More than Money (Found in Chicago Book 1)

by Allison Michaels

  Thank you, Grandma, for forcing me to dance with you to old records back in middle school. Never thought it would come in handy, but hey…

  Don’t get me wrong–kissing Collette would be no hardship. She had a set of rosy, bee-stung lips no man with a pulse could ignore. It would be easy to play along and plant one on her to find out if they felt as good as they looked.

  But I flat out refused to let this situation get completely out of hand. One lie had led to another in the blink of an eye outside the bathrooms. I had to stop this ruse before it ballooned any further. Screw Tammy Jo and the rest of these ignorant morons. Collette and I would linger for another song and make our escape. The others had already lost interest in us and were busy showing each other their jewelry.

  No one bothered us for the rest of the cruise. We drank and talked in our little hideaway. The more Collette revealed about herself, the more my attraction to her grew. She lived in Lincoln Park and had a beagle named Oscar, who she proudly showed me pictures of on her phone. There were eighty-two days left until she graduated from Lakeshore University. The party to rival all parties would be thrown afterward, and part of me hoped I’d be there to help her celebrate.

  Unlike the conversations at the other end of the yacht, dollar figures and name brands were never mentioned. I had no idea how much Collette had won. I figured it was significantly more than me since she had the means to fund a foundation and dole out gifts. But it didn’t matter because whatever wealth she possessed hadn’t turned her into an obnoxious, egotistical braggart.

  She didn’t need the spotlight to get attention. She’d caught mine while standing in the fray. And thanks to her, I’d had one of the most enjoyable evenings I could remember.

  Neither of us was in a hurry to leave when the boat glided up to the pier, and we took our time disembarking, letting the other passengers go first. Luke received another round of tips for his stellar service and told Collette he’d be in touch soon, confirming she had indeed discussed a job opportunity with him.

  A town car idled in front of a row of cabs outside the exit. “That’s my ride,” Collette said, rolling her eyes. “My brother insisted I use a driver tonight.”

  “You can never be too careful.”

  A white stretch SUV rolled up next to us and stopped. The window lowered, and Tammy Jo’s head appeared. “Take care, lovebirds! Maybe we’ll bump into each other again down the road.”

  “I fucking hope not,” I muttered through my teeth.

  Collette smiled widely and did one of those slow beauty pageant waves. “Bye, Felicia!” she called merrily.

  “No, it’s Tammy Joooooooo!” trailed from the limo as it drove away.

  “I knoooooooow,” Collette sing-songed, now waving with her middle finger.

  I laughed until I doubled over. “That was great.”

  She lifted the sides of her dress and curtsied. “Thank you. You are far too kind.”

  I took a deep breath and went for broke before my nerve disappeared. “I really enjoyed spending time with you, and I’d like to see you again. Would you be interested in meeting for coffee sometime next week?”

  She smiled, a deep pink blush coloring her cheeks. “I’d be more interested in dinner. We could grab coffee afterward, though.”

  My face heated in response. I’d had a feeling Collette would be receptive to meeting up, but didn’t expect her to suggest an upgrade. The fact that she wanted a full date was…well, it was pretty damn awesome because it clearly showed she was attracted to me. And after getting the rug yanked out from under me last time around, I appreciated Collette’s candor. This could be the start of something good.

  “We should exchange numbers,” I pulled out my phone and opened my contact list, “because we have a date to plan.”

  3

  Collette

  Eleven years earlier

  “Are we theeeeerrrrre yet?” I asked, smacking away the crumpled napkin Dad flung over his shoulder. We sped up as he steered out of the rest stop and merged into traffic on the highway. “Hey! You could have hit me in the eye.”

  He looked at me in the rearview mirror for a moment before shifting his gaze to the passenger seat. “We’re flying next time,” he said to Mom. “I don’t care how much airfare to Orlando costs.”

  “Watch a movie or read your book,” Mom suggested, twisting around in her seat to look at me. “And finish your sandwich before you eat any more junk.”

