Hot Water (18 page)

“Yes,” I repeat, digging my fingernails into the leather armrests.

“All right. I want you to go through all my files from the time I got here and categorize them. Then I want you to separate out the accounts by year.”

I know these are impossible jobs, jobs that will take more than the next two weeks for me to complete. Hell, I probably wouldn’t be able to complete them in three years. I know that as long as I am here, he is going to make my life a living hell. But there is nothing I can do. I just stare at him, my eyes brimming with tears. When they finally spill over, he points at the door. “Get the hell out of here, whore.”

“Rhys.”

The sound startles me so that I jump sky-high. I turn. Caden is there. He closes the door. His face is rigid. “What the
fuck
do you think you’re doing?”

Rhys Bradley straightens, and his lips curl into a smile. “Just giving our intern some direction.”

Caden looks at me. I’m still breathing hard, and the tears are still threatening to spill onto my cheeks. He turns to Rhys. “Direction, my ass. “ He comes up close to him, and I cringe at the thought of what he might do. His next words are very calm. “I believe you called Miss Chase a derogatory word and I won’t have that at the company that bears my name. I need you to apologize to her.”

Rhys laughs. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Do it.”

Rhys exhales. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, off-handedly.

Caden shakes his head. “You can do better than that.”

Rhys clasps his hands together, and says, in a louder voice, “I am sorry, Miss Chase. Please accept my utmost apologies.” He still manages to sound like an asshole, like it’s all a game and he just lost a round.

“Miss Chase. Go back to your workstation. ” Caden says this while still staring at Rhys, his nose inches from his face.

I quickly stand and scurry away, and the last thing I see is the two friends standing there, eyeing each other up like prey.
This can’t be happening
. I’m trembling as I walk to my cubicle.

Violet comes into my cubicle a second later. “Whoa. Why are you shaking?”

“Nothing, I—“

Dax says, “Please tell me that Rhys Bradley didn’t ream you out for something? I hear he can be a read hardass.”

I shake my head.
More like, he can be a real ass
. I still can’t believe that two executives were fighting about me, an intern. That Caden would stand up for me like that. With all the enormous responsibilities he has on his head, he still cares enough to intercede.
He cares about me
. He’d said as much in the hotel room, but I had a hard time believing it, until now. “I’m fine,” I say, taking a big swig of my caramel macchiato. It’s still hot and I burn my tongue.

Violet shoves a New York newspaper under my nose. “Look at this.”

It’s the society page, something I never read because all the snooty people mentioned on it might as well be aliens to me. She’s actually highlighted one of the passages, and the black ink on the page is smeared, showing me it’s probably been passed around a lot. It says:

News is that playboy Caden Williams, of Williams and Williams, who has been named one of the City’s sexiest bachelors for over a decade, might soon extend that streak for another year. The guest list for his fairytale wedding to corporate motivator Andrea Finch was greeted with a curt and apologetic email this weekend, noting the nuptials were called off and all gifts would be returned. No explanation was given, but sources say that Williams has been spending much of his time in the company of another young lady.

I can’t hold the newspaper in my hand, as it’s shaking so much. I drop the newspaper on top of my keyboard. “He called off the wedding,” I whisper.

“Yeah,” Dax says. “Probably being in Vegas reminded him it sucks to be tied down by any one woman, when there’s such an expansive buffet out there.”

I’m sure Dax says this because he’s trying to salvage the last bit of dignity that Jacinta has stripped from him. I nod, even though I know better.

“Who do you think the other young lady is?” Dax wonders aloud.

I shrug. It’s not me. It can’t be me. Yes, I spent time with him, riding to the corporate apartment, working late on the presentation, but everything had been completely aboveboard. Sure, I’d been in his hotel room in Vegas, but that was nothing, either. Nothing like what they’re suggesting, at least. And even if that’s what the gossip says, I’m not the reason for calling off his engagement. He has reasons that don’t involve me. They
can’t
involve me. I just helped him see them.

Caden

“You’re a fucking pansy.”

The words echo across the green.

