Brooklyn Heat (12 page)

She shrugged. “Not sure,” she said. “Hey, did any of you guys see where that girl went? The one with Chad?”

“She got into a taxi!” one of them yelled. An excited murmur started going through the crowd, and now the photographers were interested. They smelled a scandal brewing, a fight between Chad and Kenley, one that maybe caused her to leave the restaurant.

“Thanks,” Chad said. It was definitely best not to ask them anything else. Jesus.

They’d just gotten the pictures of them as a couple, and now they were itching for them to break up.

He hailed a cab. Kenley was probably heading back to Brooklyn. He’d follow her back, and when he got there, he’d somehow find a way to make it okay. He’d apologize, talk to her, take her out, do whatever it took. He gave the cabbie his address, then pulled his phone out and dialed Kenley’s number. She didn’t answer, of course.

Damn it.

He drummed his fingers on the back of the seat. The cab zoomed through the gridlike streets of New York City, and Chad willed the cabbie to go faster. He had never felt this desperation, this burning need to be close to another person. Not being able to talk to Kenley, to apologize to her was driving him out of his mind.

When the cab pulled up in front of his apartment, Chad threw some money through the divider, and then ran into his building. But when he got to the apartment, Kenley wasn’t there. He raced into the guestroom. Her suitcase was still there, and he breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t left the city.

Okay. He could handle that. Maybe she’d stopped off somewhere, or maybe her cabbie had recognized her as an out-of-towner and was taking her the long way to Brooklyn. Whatever the case, all he had to do was wait for her. He would wait for her here, for however long, and when she got here, he would make it right.

Chapter Eleven

Three hours later, Kenley emerged from Bloomingdale’s, holding two shopping bags. Inside one was a pair of shoes, and inside the other was a t-shirt. The shoes were sparkly and pink and not that expensive, and the t-shirt was soft and black and had cost her sixty-two dollars. But she didn’t care. It was her I’m-fabulous-no-matter-what-Chad-Parnell-says-and-I-deserve-an-expensive-shirt-if-I-want-it shirt.

She walked down the sidewalk, swinging her bags, wondering what she should do next. She thought about maybe going to a museum, or out to lunch, or even to the Empire State Building. But she was exhausted. And the longer she stayed out, the longer she’d be stuck in New York. She was dreading seeing Chad, but she knew it was going to happen sooner or later. It was time to face the music. It was time to go back to Brooklyn.

She hailed a cab, checking her phone on the way back to Chad’s apartment. He’d called three more times since the last time she’d checked an hour ago. She deleted the messages without listening to them, praying that he would be in his bedroom or something when she got to his apartment.

No such luck. As soon as she stepped off the elevator, he was poking his head out the door.

“Hello,” she said, doing her best to sound cordial but cold.

“Hey,” he said. “Where were you?”

“Oh, just doing some shopping.” She tried to sound breezy, like it was totally normal for her to spend hours alone in New York shopping when she had no money and had just gotten into a fight with the man who was paying her to be his fake girlfriend.

“Do you need help with your bags?”

“No, I only have these two.” She brushed by him and into the apartment, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was only four o’clock. Her flight didn’t leave until seven tomorrow morning. Which meant that she had fifteen more hours of this. Okay, she told herself. New plan: get into guest room asap and don’t come out.

“Listen,” Chad said, closing the door behind him. “I need to talk to you.”

This was it. The moment she’d been dreading. The moment where he was going to sit her down like some kind of loser and tell her about how last night didn’t mean anything, and that he hoped she wouldn’t take it the wrong way and it was really fun but here’s your check now see you later bye. Well, whatever. She wasn’t going to listen to it. And in fact, she was going to cut him off at the pass.

“Yes,” she said. “I need to talk to you too.”

“You do?” He seemed surprised.

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to be leaving tomorrow, and I know this is kind of awkward, but we need to talk about payment.”

“Payment?”

“Yes.” She nodded, forcing herself to look him in the eye. If he thought that sleeping with her was going to turn her into some kind of pile of mush that told him not to worry about the money, he had another thing coming. “I’m assuming you’ll write me a check?”

“A check?” His eyes were about to bug out of his head.

“Yes.”

“Listen,” he said. “I need to apologize for –“

She put her hand up. “There’s no need.”

“No need for what?”

“To apologize.”

“But you don’t even know what I’m going to apologize for.”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “You’re going to apologize for what happened last night.

But I’m a grown woman, Chad, totally in charge of myself. It was just sex.” She shrugged. “It happens.”

