Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (187 page)

But if that was true, then why didn’t she know
who he was?
 
Those kind of girls
always did their homework – so it made sense that she would have figured
out what he looked like, who he was, everything down to his favorite sports
drink before the meeting tomorrow. It didn’t make sense.
 
Was his disguise that good that she
really didn’t recognize him?
  

He pulled his hat off and set it on the bar,
then turned so that he was looking right at her. “Let’s start over,” he said.
“Hi, I’m Chad.
 
Chad Parnell.”
 
He held his hand out, readying himself
for the look of recognition and admiration that was about to cross her face, or
maybe for her to be so surprised that she’d spit her drink out all over the bar
or something.

“I’m Kenley,” she said, giving him a smile.
 
A normal smile.
 
The kind of smile you’d give a guy you
were meeting in a bar.
 
A random guy
you were meeting in a bar, not a famous baseball player.

“I remember,” he said, smiling back.
 
He decided to give it a few seconds and
so he kept staring at her, waiting for her to recognize him.
 
But she didn’t.
 
It was getting a little awkward,
actually, to just keep looking at her without saying anything.
 

And that’s when he figured it out.
 
She was calling his bluff! She knew
exactly who he was, but she was trying to pretend like she didn’t.
 
He’d had this happen before, although
not that often.
 
Girls would act
like they didn’t know him, or that they could care less that he was a
professional baseball player.
 
It
was always bullshit, of course.
 
The
ones who acted like they didn’t care were the ones who cared the most.

Anyway, that was obviously what this Kenley
girl was doing – pretending she didn’t know who he was. But why? Just to
mess with him?
 
She didn’t look like
the type to be manipulative, but whatever the reason, Chad was determined not
to let Kenley get the best of him.

He set his drink down on the bar, and leaned in
close to her.
 
Then he put his hand
back on her leg, making sure that his lips were touching her ear when he
started to whisper.

“So, Kenley,” he said.
 
“Did you mean what you said?”

“When?”
 
She tried to swivel her chair around, to turn away from him, but he kept
his grip firmly on her legs, forcing her to stay close to him.

“When you said maybe we should sleep together.”

She tried to pull away again, and after a
second, he finally let her.
 
She
took a sip of her drink, and he could tell she was flustered.
 
Her cheeks were flushed, and her blue
eyes were bright with excitement. “Maybe.”

“Huh.”
 
He leaned back a little on his stool and cocked his head like he was
thinking.
 
“Okay.”
 
He nodded, stood up, and then leaned
back down to whisper in her ear again.
 
“I’m going up to my room,” he said. “I’m in the penthouse.
 
If you want to come up and join me, I’d
love it.
 
If not, no hard feelings.”

He squeezed her shoulder, threw some money on
the bar for the drinks, and then walked toward the exit without looking back.

Chapter
Three

Kenley stared at the money Chad had thrown
down, her heart pounding.
 
She
couldn’t just go up to his room and sleep with him, could she?
 
That would be crazy.
 
That would be insane.
 
That would be so not like her.
 
God, he was hot.
 
She remembered how his hands felt on her
legs, how his breath had felt against her skin as he whispered in her ear.

Maybe she could just go up and check out his
room.
 
He said he was in the
penthouse, which was intriguing.
 
She’d never seen a penthouse before.
 
It didn’t mean that anything was going
to
happen.
 
They could just hang out, she could
check out his room and then leave whenever she wanted.
 
It would be kind of rude not to, when
you thought about it.
 
He’d invited
her after all, and even though he’d said no hard feelings, it wouldn’t be
polite to just not show up.

“Hey!” she yelled to the bartender.
 
“Hey, you!”
 
She was talking louder than she’d
intended, which probably meant she was a little bit buzzed.
 
She lowered her voice.
 
“Hey!” she said again.
 
“Come here, I need to ask you
something.”

The bartender reluctantly pulled himself away
from the two college coeds, one of whom was now licking salt off the other
one’s stomach.

“Another drink already?” he asked, picking up
her empty glass.
 
He looked at it
doubtfully, like he thought maybe she’d had enough.

“No.”
 
She slid the hundred-dollar bill Chad had left across the bar, hoping
the bartender would think it was her that was paying the tab and leaving a big
tip.
 
“But I have a question.”

“Yeah?” He picked up the hundred and slipped it
in his pocket, not bothering to ask if she wanted any change.

“The penthouse,” she said.
 
“What would a room like that cost?”

“I dunno.”
 
He shrugged.
 
“A couple grand
a night?”

He said it so cavalier, so casual, like he was
used to people spending so much money just for the privilege of sleeping.
 
Then he picked up her empty glass and
walked away.

And before Kenley could talk herself out of it,
she decided she
would
go and meet
Chad.
 
It didn’t mean she was going
to sleep with him.
 
She just wanted
to check out the penthouse.
 
It
would be silly not to -- after all, she might never get another chance to see a
room that cost two thousands dollars a night.

