Hot Water (28 page)

“You look like hell,” my dad says, inspecting the big suitcase I’d thrown on the ground. “And why are you here? And with all your stuff? Aren’t classes starting soon?”

I sniffle. “Tomorrow. I . . . I don’t think I can go.”

“And . . . why?”

“Mom kicked me out,” I say, sobbing harder when the words are out in the open.

His face falls. He knows I must have done something extra bad for her to have done that. “What were you doing, honey?”

My dad sits on the edge of my bed as I cry into his shoulder. “I can’t . . . I’m too embarrassed to say. But she had every right to. I screwed up everything. And I’m sorry.”

He laughs, and I feel his moustache tickling my shoulder. “You didn’t screw up anything with me, babydoll. I still love you. And you always have a place to stay with me.”

I kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks, Daddy,” I say.

“Grilled cheese?” he asks.

I nod. “Sounds great.”

He leaves and I can hear him rattling pans in the kitchenette. I look at my phone, take a deep breath, and type in:

I am so sorry if you hate me.

Then I throw the phone down on the bed and stare up at the ceiling for a moment, willing my legs to start to work. When they do, I get up and change out of the pink dress I’ve been wearing for much, much too long. As I pull it over my head, I realize it smells, so perfectly, like that woodsy aftershave Caden wears. I groan, then riffle through my suitcase, looking for a pair of shorts.

On the bed, my phone dings. I nearly trip over the suitcase racing for it.

Can you come to my apartment tonight?

Chapter Thirty-One

Cicily

Of course I go to his apartment. Is there any other choice? During the train ride into the city, I brace myself for the send-off. I prepare myself to hear the words,
This was a mistake. One we can’t continue.

But if it’s a mistake, why does being with him make me so happy? Why am I so miserable without him? I’m going to tell him that. I’m going to tell him that I want him forever and hope that he will want me, too.

The elevator ride to his penthouse is the longest one of my life. He’s waiting in the foyer for me, and he has his suit on, his tie undone. He looks scruffier than usual, and his shoulders slump, which is not characteristic of him. When I step off the elevator, he immediately and envelops me in the tightest of hugs, breathing hard into my hair. I relax into him, thinking that if this isn’t where I belong, why does it feel so much like home? “Do you hate me?” I whisper.

 “I can’t hate you, Cicily,” he says. “I love you.”

My eyes sting with tears. “You do?”

“I really, really do, baby.” He laughs. “Probably ever since you stumbled, drunk out of your mind, into my limo.”

I stare at him, open-mouthed.

He reaches over and applies upward pressure under my chin, closing it for me. “How can you be so surprised?” he murmurs.

“I don’t know. You didn’t text me--”

 “I was figuring things out.” He shakes his head. “Cicily, don’t ever doubt what I feel for you. I’m not Trevor. There’s no fucking fish or mammal or
anything
on this earth that’s ever going to take me away from you. You got that?”

“I love you, too,” I whisper. “I am so sorry about your father.”

He tenses for a moment, and his expression turns wounded. “The last thing he told me was that I was nothing.”

“He did?”

“Yeah.”

“God, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Caden. You’re not nothing. Not to me, and not to a lot of people. He was so wrong about you.”

He strokes my face and relaxes into me, and I think that one day, I might get him to believe that. One day, I might get him to see how much he really means. I’d be willing to spend the rest of my life doing that, if that’s what it takes.

I tell him, “I know I shouldn’t be here.”

He holds me tighter. “No. Don’t think that. I don’t give a shit what the newspapers say, or what anyone says. You belong here.”

“But . . . they don’t think you can run the company anymore.”

He shrugs. “Indeed.”

“But you can’t . . . you shouldn’t be with me. Being with me is risking everything.”

“Listen to me, Cicily.” He puts his hands on my shoulders so that I’m looking him straight in the eye. “Being with you isn’t a risk. It isn’t a sacrifice. And it isn’t a gamble. You’re the end-result of everything I’ve done right in my life. You’re the dream. You got that?
You’re
the dream, and the best luck I’ve ever had.”