“It does?” He seemed stunned. Probably because he didn’t think that she could wrap her mind around the idea of casual sex.

“Yes.” She thought about adding that it happened more to some people than others, but she figured that would be taking it a little too far. He might think he’d affected her, and she really didn’t want that. “Now, I have a headache from all the recycled air in the department store, so I’m going to take a bath and then try to get some sleep. You can leave the check on the counter for me to take in the morning. I’ve made arrangements for a car to pick me up.” That was a lie. But she would make arrangements. She held her hand out.

“You want me to shake your hand?!” Chad was looking at her in astonishment.

“Yes. This was a business deal, and that’s what people do at the end of a business deal.”

“Kenley,” he said. “Look, we need – “

“Chad,” she said, forcing her features into a face blank of emotion. “Please. I’m really tired.” She nodded toward her outstretched hand.

He reached out and took her it, a frisson of electricity sparking between them.

God, he was gorgeous. The gray sweater he was wearing brought out his eyes, and his hair was slightly messy, and she couldn’t help but think about what it felt like to kiss him.

He held onto her hand longer than was necessary, and for one wonderful, delicious moment, she thought he was going to pull her close. But finally, he let go.

Kenley walked to her bedroom, shut the door behind her and threw herself down on the bed. After a few minutes, she started to cry.

***

Chad had been pacing outside of Kenley’s bedroom door for the past two hours.

At first, when she’d disappeared into her room after giving him that big speech about how them sleeping together hadn’t meant anything, Chad had been angry. He’d immediately written a check out to her for a hundred thousand dollars and placed it on the counter with a post-it note the said, “Good luck!! Take care, Chad.”

He figured the message struck just the right chord, namely that the money meant nothing to him and neither did she. But now he was over his anger, and he wanted to talk to her. But every time he’d gotten up the courage to knock on Kenley’s door, he’d stopped himself. It was completely fucking ridiculous. He was acting like some kind of lovesick high school kid, instead of a thirty-year-old man with millions of dollars and a major league baseball contract.

Just do it
, he told himself. Knock on the door and tell her how you feel. He raised his hand, poised to knock.
Do it.
But at the last second, he turned away. Damn.

What the hell was wrong with him?

What he needed was a pep talk.

He grabbed his cell phone then slipped outside of his apartment and into the hallway. Since his was the only apartment on the floor, there was a lot of privacy. He settled down into one of the chairs his decorator had insisted he put out here. At the time, Chad thought it was the dumbest idea he’d ever heard, since he figured no one was ever going to be sitting in them. But now he was glad the chairs were there. He dialed Jay.

“Yo,” Jay said when he answered. The sound of the television in the background filtered through the phone.

“I’m going to tell you something now, and when I do, I need you to not react in any way. I need you to not say anything, to not judge me, to not voice your opinion or say ‘I told you so.’”

“Okay,” Jay said. He sounded wary. Not that Chad could blame him.

“I think I’m in love with Kenley,” Chad said. Silence. “Say something!”

“You just told me not to!”

“I know, but…” Chad shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “What am I supposed to do?” He was out of his chair now, pacing up and down the hallway, his bare feet leaving marks in the plush cream-colored carpet.

“Well,” Jay said. “What’s the situation?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, does she know that you love her?”

“No.”

“Where is she?”

“In my guest room. I’m pretty sure she hates me.”

“You left her in there?”

“What do you mean left her in there?”

“I assume you just had sex?”

“Why would assume that?” Chad was incredibly insulted. Never mind that he’d never really mentioned a girl’s name to before unless he’d slept with her. He’d just told Jay that he might be in love with this woman. What did sex have to do with it?

“Did you?” Jay asked.

“What?”

“Have sex with her!”

“Yes, but not today, I …” He leaned against the wall and then slid down until he was sitting on the floor. “I’m confused.”

“About?”

“I want to tell her.”

“That you love her?”

“Yes.”

“So what’s stopping you?”

“I don’t…listen, can I come over?”

“Of course,” Jay said. “We’re watching football, and Alyssa’s making nachos.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

***

Kenley heard the front door of the apartment open and close, signaling that Chad was leaving. She’d been holed up in the guest room for the past two hours. First she’d taken a long bath, and although the hot water had left her skin feeling smooth and refreshed, it hadn’t done anything to relieve the sadness she’d felt.

She waited a few seconds to make sure Chad was definitely gone, then padded out into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and starting poking around. She sliced up a tomato and cut two slices from a loaf of crusty French bread that was in the bread box.

