Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (190 page)

“Of course you woke me,” Melissa said
irritably.
 
“It’s
midnight.”“Shouldn’t you be out partying?” Kenley asked.
 
“Or socializing in some way?
 
Isn’t that what well-adjusted young
adults with jobs do?”
 
She was at
her room now, and she slid her keycard into the door, and waited for the light
to turn green.
 
She turned the
handle and slid into her room, shutting the door tight and locking it behind
her.

“Not on a Tuesday night,” Melissa said and
yawned.
 
“Why are you calling me
anyway? Shouldn’t you be out finding yourself?”

“Finding myself?”

“Yeah.
 
Isn’t that why you went to Florida to begin with?”

Kenley thought about it.
 
It wasn’t about finding herself,
exactly. It was about challenging herself, doing something she’d been afraid to
do, shaking things up a little bit.
 
But when she thought about it, it was actually pretty cliché.
 
Going away on vacation after losing her
job and getting dumped?
 
All she
needed was to get her hair cut and dyed, and she could be a romantic
comedy.
 
Not one starring Katherine
Heigl, though.
 
Kenley had always
found her somewhat annoying.

“I didn’t come here to find myself,” Kenley
said.
 
She flopped down on the bed
and started up at the ceiling.
 
“I
came here because I needed a vacation.”

“Whatever,” Melissa said.
 
“You could have at least invited me.”

“I did invite you,” Kenley reminded her.
 
“Remember?
 
But some of us still have jobs.
 
Some of us did the whole traveling
around the world thing in their early twenties when it was acceptable.”

“Whatever,” Melissa said..
 
“So what’s up?
 
Have you done anything exciting yet?”

Kenley hesitated.
 
“Um…that’s kind of why I’m calling.”

She heard the rustle of the blankets, and
pictured Melissa turning over in her bed, settling in for a nice long
talk.
 
“Shut up!
 
Who is he?
 
Did you sleep with him?
 
Did he kick you out of his room?”

“Kick me out of his room?”

“Yeah.
 
You know, since it’s only midnight.
 
Like he didn’t want you to spend the night?”

“No!” Kenley said, appalled.
 
Although she wasn’t sure why.
 
Probably if she
had
slept with Chad, he
would
have kicked her out of his room.
 
He was just the type to do that, the gross,
don’t-worry-I’ll–call-you-a-cab type.
 
Not that he would have had to call her a
cab -- she was staying in the same hotel as he was.
 
But the
idea
of it was the same.
 
The
point
of it was the
same.
 
And the point was that he was
an asshole.

“So then what happened?” Melissa asked.
 
“Could he not get it up?”

“Melissa!”

“What?”

There was a knock on the door.
 
Kenley froze.
 

“Kenley?” a male voice called. “It’s Chad.”

“Is that him?” Melissa asked excitedly.
 
“Is he coming back for more?”
 
She sounded like she’d been expecting
it.
 
“That makes sense.
 
Guys always want a second chance when
they feel like they’ve failed you.
 
There was this one guy I picked up at a club who was a premature
ejaculator, and he – ”

“Melissa,” Kenley said, “I have to go.”
 

“Wait!
 
Make sure you don’t – ”

Kenley hung up on her sister and crept toward
the door.
 
She peered through the
peephole.
 
Chad stood on the other
side of the door, one hand against the wall.

“I know you’re in there,” he said and knocked
again.
 
“I heard you walking to the
door.”

“Go away,” she said.
 

“No.”
 
He knocked again.
  
“Come on, let me in.
 
I want
to explain.”

“No.”
 
She shook her head, even though he couldn’t see her.
  
“How did you know what room I was
in, anyway?”

Silence.
 
Which probably meant he’d called down to the front desk and asked what
room Kenley Mitchell was in, and they’d just told him.
 
Just because he was a famous baseball
player!
 
This hotel was
ridiculous.
 
She was definitely
filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

“Look, I’m not a bad guy, I swear.”

She opened the door, but left the chain
on.
 
“Ha!” she said.
 
“You tried to have sex with me because
you thought it could further your career.
 
Which is a totally assholeish thing to do.
 
Besides, don’t you have enough
money?
 
You have to go around
messing with people for endorsement deals?”

“Okay, that’s fair.” He looked her right in the
eye, like he was ready to make it up to her.
 
She thought about their kiss, the way
his mouth had felt on hers, the way the stubble on his face had grazed her
skin.
 
Heat soared through her body,
but she kept her eyes on his, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of
looking away.
 
“But I’m
apologizing,” Chad said.
 
“Doesn’t
that count for something?”

She expected a grin, the same grin he’d been
giving her all night, the kind of
 
insincere smile that made her believe he was used to getting what he
wanted.
 
But he wasn’t smiling.
 