  “Something’s wrong with the DVD player. The last movie kept skipping, and then it froze. I can’t get the disc out because it’s stuck inside.”

  Mom heaved a big sigh and unbuckled her seat belt, shifting until she partially sat on the center console. “It must be acting up again. Let me see if I can get it out.” She leaned back as far as she could and pressed the eject button. When nothing happened, she tried again, grumbling under her breath. “It won’t even budge. Maybe it melted.”

  “Just stick your fingers in there and pry it out, like this.” Dad reached back and pushed the little door open, driving with one hand while the other tugged on the embedded disc. “DVDs don’t melt. Plastic stretches and gets all warped in extreme heat or cold, though. Why do you think there are warnings about storing them above and below certain temperatures?”

  “You’re warped,” Mom said, winking at me.

  I giggled and winked back. Sarcasm was the second language spoken in our house, and my parents never missed an opportunity to zing one another. It was done in fun, part of their playful natures and rarely meant to be mean.

  “You knew that when you met me, so don’t act disgusted.” Dad grunted and fought with the machine again. “No more leaving movies in here, Coco. You hear me?”

  “Loud and–”

  Tires squealed, followed by a loud bang. The car jerked sharply, spinning around like a top before tipping and going into a roll. Glass shattered, and metal screeched as the seat belt dug into my chest. I screamed and tried to cover my face with my hands. When we finally stopped moving, the car rested on its left side. The only sound I heard was my own rapid, harsh breaths.

  Mounds of dirt poked through the broken window across from me. Cornstalks were visible through the space where the windshield used to be. We must have rolled down the ditch and into a field.

  Pain shot across my forehead as I turned my neck toward the driver’s seat. Dad’s head hung limply in front of the airbag, and his eyes were closed. He looked seriously hurt, and I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.

  I stretched my arm out and reached around the seat in front of me, feeling around for my mother’s arm. “Mom?” I called out, confused when couldn’t find her.

  She didn’t answer me, so I tried again, shouting as loud as possible, but still there was no response. Maybe she was on the floor, out cold like Dad. They needed help if they were hurt enough to be unconscious.

  “Are you okay?”

  I jumped, causing another jolt of pain to shoot through my head. A man looked down at me through my broken window. “My head hurts,” I told him. “My neck, too.”

  “Don’t move. Someone already called 911. Help should be here soon.”

  “Can you check on my mom? I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t say anything.”

  “I saw her,” he said, doing the clenching thing with his jaw Dad did whenever he was upset or angry about something. I couldn’t blame him for the reaction. It had to be pretty upsetting to see a bunch of people all banged up right after an accident. “Keep still. I need to grab something from my car. My son will stay here with you.” He disappeared, but I heard him say to someone else, “Just talk to her. And stay on the ground.”

  “Hey,” a new voice said. This guy sounded considerably younger than the one who had just spoken to me. “I found a book in the ditch. The Hobbit. Is this yours?”

  “Yes.” It must have flown out a broken window.

  “How about I read to you for a while?” He paused to clear his throat. “Would, um, that be okay?�
��

  I almost told him no, that it was the dumbest idea ever, but bit back the nastiness. He was only trying to help, and this was the best he could do given the circumstances. “Okay,” I said, pressing a hand to my forehead. The dull ache had turned into a throbbing pain that radiated into my temples.

  “Do you remember where you left off?”

  “At the bookmark.”

  “I don’t see one in here. It must have…” he trailed off and cleared his throat again. “Never mind. I’ll start on the first page unless you have an idea of which chapter you were on.”

  “Fourteen, I think.”

  “Wow, you’re pretty far into the story, then. What do you think of it?”

  “I like it.” I wiped the blood on my fingers off on my shorts, trying not to freak out about the cut above my right eyebrow. “Have you read it?”

  “Yup. Tore through it in a week and jumped right into The Fellowship of the Ring.”