I’m full-blown crying now. As beautiful as those words sound, I can’t believe them. “But . . . your job. What will you do?”

He smiles, lifting my chin so he can kiss me gently on the nose. Then he wipes away each tear with the pad of his thumb. “Cicily. Look around you. I’m a Williams. I’m fucking loaded. I’m already making plans to be a not-so-starving artist. I’m going to open a studio in SoHo and stay home in ratty shorts all day and paint portraits of my gorgeous muse.” He kisses me again on the forehead. “That is, after she gets home from college.”

My breath quickens. “That could work,” I say.

I stand in front of him, loosening his tie, so that I can pull it over his head.

“It
will
work, as long as you want it to. Because I want you, more than anything I’ve ever wanted. You are an incredible woman, Cicily. You hear that? You’re not a kid, not even close. You’re a woman, the most fucking incredible woman I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.” He inspects me. “Addendum: That is one hot dress. Where do you keep finding these hot dresses?”

“Target,” I say. “Have you ever heard of it? It’s not Chanel, but . . .”

“This Target person knows fashion,” he groans, as I guide his hands to my backside and let them work their way under my dress.

“Limo girl,” he whispers.

I smile. “Angry guy.”

His phone rings. We keep our eyes on each other and groan in unison. He takes the phone out of his pocket and starts to throw it, but then checks the display. He holds up his finger and answers it. “Yeah? Really? No kidding? Phenomenal. Okay. Bye.” He throws the phone on the carpet, and buries his face in my neck, then whispers, very casually, “I’ll just have to paint you on weekends.”

My jaw drops. “Do not tell me they named you CEO.”

He laughs, low and sexy as he kisses my jawline. “I’m not going to tell you anything. I’m just going to make love to you.”

I smile. “I have no objections.”

 “It’s my fucking luck that the girl I wanted to fuck and forget is the girl I need forever,” he murmurs, working the dress over my hips. “And this is forever, right?”

I sigh contently as he trails kisses along the inside of my thigh. “Yes. This is forever.”

Playlist

Here are just a few of the songs that found their way onto Caden’s iPod.

I Don’t Care
– Fall Out Boy

Pictures at an Exhibition (Modest Mussorgsky)
– Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra

December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)
– The Four Seasons

One More Try
– George Michael

Like I Love You
– Justin Timberlake

International Love
- Pitbull

Wanna Be Starting Something
– Michael Jackson

Your Love is My Drug
– Ke$ha

Tonight is the Night
– Outasight

Mirrors
– Justin Timberlake

A Sneak Peek at PLAYING WITH FIRE

Coming from Callie Sparks in 2014!

At 22, Alex Bliss is the first female who might be able to break the glass ceiling that’s been firmly in place at Williams and Williams, and she isn’t about to give that up. Not with an autistic brother and a disabled mother to care for. But the man who has been appointed to teach her the ropes isn’t just a chauvinistic jerk . . . he’s much, much worse, and only she knows it.

Rhys Bradley doesn’t care what women think about him. To him, they’re good for only one purpose, and his feelings aren’t about to change because one has managed to infiltrate his boardroom.

Alex and Rhys have only one thing in common: They’re both planning to make each other’s life a living hell.

But life—and love—often have a way of upsetting even the best-laid plans.

Chapter One

Alex

Four years ago, I lost my best friend.

Beth was the one I went to when Bryce Matthews broke my heart in fourth grade. The one who showed me how to use a tampon. The one who made me chocolate chip cookie care package when I emailed her, telling her I was lonely my first semester at Yale. It didn’t matter what it was, but one thing was a given. She made everything better.

But when she came back from Harvard for winter break, I had to make everything better for her. She was changed. That light in her, the one that just shone and made the world a better place, had all but gone out.

And I tried to make everything better. I really did. But some things, I guess, can’t be undone. Three weeks later, she was dead.

Her parents wanted to know why. They asked me question after question. But I’d promised her I wouldn’t tell.

