“You didn’t have to yank the picture out of my hands.”
My gaze flicks up. “Excuse me?”
“You just … yanked it.” Her arms fold and there’s a warm tinge in her cheeks. “That was rude.”
“What’s rude is touching things that don’t belong to you.”
“It was a picture …”
A picture that represents my past. A past that’s none of her business.
“Do me a favor and never ask about my mother again.” My tone is flat yet serious.
Aerin’s hands lift and she blows an exaggerated breath through her pillow soft lips, and then she gives me that look again—like she’s trying to figure me out.
If she only knew how many people have tried. How many people think there are some sort of ancient secrets waiting to be unearthed, some key or code to crack to get to the bottom of who I am. I can’t count how many women have tried to makeshift psychoanalyze me, thinking I wouldn’t notice the direction their questions were headed.
In a world where information is literally at our fingertips and we can find out anything we want to know about something with the click of a button, I prefer to lay low. I’ve even gone so far as to hire a company to scrub the Internet. Any mentions of me, any photographs, articles, or write-ups have to have my approval before I’ll allow them to be posted, and any sources sharing my phone number or address are automatically removed.
As the son of one of the richest men in the country, I can understand why people are curious. But all I’ve ever wanted to be was anyone else. I don’t want to be some guy people write about in gossip articles. I don’t want to be America’s Most Eligible Bachelor. I don’t want to be a household name or a celebrity.
Celebrities aren’t free. They’re fair game.
“Get back to work, Keane,” I say after she lingers for two seconds too long.
I won’t be going soft on her just because we slept together. It doesn’t make her an exception to any of my rules.
15
Aerin
Asshole.
Correction—oversensitive asshole.
Four weeks to go.
Less than one month.
How was I supposed to know his mother had passed? When I did that research last week, I focused only on the two Calders. Not once was his mother mentioned anywhere. And I’d remember coming across an obituary.
Burying myself in my work, I focus on the next report, which proves to be the most interesting of them all. WellesTech is trying to out-Netflix Netflix.
To that, I say, “Good luck.”
Drawing in a deep breath when I’m finished typing my summary, I hit print and grab my phone, realizing I have two missed calls—both of them from Rush—both from an hour ago when I was in Mr. Welles’ office getting my hand slapped for touching a photo. I press the phone icon and pray I can steady my ragged breathing before he answers.
“Aer,” he picks up in the middle of the first ring. “Where are you?”
“Work … why? What’s up?”
“I thought we were meeting for brunch? Kaio on Houston—remember? We have to check in in forty-five minutes and you’re … not here.” The sound of doors opening and closing fill the background.
Whoops.
“Oh, shoot. I completely spaced it off. I’m so sorry! Can we raincheck?”
“This place books out for months at a time.” He tries to hide the disappointment in his voice, but I know him too well. “Got this reservation from another doctor at work. Traded it for tickets to Hamilton … that I originally bought for a date with Hillie.”
“I’m so sorry.” I rest my elbow on my desk and bury my head in my hand. “Can I make it up to you?”
“It’s … whatever.” He exhales.
“You can still eat there, right?”
He’s quiet. I know it’s not the same. I know he’s been looking forward to this all week. He said the food there is just like the food at this little Japanese café he used to take me when I was a kid and he’d get paid from his part-time job at the nursing home.
“I’m so sorry.” I could apologize seventy-five more times and it still wouldn’t feel like enough.
“Yeah, uh. I guess, I’ll just head that way.” My brother exhales into the phone.
When I finally peel my forehead from my hand, my gaze drags across the room to a shadowed figure standing in my doorway.
Calder.
“Hey, I’ll call you later,” I tell my brother before hanging up. “Sorry.”
“Go home, Keane,” he says.
How long had he been standing there?
“Really? But I have five more summaries to type up.” I point to the reports stacked neatly on the corner of my desk, each single sheet of paper perfectly aligned with the one beneath it.
“You’ve done enough today. Go home.” He turns to leave.
“Wait,” I say. I grab my phone, my purse, and the report off the printer—still warm—and chase after him.
He stops short just outside my doorway, and I almost pummel into him.
“Here’s the WellesFlix report,” I say, hoping they don’t actually call it that when the time comes.
Calder takes the stack from me, our hands brushing, and I swear time stops, though I’m not sure why. I’m also not sure why it’s suddenly ninety-million degrees in here and my throat feels light.
“Thank you, Keane.” He utters the nicest words he’s said all day. And then he walks away.
“Calder …”
He stops, turning back.
“Look … I’m not good at pretending things didn’t happen or sweeping things under the rug.”
He scratches the side of his nose before folding his arms across his taut chest. I swear amusement flashes in his eyes, but the rest of his expression is his signature stoicism.
“Is this necessary, Keane? Don’t you have somewhere to be? A reservation or something?”
So he did eavesdrop.
