we’re a world away from it all.
Keir gently brushes my shoulder a moment later, a drink in his hand, which I accept.
“Thank you.” I take a sip, tasting rum and sugared lime, and my eyes rest on his.
“Do you always go home with men you don’t know?” he asks.
His question catches me off guard, and I’m not sure whether to laugh or be offended. “All the time. Like, almost every night.”
I keep a straight face, hiding my twitching mouth with my drink.
“What made you decide to get in the car with me?” he asks.
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it does,” he says, brows narrowed.
“Because I wanted to, Keir,” I say. “That’s why.”
“I always got the impression you were a good girl. I mean, with your parents being who they are and all . . .”
“Can we not talk about them tonight?” Really don’t want them to put a damper on this soon-to-be magical evening, and discussing my parents is the quickest way to snuff out my sex drive in record time.
“Fine … What do you want to talk about?” he asks.
I pull another sip and let it linger on my tongue, anticipating the burn, and it feels like a metaphor for my love life.
“Anything but them.” If my father and mother knew I was running around downtown DC in a little black dress and fuck-me heels, tossing back drinks like I’d done it a hundred times before, they’d have a coronary and a conniption fit, respectively. World-renowned parenting experts, their enviable success has been propelled by their highly conservative political affiliations. Together, they’ve built a multi-million-dollar empire, complete with workshops, handbooks, textbooks, talk shows, and an endorsement from Oprah Winfrey herself. Our picture-perfect family is their brand, and as the oldest Aldridge daughter, I’m the official brand ambassador.
I have to be perfect, at least in the public eye.
During the week, I’m a buttoned-up, philanthropic good girl, and once upon a time I was a buttoned-up, philanthropic good girl. Now she’s just a role I play, an outfit I wear, a skin I step into and remove the second no one’s looking.
Keir studies me, and I can’t help but wonder if he puts every girl he takes home under this kind of a microscope. Maybe he’s more persnickety than I originally assumed?
“What were you doing at Goldsmith by yourself?” he throws another question at me.
I lift a shoulder to my ear and offer a coy smile. “It looked like a nice place to have a drink and get out of the rain. What about you? You stood someone up tonight.”
“I did.” His teeth graze his lower lip, as if he’s biding his time until he can finally devour me. “He’ll get over it.”
I realize now that I haven’t thought about Hunter once since we walked in here. Keir is distracting, exactly as I’d hoped.
I know enough about Keir to know he isn’t a lover, not in the literal sense of the word. He isn’t a s
erial monogamist. He isn’t a relationship guy or the kind who brings flowers and takes his sweetheart on a picnic date.
He’s the guy you screw when you’re trying to get over the one who broke your heart. He’s the guy that makes you forget the other guy, the one that pushes you forward when you find yourself treading the same dark and lonely waters that once nearly drowned you.
Keir isn’t Hunter, this much I know. And at this point, it may be the only thing that matters.
Hunter is an aspiring career politician with presidential aspirations, hoping to become one of the youngest senators ever to be elected in his home state of Maryland. His gentle charisma, old-fashioned manners, and disarming smile makes him feel like a safe choice.
Politically.
And romantically.
I should’ve listened when he warned me not to fall in love with him, but I stupidly assumed it was just one of those things guys said early on when they’re scared and trying to pretend they’re not falling just as hard as you are.
Examining Keir under the glow of the moonlight, I fight a smile.
“What?” he asks, mouth twisted. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
“What way?” My nose wrinkles.
“Like I remind you of someone.”
I roll my eyes, fighting a smile. “I’m thinking about how much you don’t remind me of someone.”
His eyes light. “I hope that’s a good thing.”
“It’s a very good thing.”
Chapter Two
Keir
This was too fucking easy.
Effortless, really.
I imagine tugging the zipper of her dress, the fog of breath on the glass before us, her body melting against mine as she readies for my touch. In my mind, she presses a hand against the cool glass, steadying herself, and my hand slinks up her taut belly and between her round breasts before stopping above her collarbone.
But that’s not happening tonight, much as it pains me.
Over the past hour, Rowan has informed me that her parents have no idea she’s here in the city, and they have no idea she’s ever tasted liquor. Or a stranger. The restrictions placed upon her are suffocating. She’s bored with convention and conservatism.
She’s a rebel in disguise.
A girl after my own heart.
And she hasn’t said it, but she’s a girl with a broken heart. I see it in her eyes. Those round-as-saucers baby blues that look clear through me every time she finds herself lost in thought. I don’t even think she knows she’s doing it half the time, but she is. There are moments when she stares at me, and she’s here, but she isn’t.
Maybe if I had half a heart, I might actually feel sorry for her.
She tosses back the remainder of her second drink, placing the empty crystal martini glass on the edge of the bar cart. “So …?”
Rowan spins on her heel before sauntering in my direction.
“I want to make something very clear, Rowan,” my voice is low, unwavering. “I’m not going to fuck you tonight.”
She stops, eyes lifted onto mine, her expression falling.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asks.
“Because I wanted to,” I say, giving her a taste of her own medicine. “That’s why.”
Judging by the twist of her full lips, she’s not amused. “No, really. Why?”
“Because it was loud at the bar,” I say. “And I wanted to talk, get to know each other.”
Those kinds of words make me want to vomit on the ten-thousand dollar Balfour rug beneath our feet. I don’t “just talk” with women. I loathe getting to know them. Quite frankly, I don’t find them worth my trouble.