I nod. I’ve been bracing myself for this all weekend, which is why I’ve avoided my father until now. It’s times like these I’m glad he only makes it to the office once every couple of weeks. But I can’t avoid our golf games. My dad lives for golf. After his stroke, before he’d left the hospital, he’d ordered a special motorized wheelchair that allows him to play, propping him into standing position whenever necessary. I’m good at it, but I’ve never liked it much. Cameron was the golfer in the family.

Cameron was
everything
in the family.

“So what the fuck went wrong, now?” he booms, banging his golf club on the ground and taking big chunks of turf out of the ground. “Are you fucking around?”

I shake my head. “I don’t love her.”

His wrinkles in his face deepen. “Love? Who gives a fuck about love? You think I married your mother because I loved her? I married her because she’s a fine woman. And Andrea was the finest woman a pansy ass like you is ever going to get. You worthless piece of shit.”

I stare off at the next hole. I
fucking
hate golf. “Thanks, Dad.”

“You know I want grandkids,” he mutters. “Before I die. Which isn’t going to happen because my only living son is a little faggot.”

“I need the right girl, Dad,” I say under my breath. “Andrea wasn’t the right girl.”

“Hell she wasn’t. She was the best woman you’ll get. You’re afraid of being a man and tying yourself down. Just suck it up, and be a man. You need to get married. Stop fucking around with girls, and be a man, for fuck’s sake!”

He’s staring at me, his face red with fury, and I know what he’s thinking, what he’s always thinking. He throws his club across the green with remarkable force for a cripple.

I exhale. “Just admit it, dad. You wish I’d been the one on that plane. Not Cameron.”

His eyes narrow. “No shit.”

Without another word, he glides away in his scooter. He leaves me with the caddy, who after listening to the whole exchange in uncomfortable silence, shuffles off to retrieve the club.

After only two holes, our golf game is over.

Chapter Nineteen

Cicily

A storm rolls through early morning, leaving it unseasonably cool for late July, with high clouds, a soft breeze, and abundant sunshine. The tension in the building is palpable—Jacinta is avoiding Dax, Dax is moping, everyone keeps theorizing about the reasoning behind Caden’s broken engagement, the normally quiet Charlotte can’t stop talking about Lucas from accounting, and I keep waiting for Rhys to appear in my cubicle and wondering what happened between him and Caden the moment I left. We’re all just . . . off. I decide to go for a walk in Central Park during lunch . . . by myself, to clear my head.

I walk past the fountain, nibbling on my sandwich and thinking about Caden. He made the right choice. His best friend, and the woman he loved most, betrayed him. He must have felt so alone. It is amazing he could stand to remain close to either of them.

I shoo away a bee and am about to throw away the plastic baggy when I realize someone is standing on the other side of the trash can, staring at me. I look up. It’s Caden. He’s wearing a form-fitting tech shirt that shows off his broad shoulders and chest, and running shoes. He pulls out his earbuds and wiggles his fingers at me.

“Um, hi,” I say. “Were you going for a run?”

 He shrugs. “I was. I sometimes go during lunch, to clear my head.” There seems to be a lot of that need going around. I wait for him to run off with a “see you,” but instead he says, “You walking? Maybe I’ll just walk with you. I’m not in the mood to run, anyway.”

“Okay.”

We walk. “Nice day,” he says.

I nod. So he wants to make chit chat with me. I am not in the mood for chit chat, especially since I now feel that tension I’d escaped from the office, crowding around me again. “What are you clearing your head from?” I ask.

He snickers. “I’ve got a list. I’d tell you but you’ll be here all day.”

“That’s okay.”

He changes the subject. “You looked like you were thinking hard about something. Anything on your mind?”

“Yeah. All the interns are acting a little crazy. I needed to get out of there. And . . . ” I stop. I can’t really tell him I was thinking about him, so I bite my tongue. Then I grab his iPod from his hands, to his surprise. I page through the songs. “Enya?” I ask, in disbelief.

He shrugs. “It gets me in a zone.”

“You are a dork. I don’t know if I can walk with you anymore.”

I bite my lip. Did I just call my mother’s boss a dork? I wait for him to get offended, but he just laughs. “I mostly just listen to classical. That’s what happens when you have a mother who’s a cellist with the New York Philharmonic. Maybe I should have you re-do my playlist?”