“Yes, but—”
“I’ll walk you to the elevator.” His strides lengthen and he checks his phone before returning it to his pocket. When we reach the lobby, he presses the call button and stares at the stainless doors.
“All I wanted to say was that I behaved inappropriately—we behaved inappropriately, and I want to assure you it won’t happen again. At least not on my end.”
“You’re right,” he says, still staring ahead. “It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“Right. A huge mistake.”
He turns to me. “Now you’re overselling it. It was just a bathroom quickie between two consenting adults who’d had some drinks. Won’t happen again. There? Is that what you were wanting to hear from me?”
His tone with me is short, curt. I don’t know where this is coming from or if he’s still unjustly ticked about the picture thing.
The elevator chimes and a moment later the doors separate. I step inside, and Calder presses his hand against the frame, blocking the doors from closing. My heart races, a minor jolt of adrenaline perhaps, as the woodsy scent of his aftershave fills the small space and the touch-memory of my hands in his silky dark hair.
“You want to know how I know it’s not going to happen again, Keane?” he asks.
I swallow, nodding.
“Because I don’t fuck women I have to see every day. If I wanted that, I’d have married my college girlfriend.” Calder releases his hold on the door and backs into the lobby.
The doors close.
I ride down, lost in a wormhole of confusion, to the main level.
I’m not sure why he felt the need to make a big show of telling me it won’t happen again. All he had to say was he agreed and leave it at that.
If his intention is to get me to hate him, I have to admit … it’s working.
16
Calder
That was … interesting.
I have to admit, I expected her to throw herself at me today. I expected tension so ripe, we’d have no choice but to
act on it—especially since we went all of Friday without so much as exchanging a single word thanks to my father hijacking my schedule. But what I got was a girl who showed up, did exactly what I told her to do, and kept her hands to herself.
I’m not used to this—girls with self-restraint.
But it’s for the best.
Over the course of the past week, my life has become unrecognizable. Throwing a few more complications into the mix won’t help anything. And besides, if I fuck my assistant, that makes me no better than the man whose shoes I’m being forced to fill.
I’m better than that.
She’s better than that.
And I meant what I said—I don’t fuck girls I have to see every day.
“Closing up?” the security guard asks, looking up from his Spiderman comic.
I nod, heading back to my father’s office to grab summaries and lock the door. Five minutes later, I hit the pavement, opting to take the long way home. I haven’t been able to run all week and my muscles are screaming from too much sitting. My body wasn’t designed to be this sedentary.
Popping into a little Eastern medicine shop off Houston, I grab this miracle balm one of my Olympic skier friends told me about. I don’t know what the hell is in it, I just know it smells like nothing and works like magic the instant I rub it into my skin.
I leave the shop and hook a left, passing a trendy Japanese eatery across the street called Kaio, where their waitlist spans months because apparently pancakes shaped like sushi is the next hot thing. A small outdoor dining area is filled with patrons, and the benches outside hold even more, all of them patiently waiting, noses buried in their phones.
Crossing the street, I glance back at the restaurant once more when something catches my eye. Seated at a table for two on the patio is Aerin Keane and an exceptionally handsome gentleman in green scrubs.
I watch them long enough to see him smile, her laugh.
She reaches across the table and bats at his hand.
He rolls his eyes.
They look like they’ve known each other forever, completely comfortable in each other’s presence. Her shoulders are relaxed, his legs crossed.
So that’s why she was so adamant about us not sleeping together again—she has a boyfriend.
I smirk, rounding the corner and getting the hell away before I start to care again, only ten steps later, I’m in the presence of an overly excitable blonde with flailing arms running in my direction.
“Oh my God! Calder? Calder Welles, is that you?” Thessaly Thomas, a socialite-turned-reality-TV-star I foolishly stuck my dick into in my early twenties, practically wraps her entire body around me, nearly letting her mint green Birkin fall to the ground in the process. “I can’t believe it’s you! How are you? Ugh. You look so good. It isn’t fair. I swear you look even better than when we were dating and that’s saying a lot because …”
Dating?
We went on five dates.
I’d hardly call that dating.
And the only reason I knew it was five was because she went all out for our “one-month anniversary,” hiring some C-list band to give us a private concert on the rooftop of her father’s pool club in the Meatpacking District.
“What are you up to these days?” she asks, hand on her hip and smile on her face. Her forehead is smooth, glass-like. And her lips are much larger than I remember. “What’s new?”
She asks like it’s any of her business, like she cares. But I see that thirsty look in her eyes. Rejection does something to you. It makes you want the things you shouldn’t have, the things you can’t have.
“You’re looking good. CrossFit?” She smooths a palm down my arm.
Thessaly knows she can’t have me, and God, does she still want me even after all these years.
“I was just telling Raya—you remember Raya, right? About how you took me skiing in Vermont for our third date. Do you still have your plane?” she asks. “A Cessna, was it?”
Her phone chimes twice, and she lifts a finger before reading a quick text and typing back an even quicker response.