But this is all part of the plan. I’m an actor with a part.
Aren’t we all?
“Great.” Rowan’s hands clap against her sides as she walks away.
“You’re … upset?” I scratch my left temple, keeping my fingers around my whiskey tumbler.
“I just want to have fun. I don’t want to walk out of here wondering when you’re going to call me or if you like me. I only want tonight. Nothing more.”
I don’t tell her how many times women have said those exact words to me.
“I mean it.” Her palms flatten against my chest, her eyes are stormy, and her brows furrow. She’s trying to convince me, but she’s wasting her time. “I don’t want anything from you after this. In fact, we could pass each other on the street tomorrow and I’ll pretend like I’ve never seen you in my life.”
My curiosity is piqued, but I can’t let up on this act. I have a mission to accomplish, and I can’t jeopardize it.
Smirking, I say, “Well that’s cute and all, but I’m not looking for casual.”
“Bullshit.”
A swear word coming out of those pretty little lips nearly makes my cock strain against my suit pants.
I love a good walking, talking contradiction.
I myself am, after all, the biggest contradiction in this entire city.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I say. “The old me? He would’ve fucked you in a heartbeat. But I’ve grown bored of these little … games. I want to settle down. I want to fall in love. I want the real thing, Rowan.”
My stomach sours, and I try not to gag on my own words.
Her brows meet, as if my words don’t compute, and that’s fair. I know I have a reputation. I’ve fucked a lot of women, and I’ve fucked a lot of women over. I won’t try to pretend like it never happened.
But now I’m a “changed man.”
At least until this upcoming election campaign is over and my Maryland constituents vote me into an open senate seat.
My strategist says I need to repair my reputation, and the quickest way to do that is to find a nice girl, organize some photo opportunities, and publicize the hell out of a good, old-fashioned whirlwind romance. Anything that puts me in the spotlight in a positive way.
Rowan Aldridge was hand selected for me by a group of political strategy consultants. Hell, I didn’t know her family worked on my father’s last campaign. I’d never seen her picture until it was presented to me the other week; a photo of Rowan wearing a skirt and glasses and studying in some college library. My strategist described her as having the grace and style of Jackie O with the charm and relatability of Reese Witherspoon.
So not my fucking type.
Until I saw her in person tonight. That little black dress. The push-up bra. The red lips. Clearly Rowan Aldridge has some sort of alter ego, and I’m extremely pleased to make her acquaintance.
One of my guys had been following her for weeks, trying to arrange an opportunity for us to “bump into each other.”
Two hours ago, he called and told me she was sitting at the Goldsmith.
And now here we are.
“So tell me why you brought me here, again?” she asks. “Why you really brought me here …”
I can’t even begin to quantify how much I love that she’s disappointed we won’t be fucking.
Striding toward her, my hand lifts to her jaw, and I’m seconds from answering when her clutch begins to vibrate.
She pushes away from me, gazing across the room at her pulsating purse on my counter.
“Take it,” I say.
“It can wait.” She moves close to me again, but her eyes are over there. “I want to know why you took me home.”
“I told you in the bar. I wanted to talk to you, and it was too loud.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me because I can look into her glossy baby blues and not feel an ounce of guilt.
I literally feel nothing.
The phone stops vibrating for a few seconds before it starts all over again.
“Just ... give me one second.” Rowan exhales, striding across the room to answer.
I take a seat in an overstuffed Chesterfield, studying the way her hips sway when she moves and wondering how they’d feel beneath my palms. If I’d have brought her here for sex, I’d
have made her turn the damn thing off.
I’ve never been good playing second fiddle. Or sharing.
Just ask my older brother, Ronan.
“Hannah, speak up.” Rowan paces my kitchen, circling my island as she cups a palm over her left ear. “I can barely hear you. Where are you?”
She ends the call a minute later and exhales.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “My sister ... she goes to Georgetown and she’s at a party, and she’s drunk, and I think she’s on something or maybe someone slipped her something. I don’t know. I could hardly understand her. I need to go find her and get her home.”
Rising, I lift my phone to my ear and call the car downstairs.
“What are you doing?” she asks, frowning.
“Helping you find your sister.”
Rowan almost laughs, cocking one hand on her hip. “No … that would be … you can’t … it would cause a … no.”
Hooking my hand around her bent elbow, I escort her to the door. My Secret Service agents are perched on the other side, glancing up when they see us.
“We need to locate someone at Georgetown,” I say.
The guys clear the hall before motioning for us to follow, and we ride the elevator to the lobby.
“Why are you doing this? You don’t even know me,” Rowan asks, her heels clicking across the marble tile as we make our way toward my waiting Escalade.
“I’m allowed to do nice things,” I say, though the idea of being selfless and generous has never come naturally to me. I’ve always been more of an “every man for himself” kind of person, but I need Rowan to like me. I need her to want to date me. I need her to trust me. And then I need her to believe I’m falling in love with her.
“You really don’t have to do this.”
One of the men opens the door, and I help her into the car
“I know,” I say. “You can thank me another time.”
Tilting her head, she lifts a brow. “And what did you have in mind?”
“Go on a date with me. Tomorrow night.”
Her jaw hangs for a second before she clears her throat. “Can I think about it?”
P.S. I Hate You Page 45