***

It turned out that you had to use some kind of
special touchpad to get into the penthouse, which Kenley thought was
ridiculous.
 
They couldn’t have
given it the same keycard system as the rest of the hotel?
 
She ran her finger over the pad.
 
Next to it, there was a small doorbell,
but she didn’t ring it.
 
Now that
she was here, she was kind of losing her nerve.

She looked down at herself, wondering if it
would be way too obvious that she’d stopped at her room to fix herself up.
 
She was wearing a pair of skinny jeans
and a black sleeveless sweater.
 
She’d given her makeup a touchup, swiping some mascara over her eyes and
lining her lips with a shiny pink gloss.

She thought she’d looked good when she’d
surveyed herself in the mirror a few minutes ago, but now she just felt
ridiculous.
 
What had she been
thinking, coming up here?
 
She must
have been crazy.
 
This wasn’t who
she was, the type of girl who just went following some guy to his hotel
room.
 
Yes, Chad was hot.
 
And yes, he was obviously rich.
 
But still.
 
That didn’t mean anything.
 
Money wasn’t important to her, and
besides, it was always the rich ones who were getting crazy and killing
people.
 

Like that Jordan Vandersloot kid.
 
He was super rich, and always luring
women back to his hotel room so he could chop them up.
 
The thought of getting chopped up was enough
to do it, and she turned around, ready to head back to the elevator and back to
her room when the door to the penthouse opened.

Chad stood there, grinning.
 
His baseball hat was gone, and his navy
blue sweatshirt had been replaced by a black t-shirt.
 
It was the kind of t-shirt that looked
expensive, and it hung on his body, hugging his biceps perfectly.
 
“What’s up?” he said easily, and leaned
against the doorframe.
 

“How did you know I was out here?” Kenley
asked.

“I saw you on the security monitor.”

“There’s a security monitor?”

“Of course.”
 
He nodded, like it should have been
obvious.
 
He was probably one of
those rich types that were always getting nervous that someone was going to
break in and steal all of their super expensive things. People like that were
so annoying.
 
If you had to spend
more time worrying about your stuff than enjoying it, what was the point?

“Oh.”
 
She swallowed, and then smoothed her hair back.
 
Now that he knew she was out here, he
was probably going to expect her to come in.
 
“Well, I was just leaving.”

“Don’t you want to come inside?”
 
He must have sensed her hesitation,
because he added,
 
“Don’t worry, I’m
not a psycho or anything.”

“Really?” she asked.
 
“Because ‘I’m not a psycho or anything’
is exactly what psychos say right before they kill you.”
 
Her jeans were sliding down on her hips
a little bit, and she reached down and hiked them up.
 
Damn low rise jeans.
 
They were supposed to be sexy, but how
sexy could you look when you kept having to pull your pants up?

“Is it?” Chad asked.
 
He sounded amused.

“Yes.”

“Well, do you want to come in anyway?” He
glanced over her shoulder into the room, like he had something important to get
back to and didn’t care either way.
 
“I ordered room service.
 
We
can sit out on the balcony, watch the people down by the pool and eat
hamburgers.”

It sounded so innocent, the way he said
it.
 
Just hanging out on the
balcony, eating hamburgers, people watching and chatting like two old
friends.
 
It really was completely
harmless, when you thought about it.
 
And besides, isn’t that what people did when they went on vacation by
themselves?
 
Meet new people and
hang out with them?
 
Kenley’s sister
Melissa was always traveling around by herself, meeting random strangers as she
went.
 
One time in Paris she met a
friend she stayed in touch with for, like, years, and then later met up with in
Australia.
 
Kenley had always been
jealous of this – the ability to just start talking to people, to forge
bonds with them and make friendships out of nothing.
 
She’d never been good at that sort of
thing, which probably had something to do with why she was having such a hard
time finding a new job.

She didn’t know how to network.
 
At conferences and wine parties she’d
just freeze up, and spend most of her time sitting at the bar sipping a drink,
making herself look busy whenever anyone approached her.
 
Small talk wasn’t her forte.
 
It wasn’t that she was shy – it
was more that she just wasn’t a people person.
 
She liked to be by herself.

“So are you coming in?” Chad asked again.
 
He held the side of the door between his
two hands and pushed it back and forth, waiting to see if he was going to open
it further, letting her in, or close it, leaving her to head back down to her
room alone.

Kenley took a deep breath.
 
“Yes,” she said.
 
“I’m coming in.”
 
And then she followed him into the room.

***

Chad couldn’t believe this chick.
 
She was so bold, the way she was still
pretending like she didn’t know who he was.
 
When he’d left her in the bar, he’d been
almost positive she wouldn’t follow him upstairs.
 
He was hoping she would, of course
– despite the messy hair and the oversized t-shirt, there was something
about her that he found intriguing.
 
And she certainly looked a lot better now, with that sleeveless top she
was wearing and the way her jeans hugged her curves.
 
She kept having to pull them up as they
slid down over her hips, and he imagined what kind of silky, sexy little things
she was wearing underneath.