In fact, his face was serious and
apologetic and for a moment, she wanted to open the door, to let him in, to
hope that he would pull her close again and kiss her the way he was doing
before.
 
She didn’t even care that
he was a liar and a jerk – her body didn’t know the difference.

“Please,” he said, and she almost melted.

Almost.

“No.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“I’m
sorry, I just….You need to go.”
 
And
then she shut the door on him before she could change her mind.

Chapter
Five

The breakfast at the St. Pierre Siesta Key was
known for being amazing -- fluffy waffles topped with fruit and fresh whipped
cream, savory scrambled eggs mixed with fresh greens, and salty bacon fried to
perfection.
 
When Chad stayed in
hotels, breakfast was one of the things he looked forward to the most.
 
In fact, breakfast was usually the first
thing he thought about when he woke up in the morning.
 

But not this morning.
 
This morning, all he could think about
was Kenley.
 
The way it had felt to
kiss her.
 
The way her ass had
looked in those jeans.
 
How
disappointed she’d looked when he’d gone to her room last night, and how
horrible he’d felt walking back to the penthouse after she’d rejected him.

Whatever,
he told himself.
 
She was just a girl he met last
night.
 
Nothing to get all riled up
about, and besides, he needed to stay focused for his meeting this
morning.
 
He really needed this
endorsement deal.
 

He hadn’t been lying when he’d told Louis that
the Brooklyn Heat had been going through a rebuilding period.
 
They’d won the World Series last year,
but their players had a reputation for being badasses, and the team as a whole
wasn’t known for being what you’d call family friendly.
 
A deal with a shoe company like Expera
would not only mean an influx of cash, but it would give him and the Heat a bit
of legitimacy.
 
The owner of the
team would be thrilled, and happy owners led to bigger contracts.

Chad got out of bed and showered, doing his
best to ignore the hardness between his legs every time he thought about
Kenley.
 
He dressed in a black Hugo
Boss suit with a crisp red shirt and a gray silk tie, then called down to the
front desk for a cab.
 
He decided to
skip breakfast.
 
After he landed the
deal, he could come back here and celebrate with a good meal.

The cab was waiting for him when he got to the
lobby.

“Hey,” the cabbie said as Chad climbed in.
 
“You’re Chad Parnell!”

“That I am,” Chad said.
 
He looked back at the hotel, distracted,
wondering what Kenley was doing.
 
Was she checking out?
 
Was he
ever going to see her again?
 
Probably not.
 
She definitely
hated him.
 
Not that he could blame
her.
 
What he’d done
had
been pretty despicable.
 
But still.
 
Hadn’t she ever heard of forgive and
forget?
 
Chad had gotten forgiveness
for much worse things that what had happened last night.
 
Forget
her,
Chad thought.
 

“Where you off to, man?”
 
the cabbie asked.
 
“You guys really sign that shithead
Lawson?”

“I don’t know,” Chad lied, not really in the
mood to get into some big discussion about baseball.
 
“They don’t tell me anything.”
 

“Yeah, right,” the cabbie said and then
chuckled.
 
“Don’t play with me,
man.
 
It’s all over the papers.”

“Then it must be true.”
 
Chad’s tone was sharper than he
intended.
 
Sexual frustration tended
to make him cranky.

“So it’s going to be like that, huh?”
 
The cabbie sounded pissed.
 
He gripped the steering wheel tighter
and shook his head.
 
“You fucking
celebrities are all the same.
 
Think
your shit don’t stink.”
 

Chad wanted to ask him how many other
celebrities had been in his cab.
 
This wasn’t New York or L.A. -- it was Siesta Key, Florida, and Chad
wouldn’t even be here except for the fact that Siesta Key was where Expera’s
main headquarters were located.
 
But
getting into it with the cabbie would only extend the ride, and Chad wanted to
get going.
 
“I’m going to Camden
Street,” Chad said.
 
“Number 503.”

The cabbie glared at Chad in the rearview
mirror, then pulled the car onto the street.
 
Chad smoothed down his suit, opened his
briefcase and pulled out his iPad.
 
Normally he didn’t carry a briefcase.
 
People who carried briefcases were
almost always bullshit posers, or those fashion weirdos who walked around
talking about the difference between Prada and nada.
 
But for a professional meeting, Chad
thought it was a nice touch.
 
And
the fact that he could keep his iPad in it was a plus.
 

He opened his ebook app and started reading his
latest download, a thriller that had looked interesting.
 
But five minutes later, he realized he’d
been reading the same page over and over again.
 
It wasn’t the book.
 
The book was good.
 
It was Kenley.
 
He still couldn’t stop thinking about
her.
 
Before he could talk himself
out of it, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed the hotel.

“Room 203, please,” he said.
 
He listened while the line rang.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman at the front desk
said.
 
“There’s no answer at that
room.
 
Would you care to leave a
message?”