  “Is Fellowship as good as The Hobbit?” I asked, wishing I could see him.

  “Oh yeah. I’d love to tell you about it, but if I do, you won’t have a reason to read the book. And it would be a real shame if you skipped it because I think it’s the best in the series.”

  I smiled, which felt strange and inappropriate while sitting in an overturned car with my injured parents. But I couldn’t help it. This boy’s enthusiasm for a novel spoke to the bookworm in me. “Then I guess you’d better keep it to yourself.”

  He chuckled. “Chapter Fourteen. Fire and Water,” he said smoothly, in a storytelling fashion. I closed my eyes and focused on his voice, letting the words wash over me.

  Sirens blared in the distance, drowning him out as they got closer. He stopped right in the middle of a sentence as doors opened and closed. I heard people talking and caught bits of their conversations.

  “…already by the time I got to her.”

  “Driver doesn’t look good. I think he might be–”

  “…in the back seat says her head and neck hurt, but other than some cuts she looks okay.”

  “I have to get out of the way so the paramedics can help you,” my reader said. “I hope you feel better. Here’s your book.” A hand appeared over the bottom rim of the window, the paperback dangling between long fingers.

  “Thanks.” I took it from him and clutched it to my chest.

  Footsteps echoed off the pavement, growing louder as they approached me. A scratching noise came from beside me. “Hi there, sweetheart. What’s your name?” a man in a paramedics’ uniform asked, looking down at me. A police officer appeared next to him and peered into the car, his eyes moving over me.

  “Collette,” I replied shyly.

  “I’m Sean. Can you tell me where it hurts?”

  I told him about the pain in my head and how it hurt to move my neck. He fastened a puffy collar around my neck and then he and the policeman slowly got me out of the car and set me down on a stretcher. “What about my dad and my mom?” I asked as Sean inspected the gash on my forehead. “They’re hurt way worse than me.”

  “The others are helping them. How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.” I squinted as he shined a bright light into my eyes.

  “My niece is the same age as you. She’s a huge ’N Sync fan. Do you like those guys, too?”

  I nodded, or at least tried to since the thing around my neck wouldn’t let me move much. “Mom took me to see them at The United Center last year.”

  We passed a fire truck, and I wondered why it was here when nothing was on fire. A group of people stood off to the side. One of them, a teenage boy wearing a baseball cap, looked over and lifted a hand. He had to be my mystery reader.

  Sean spoke, redirecting my attention as he asked about which TV shows I liked as he continued checking me over. He and another paramedic lifted me up and into the ambulance. “We’re taking you to the hospital. It looks like you smacked your head pretty hard. We need to see if you have a concussion.”

  “Will someone tell my parents where I am when they wake up? They’ll be worried about me.”

  “They’re coming to the hospital, too,” he said, patting me on the shoulder. “I know you’re scared, but take some deep breaths and try to relax. Can you do that for me, Collette?”

  “I’ll try,” I whispered, dragging in a deep breath as the sirens above us wailed.

  4

  Ryan

  “You must have a horseshoe jammed up your ass. First, you win a bunch of money, then you get a big raise, and now you meet a girl. Some of your crazy luck needs to rub off on me.” Diana took a sip of her diet soda. “Did you decide on where to take her to dinner Friday night?”

  I squeezed a lemon wedge into my iced tea. “My ass is an exit-only. Collette’s last name is Italian, so I figured that type of food would be a safe bet and made a reservation at Limosani’s. I’ve never eaten there, but most of the online reviews said the food was excellent.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Russo.”

  Diana pulled her cell out of her purse and messed with it. “Is this your girl?” she asked, stretching her arm across the table.

  A picture of Collette, flanked by two men, sat on the screen under a headline which read Lottery Winner Shares the Wealth. I snatched the phone from her. “Seriously? God, you’re nosy.” Who were these guys and why were they all cozied up to her?