“Er. I would be happy to,” I say, shrugging off the fact that he probably has the most talented and interesting family in the world. I start shuffling through the iTunes library, adding songs for him as we walk. “So, you’re mom’s a cellist? Do you play any instruments?”

“Piano and violin,” he says, looking at the ground. “Not as well as she did.”

The way he says it, in the past tense, I realize she’d no longer alive. Great. I need to stop talking before I bring up any more touchy topics. We wind up walking in excruciatingly painful silence.

After a few minutes, he asks, “Are you okay?”

I stop, and look up at him. His eyes are rimmed in concern. “Are you?”

He looks surprised by the question. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. Did you really call off your wedding?” So much for not bringing up touchy topics.

We’re surrounded by trees, and the sun is completely blocked out of the canopy over us. He looks up, and back down. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “I’m not.”

“But your family—“

“My dad hates me for not being Cameron, yeah. But I’m not him. I know he won’t accept that. But what can I do? I need to be, not act, right?”

 “Oh. Yeah.” I swallow, noticing the park is now a lot less crowded than it once was. What time is it? Is the lunch rush over? We’ve walked to a part I don’t usually go, deep inside the park. I don’t think my hour is over, and yet, I know that when I’m with him, I lose track of time. It’s a power he has.

Suddenly, my ears are accosted with something horrible. “Holy . . . you have
Oh What a Night
on here?”

He shrugs. “It’s timeless.”

I cover my mouth badly and whisper, “Clueless” to no one in particular.

He looks at me, confused. “That was the song that was playing when I first saw you.”

“Oh, really?” He remembers the song he was listening to the first time he saw me? I screw up my face in mock disgust to hide the fact that I’m certain I’m about to have a heart attack . . .
he remembers that
? I mean, I can barely remember a thing about that night . . . and he kept the song on his iPod. That’s cute. Still clueless, but cute. “That club was lame.”

He nods seriously. “After all,
you
were there.”

I narrow my eyes. “I hope you’re not calling me lame. Lame.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that,” he says, with mock indignation. “I am the consummate gentleman.”

I roll my eyes, shuffling through the rest of his Playlist of Horror. I can’t believe I am having this immature conversation with a man who owns his own multi-billion dollar company. “Oh, the humanity. If you have Kenny G on here, I’m walking.”

“Um,” he says, looking uncomfortable as he tries to take the iPod away from me.

“Oh, my God, you do?” I ask incredulously. “I can’t believe it. I found Caden the Great’s, the Sexiest Man in the Whole Universe’s Achilles heel. He suffers from musical retardation. Excuse me while I go alert his fan club at
New York Today
.”

He sniffs. “I can’t believe you’re hating on my Kenny G,” he says in a lost, faraway voice. “Just . . . don’t get rid of my boy bands.”

Soon we’re both laughing like idiots. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard.

I finish adding a song, take his earbuds, and hold it next to his ear. He leans in, listening. “Better?” I ask.

He smiles. “What is it?”

“Fall Out Boy,” I say.

“Never heard of them.”

“You have much to learn, young Jedi.”

He grins down at me, and at once I realize he’s very close. He hasn’t been this close to me since . . . since that day, at the beach.

I try to look away. “I think we should get back, sir,” I say, adding the sir to show him just how professional I can be.

“Cicily,” he whispers, his voice breathy.

“What,” I murmur, heat rushing to my cheeks. I can’t do this. I shouldn’t be so close to him. He . . . he doesn’t know about me. That I’m eighteen. If I blurted that out right now, he’d distance himself faster than I could blink. I need to. But I can’t. What I need and what I want are at odds. And right now, I want his mouth on mine. I keep looking down, directly at his broad chest, when I feel his finger very gently under my chin, lifting my face toward his. I close my eyes. I can’t look at him.

“Like I said, you don’t have to call me sir. But I have to admit. The way you say it, it turns me on.”

Our noses are nearly touching, and I can feel his breath on my chin. He smells like peppermint chewing gum. I whisper, “Then we probably shouldn’t—“