She added some cheese and mayonnaise to her sandwich, then heated up a can of chicken noodle soup.

It was going to be fine, she told herself as she ate. Getting all worked up over a guy she’d only known for a week was crazy, and she would be over it in no time. Not that she really believed that it mattered how long you knew someone when it came to relationships. She’d known Jeremy for months before they’d started dating, and it still hadn’t worked out.

But this was different. Obviously the reason she was feeling this way about Chad was because she’d had sex with him. Everyone knew that women got crazy when it came to sex, that they got immediately attached to the person they’d slept with, whether they wanted to or not. It was biology or hormones or Darwinism or something.

She sighed. Whatever. She’d be over it once she got back to Connecticut and got away from Chad. She was wiping up the crumbs from her sandwich and just about to head back to the bedroom when she saw it. A check, sitting on the counter. One hundred thousand dollars, made out to her from the account of Chad Parnell. She ran her hands over the number. She’d never seen so many zeroes in her life. She imagined them sitting in her bank account, the feeling she’d get checking her balance and realizing she didn’t have to worry about money, at least not for a while.

Then she noticed the post-it on top. “Good luck!” it said. “Take care, Chad.”

She stared at it in disbelief. Her eyes fill with prickly tears, and then anger blazed through her body. Good luck? Take care? What the fuck?

She stomped angrily into the bedroom and picked up the phone. “Melissa?” she said when her sister answered. “Can you pick me up at the airport in a few hours?”

“I guess,” Melissa said, sounding like it was an inconvenience even though she would be done with work by then.

“Great,” Kenley said. She was packing up the little stuff that she had, throwing her pajamas into her suitcase angrily, and sliding her laptop into its case so hard that for a second she was afraid she might have broken it. “I’ll call you back in a little bit once I figure out my flight.”

“What happened?” Melissa asked. “Is it over? Are you rich now? I saw the pictures of you guys outside of that restaurant, you looked amazing. Are you allowed to keep those boots?”

“No,” Kenley said. But then she thought about it. Why shouldn’t she keep the boots? There was no way she was going to take Chad’s money, not now, but she could at least take the boots. She threw them in her suitcase and then zipped it up, feeling satisfied.

“Really?” Melissa sounded disappointed. “I thought you’d at least be able to keep some of the clothes.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t.” But as she was saying the words, she was starting to get angrier. Who did he think he was? Just because he was good-looking and rich and used to people fawning all over him didn’t give him the right to treat people like shit. She stomped over to the closet and pulled down a few of the more expensive-looking dresses, then added another pair of shoes, a couple sweaters, and some jeans.

“Are you okay?” Melissa asked. “Because you sound a little frantic.”

“I’m not frantic!”

“Well, you sound frantic. What’s all that commotion?”

“I’m packing.” Kenley was in the bathroom now, adding a bunch of lotions and bubble baths to the pile of clothes in her arms. Then she realized that with all the security regulations, she probably wouldn’t be able to take the beauty products on the plane.

Damn. She reluctantly put them back and looked around the room for something else to steal. Her eyes landed on a loofah, and she grabbed it.

“Don’t you want to know what people are saying about you?”

“What people?” Kenley unzipped her suitcase and dumped in her contraband.

But with all the extra clothes, she was having a hard time zipping it up. She sat on the suitcase and tugged at the zipper. It didn’t budge. But Kenley was determined. She pushed all her weight down until finally, little by little, inch by inch, it zipped. Ha! she thought, feeling satisfied. Take that!

“The tabloid people.”

“What tabloid people?”

“US Weekly has you on their website.” Melissa cleared her throat and started to read off the website. “Who’s Chad Parnell’s new lady friend? Sources tell us it’s Kenley Mitchell, a financier from Connecticut.”

“Financier?” Kenley snorted. “Try unemployed mortgage broker. And what sources?”

“We dig her fresh-faced look,” Melissa went on. “Who says you have to be Jessica Alba to land a hot rich man?”

“Wow,” Kenley said, shaking her head. “Talk about a back-handed compliment.

Not to mention that whole statement is extremely sexist.”

“I thought it was nice,” Melissa said. “They were saying that you look pretty naturally, that you don’t have to be some airbrushed model type to get a hot guy.

Although, now that I think about it, they really might have airbrushed you. Didn’t you have a zit on your chin when you left?”

“I have to go,” Kenley said. “I’ll call you when I get to the airport.”

She grabbed her coat off the bed and shrugged it on. She took one last look around, then grabbed her suitcase, and strolled out of the apartment. With any luck, she would never have to see Chad Parnell again.