I didn’t know very much. Just that he was an alumnus. He was much older. His name was Rhys.

Oh, and one other thing . . . he destroyed her.

I never told Beth’s parents that. I never told anyone. For over three years, I’ve kept this buried, because I didn’t want to say anything that would make Beth look weak. She
hated
being weak. Beth was a smart girl. The smartest. Valedictorian. And she wouldn’t let anyone push her around. She’d had plenty of guys after her, and wasn’t the kind of doe-eyed idiot who’d fall for lines. So when she told me that Rhys had worn her down, I knew he had to have something. He had to have been exceedingly charming, mind-bogglingly gorgeous, or the most convincing liar that ever walked the Earth. Or a combination of all three.

Now, sitting here for my briefing with the upper management on my first day of my job with Williams and Williams, I can’t breathe.

Because a Rhys, from Harvard, is standing right in front of me.

He is mind-bogglingly gorgeous. Exceedingly charming, by the way all the other female new-hires in the room are leaning toward him.

And since he’s managing to function like he isn’t the biggest asshole on the planet, an exceptionally convincing liar.

He commands the room in his crisp three-piece suit with the gold cufflinks, Rolex, and mirror-polished wingtips. The poster-child for success. He talks about how honored we should be, since Williams only selects the top one percent of candidates as employees. How we might be lowly little nobodies now, but just wait until Williams gets done with us. How we will learn so much within these walls that in a few years, we can basically write our own ticket. And while this should be interesting to me, there are only two things in my mind. The first is:

I wonder if he knows he killed my best friend.

And the second is:

I’m going to find a way to make him pay.

Rhys

There are some pretty sweet-looking interns this year.

It’s my goal to get with at least half of them. I’m starting with the redhead. Alex. She has these big brown eyes with heavy lids, and a nice cushion of an ass, I can just sink my teeth into. She was totally deer-in-headlights in that meeting, like she had no idea what she’d gotten herself into. That’s the perfect kind. I go in there, offer to help them learn the ropes, and two days later, they get the ride of their lives.

It’s a given. It’s so a given, it’s almost . . . boring.

Almost.

Caden looks at me over his spectacles. We’ve been best friends for more years than I can count, until this summer. Now, things are a little . . . tenuous. “You were at the new hire meeting today, weren’t you?” he asks nonchalantly.

He knows the answer to that. First Monday of the month, the new blood comes in. And he knows I can’t resist the opportunity to look over the selection, which is why years ago, he gave me the task of giving the welcome speech every month. I’m supposed to be the “model” Williams employee, Harvard graduate who worked his way through the company, from junior associate, years and years ago, to Senior Vice President of Accounts and second in line to CEO, should my best friend ever off it. I’m supposed to be the prime example of what every new hire could be, should they put their nose to the grindstone, and have absolutely no social life. But it’s false advertising, to say the least. First of all, none of those fresh-faced recruits has a Williams as a best friend, and secondly . . . only certain people ever make it at Williams and Williams. “Yeah. Why?”

“Because I know that look,” he mumbles. “What’s the matter? Too many to choose from, or not enough?”

Caden is CEO of Williams and Williams. He does not mess around anymore. Especially not since he met his little nineteen-year old piece of ass, Cicily. Since then, all he does is walk around with a whipped look on his face, and he rarely stays late in the office. He says he works at home, but I know what kind of work he’s doing there. Probably with his little blonde’s head in his lap.

Once upon a time, he used to be my competition. Our motto used to be
Work hard, play harder
. We used have a running tally, seeing how many girls we could fuck in a given period of time. But for the past few years, he’s gotten over that. Pussy. How the hell can you get over that?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie. Sure, he’s dead on, but I’m not giving him the satisfaction. There was a time I would have told him. Hell, we would have compared stats and measurements and we would have agreed together which one I should make the first move on. Whenever we talk, now, he’s giving me a look that borders on pity. Like
Don’t you get it man
? We’re not on the same wavelength anymore.