“Sorry about that.” She peers up at me through fake lashes the color of midnight, and she’s still wearing that same dopey grin. “I can’t believe I ran into you on Houston of all places. Do you live around here now? I’m still on Lexington.”
She rolls her eyes, like she’s ashamed to live in a two-thousand-square foot classic six bought and paid for by her parents the day she graduated from NYU.
Thessaly is still talking, though I’ve tuned her out. Something about a mutual friend who thought they saw me in Paris over the summer. It’s kind of crazy, but all my mind can think about in this moment is Aerin smiling with that fucking Dr. McDreamy-looking tool. Her hand on his. Her eyes lit. Her body at ease.
God, she’s so easy to be around—even if she hates me with every fiber of her classy little being.
She isn’t like Thessaly or the other women that tend to hurl themselves at me. Those women have desperation in their eyes, insecurity in their smiles, and diffidence in their demeanors.
They just want me to like them.
Aerin doesn’t.
And I’d be lying to myself if I said that didn’t make me feel some kind of way.
“We should do coffee or something sometime,” Thessaly says, her hand swatting at my arm. It’s like she needs every excuse she can get to touch me. “What are you doing right now? You have plans?”
“Yeah, today’s not good for me.”
She pouts her Kylie Jenner lips. “Your number still the same?”
Indeed. “Yeah.”
Her pout transforms and she rises on her toes. “Great. I’ll text you and we can figure something out. It was great running into you, Calder. Glad you’re doing well.”
How would she know? I couldn’t get a word in.
Thessaly runs her hand along my arm one more time before readjusting her Birkin over her left forearm and giving me one of those cutesy girl waves complete with a shoulder shrug.
I wave back before continuing on my way.
Good lord, that was painful.
Almost as painful as seeing Aerin on a date.
17
Aerin
“Whoa. You look so … different.” I squint at my phone, studying my best friend Melrose’s face on the screen. She’s in a hotel in Louisiana, filming some Guillermo del Toro movie on location, and we haven’t spoken since we bumped into each other at LAX the other week.
She drags a makeup wipe down her cheek. “I know. It takes a good twenty minutes to scrub this off every night, and then I use three different moisturizers before bed so I don’t dry out. But it’s all good. The makeup girl is going to show me how to do winged liner tomorrow.”
“Nice.”
“New York treating you well?” she asks, rubbing the wipe over her right eye.
I shrug. “For New York, sure.”
“How’s the gig?” she asks. “You always have the most interesting clients.”
By interesting, I know exactly what she means. Eccentric. Moneyed. Particular. But that’s fine. I cater to a very specific niche of clientele who refuse to go through temp agencies or hire just anyone.
“You look like you need to vent,” she says, leaning in closer to her phone. “I see your elevens.”
I massage the pad of my finger between my brows, smoothing out my “elevens.”
“Lay it on me,” she says. “I’ve got a good twenty minutes and then Sutter’s supposed to be calling.”
Sucking in a hard breath and biting away an embarrassed smile, I shrug. There’s really no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. “I slept with my boss. Two nights ago. In a bar bathroom. After demanding he explain why he was being so nice to me that day.”
Melrose drops her makeup wipe.
I continue, “But to be fair, all of my interactions with him leading up to that point had been—”
“—wait, wait, wait,” Melrose says. “You sle
pt with someone in a bar bathroom?”
“Not just someone. My boss.”
She rolls her eyes. “That’s not the part that bothers me. I’m just having a hard time picturing your Clean Freak Ass getting down and dirty in a public restroom.”
“I know. It’s disgusting.” My stomach churns just thinking about the billions of microbes I probably took home with me after that, but looking back, that was the least of my worries that night. “Anyway, I’ve never slept with a client before. I mean, technically his father is my client? I guess? But still. I report to him.”
“Honey, it’s the twenty-first century. As long as it’s consensual, who the hell cares?” She tosses her makeup wipe aside, takes a swig from a bottle of Fiji water, and then grabs another wipe. “It was consensual, right?”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “Too consensual.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The man … is an asshole. He’s hot one minute, freezing cold the next. Kind of guy who’s only ever looking out for himself, you know? And he says and does these things that confuse me. But the way he looks at me …” I let my thoughts drift for a second, my mind replaying the night we first kissed.
“Sounds like you have a crush.”
“I wouldn’t call it that.”
“Then what would you call it?”
“I’d like to call it nothing,” I say. “Unfortunately, the more I hate him, the more my body wants him. It’s like my head is wired one way and my body does the exact opposite. This has never happened before, Mel. I don’t know what to do.”
It suddenly occurs to me that I never got a chance to do a little research on his mom. The way he reacted earlier, practically jerking the picture out of my hand and gifting me with that steely gaze, was unnerving, and that’s saying a lot considering the source.
I drag my laptop across my bed and transfer the call to my computer.
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
The Complete P.S. Series Page 49