  “Don’t you want to know more about her?” She held out a hand and gave me an expectant look. “See all those hits? Tons of factoids about your ladylove are right here, just waiting to be discovered.”

  I dangled the phone over the water pitcher, snickering when she gasped in horror. “Of course, but I’d rather let her tell me about them herself instead of putting together a dossier with what I found on the internet.”

  She snatched her phone back and shrugged, dragging her fingertip along the screen. “How is this any different than checking restaurant reviews? You had questions, and the answers were just sitting there. There’s nothing wrong with satisfying your curiosity by doing a little digging. People do it all the time with online dating sites. My sister joined one and had to fill out a pretty detailed questionnaire. Her profile wouldn’t go live until she completed it.”

  “It’s creepy. If you weren’t on any dating sites and went out with a guy for the first time who already knew a bunch of stuff about you, wouldn’t you feel uncomfortable?”

  “It would depend on what he chose to do with the information.”

  “How so?” I asked, interested in how she would try to justify stalking.

  One of the main reasons she and I had clicked and became friends was her ability to make me stop and see things from another angle. I had a tendency to view things in black and white while she saw them in digital 3D.

  “You know how much I hate spiders, right?”

  “Everyone knows,” I said dryly. A friend of hers had posted a video of a spider crawling out of someone’s ear on her Facebook page as a joke. Diana screamed bloody murder and scared the shit out of me and damn near everyone else on our floor. She ran out of her cube frantically shaking out her hair as though one had actually crawled out of her own ear.

  “No, not everyone, only the people who actually know me,” she countered, forking up a bite of Caesar salad. “Picture this–I’m out on a first date, and the guy tells the hostess outdoor seating is a no-go because he saw a web on one of the umbrellas. He might as well hang a banner on the wall with I trolled your Facebook page written in blood.”

  “Right. Then you go to the bathroom and ditch him by climbing out the window, saving yourself from winding up hog-tied in his trunk with duct tape over your mouth.” I flinched when she kicked me in the shin. “What? Something similar happened on an episode of Criminal Minds last season.”

  “What he should have done was kept the information to himself and made up an excuse to eat inside, like his allergies are acting up or it’s too warm to sit on the patio.”

  “So you t
hink stalking is okay as long as you don’t admit to doing it?” I paused and took a bite of my sandwich. “I disagree, but you make a good point about using the information wisely once you have it.”

  Diana pointed her fork at me. “Subtlety gives you a leg up when utilized correctly. But only if your partner is okay with being on the bottom.”

  I rolled my eyes and threw a straw wrapper at her. “Try practicing what you preach, Nicotina. There was nothing subtle about what you just said.”

  We finished lunch and walked back to our building. “What do you have on tap for this afternoon?” Diana pressed the call button for the elevator and tucked her sunglasses into her purse.

  A ding signaled the arrival of a car, and we hustled inside. I jabbed the close button repeatedly so the doors would shut before anyone else could join us. “My Monday beatdown with Darren is at two. Other than that, just the usual stuff.”

  She made a face at the mention of our boss’s name. “Ugh. I can’t stand him. He stares at my boobs the entire time during mine. I know they’re fabulous, but come on. Have some decency, you know?”

  A hand shot between the doors, freezing them for a moment before they slid back open.

  “Ryan?” Collette stood just beyond the threshold with a confused look on her pretty face. She looked…oh hell, a T-shirt and jeans had never given me insta-wood before. Her clothes fit her like a glove, showcasing her curves.

  “Hey!” I exclaimed, moving aside to let her in. “What are you doing here?”

  “Moving into my new office,” she replied, pressing the button for the fifteenth floor. “You work in this building?”

  “Yeah, on nine.” It really was a small world. Chicago had thousands of office buildings, and somehow we’d ended up working in the same one. “Oh, this is Diana, one of my coworkers. Diana, this is Collette.”

  Diana’s eyebrows shot up, and she gave me an incredulous look. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” she said, throwing me under the damn bus.