Take Me (24 page)

“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.

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?”

He was about to tell her no – leaving messages wasn’t his style. But then he changed his mind. “Actually, yes,” he said. “Can you just tell her that Chad called? You can give her this number.” He rattled off his cell, being careful not to reveal his last name. The last thing he needed was some overzealous hotel room clerk plastering his phone number all over her facebook wall.

He ended the call and sat back in the cab, satisfied. If she called him, she called him. If she didn’t, she didn’t. He was Chad fucking Parnell, on his way to one of the biggest meetings of his career. Getting all worked up over some girl he’d just met was ridiculous. He was going to go into Expera, charm the hell out of them, and land the deal. Then he was going to immediately get the hell out of here and celebrate back in New York, Brooklyn style.

“Can you stop at McDonald’s?” Chad asked the cabbie. He was suddenly ravenous. “I haven’t had breakfast.”

“Awww, man,” the cabbie whined. “McDonald’s is all the way back there.”

“Thanks,” Chad said, and gave him a pat on the back. “I appreciate it.” He made a mental note from now on to scrap his no limo policy. This shit wasn’t worth it.

***

Kenley had been awake since five am. It was now eleven-thirty, and she was in the clutches of a full blown panic attack. Okay, so that was being a little dramatic. Panic attacks involved sweating and throwing up and losing your mind a little. She was definitely losing her mind a little, but she didn’t think it was appropriate to really call what she was going through a panic attack. That would have been disrespectful to people who actually
did
have panic attacks. Kenley was a firm believer in karma and she felt professing to have a panic attack when she really wasn’t was just asking for one.

“Do you want another coffee?”

Kenley looked up from her computer. She was sitting in a middle booth in the back of a Friendly’s after being directed here by the front desk clerk at her hotel, who had told her that Friendly’s had free Wifi. The clerk had neglected to mention that they also had very pushy waitresses who were getting annoyed that Kenley was sitting there, taking forever to finish her BLT and ordering coffee after coffee. It wasn’t like Kenley was going to stiff on the tip or anything – she’d leave an amount that was appropriate for the time she’d spent in the booth. Besides, the waitress should just be glad she actually
had
a job. Some people weren’t as lucky.

“Actually, I’ll have a Diet Coke,” Kenley said. Maybe this would make the waitress happy. Two drinks would equal a higher bill. The waitress sighed and then pulled out her notepad, writing Kenley’s order down as she walked back toward the kitchen. Obviously it was all for show. Who needed to write down Diet Coke? It was just one drink.

Kenley turned back to her laptop. She was on monster.com, trying to figure out what kind of job she should be applying for. The financial sector was dead, and she didn’t really know what else she was interested in. Maybe she should go back to school, become a teacher. She loved kids, and kids loved her. It was one of the things that she’d suspected would have eventually become a big point of contention between her and her ex-boyfriend, Jeremy. She’d wanted kids, and he hadn’t.

Of course, teachers had really hard jobs and worked tons of hours. Yeah, they had summers off, but that didn’t really count because usually they had to get other, crappier jobs working retail or tutoring some snot-nosed brat that they probably couldn’t stand during the school year. Still. Teaching would be fulfilling. She wouldn’t get rich.

But she didn’t need to get rich. She just needed to be able to pay her rent.

She went back to google so that she could try to figure out what the requirements were for getting your teaching certificate in the state of Connecticut. They probably involved something ridiculous, like having to go back to school for five years and then take all kinds of standardized tests. Kenley hated standardized tests. You always ended up getting all nervous and the questions were so
random,
like about how –

“Hello.”

She looked up. Chad Parnell was standing in front of her, and Kenley’s breath caught in her chest. She’d been spending all morning trying to keep herself from thinking about him, and now here he was.

He looked amazing. His broad shoulders were encased in a black pinstriped suit, the kind of suit that was perfectly tailored and showed off every muscle. She remembered how hard his chest was, how it had felt last night when he pulled her close to him. She remembered the heat of his mouth against hers, how his kiss had changed from forceful to gentle and then back again. Warmth flooded through her body, and she took a sip of her coffee, hoping he couldn’t see how flustered she was.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted, and then instantly regretted it. It was a stupid thing to say.
‘What are you doing here’
sounded like she wanted him there, like she was just expecting him to walk in, like she was
happy
to see him. What she should have said was
‘Leave me alone, asshole’
or, better yet, thrown a drink in his face. She’d always wanted to do that to someone, ever since she saw Samantha do it on an episode of Sex and the City. If she’d had her Diet Coke, it would have been perfect. She looked around for the waitress, who, of course, was nowhere to be found. Kenley returned her gaze to Chad and glared.

“That’s not a very friendly look,” Chad said, and slid into the booth across from her. His legs were so long that they brushed against hers. He smiled, like he could tell he was getting to her.

“So?” Again, not the best comeback, but she turned back to her computer screen, hoping he’d get the message that she wanted to be left alone.

“So you were a lot more friendly last night.”

Again, images from last night flooded her head. How small she’d felt when he’d wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. How he smelled like soap and peppermint gum. How badly she’d wanted him.