Love, Chloe (23 page)

I’d been to Whiskey Bravo before, knew the relative location of the ladies room and deck, but we got pulled in by the crowd and ended up upstairs, in a dark corner that I’d never seen. There was an open table there, and we pounced on it. My clutch stuck in between my knees, the stool cool against the back of my thighs, an air vent blew right down, flattening my hair in a manner that couldn’t be attractive. But it was a table. And in a hot bar, on a Friday night in New York, you took a seat, wherever it was.

“HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?” Cammie yelled across the tiny table at me, her voice barely audible over the music and the wheezing air vent.

I shook my head, saving my voice.

“WE’RE NEVER GOING TO FIND HIM HERE,” she continued, Benta covering her right ear as she shot Cammie an irritated look. The poor woman. Stuck in the middle of us, she’d be deaf by dawn.

“Who are you looking for?” The voice didn’t have to shout; it spoke at my ear, the tickle of breath delicious against my skin, and I craned around, looking up into Carter’s face. I smiled.

“Hey.” My greeting got lost in the noise and he lowered his head, putting his ear to my mouth. “Hey,” I repeated and wanted to bite into his neck and suck him into my soul. Someday, when we were babysitting grandchildren, this would be the story I’d tell. The day eloquent Grandma said “Hey,” while stuffed into the corner of a crowded club.

“Been here long?”

I shook my head and my cheek hit his mouth. His hand reached out and settled on my bare knee, the touch electric. I tried to draw in a breath without shaking. God … his touch. It brought to mind his push of me back on his dining room table. The moment during the night when he trailed his fingers across my arm. His mouth, buried between my legs…

“Who are you looking for?” He repeated the question from earlier and I pulled back a little, tilting my head up and looking into his eyes.

I opened my mouth, and honesty fell out. “You.”

His eyes smiled, and his mouth twitched. I gripped the edge of the table and kept myself from reaching for him. “Want to get out of here?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t have heard me but he read my lips and squeezed my knee, running his hand up to my hip, and he helped me off the stool. Leaning across the table he shook Benta’s hand, then Cammie’s, introducing himself while never letting go of me, his hand at my back, keeping me in place at his side.

“I’m stealing Chloe,” I heard him shout to them. “Is that okay?”

“FOR TONIGHT?” Cammie hollered back.

He looked at me and grinned, a moment of silent connection, a moment where the din of the bar faded and we had—in that brief second—
something
. He looked back at Cammie and the connection was broken. Then he leaned into her, whispering something in her ear, and her eyes widened slightly at me, her hand passing over my phone.

I snuck a look at it as Carter shouldered through the crowd, a text from Cammie coming just as I dismissed the missed call alert from Vic.

He said “for as long as she’ll let me.” He’ll steal you for as long as you’ll let him. I think he’s a keeper.

I almost missed her second text, it coming through right as I went to lock my phone, and I smiled when I saw it.

P.S. Use protection. Hopefully Magnums.

We stepped away from the club, his hand settling on my back, the slow caress of his fingers against my exposed skin sending shivers up my spine. He took on the role so easily, the Gentleman Who Behaves While Driving Women Crazy. I looked over at him and he spoke.

“Joey called me.”

“He did?” I frowned, my heel catching on an uneven part of the sidewalk, and I gripped his arm tighter.

“Yep. Told me to stay away from you.”

I laughed and glanced up at him. His face was serious, and his eyes stared straight ahead without a hint of humor. “What? Why?” I looked back down at my feet. Concentrated on putting one in front of the other without stumbling.

“He didn’t really go into details … just said that you were seeing someone on set.” I could feel the grip of his arm tighten, his muscles cording together in rigid strength.

“I’m not—that is so…” I growled under my breath as we came to a stop at a cross street, my hand letting go of his arm, my face hot with embarrassment.

“He also said he told you about Brit.”

Brit. The fuckbuddy. “Yeah,” I said curtly. “He told me about her.”

“We’re just friends.” Carter turned to face me under the glow of the streetlamp, his eyes on mine. “I mean … we’ve fucked in the past. But it’s just a physical thing. We wouldn’t work in a relationship.”

I wanted to follow up that cliffhanger with a jumble of questions, the first one being
why not
? But I didn’t.

“It’s not my business who you sleep with.” I did the cool girl shrug, like I was chill with whatever. “It’d be different if we were … you know. Dating.” I didn’t know why I brought up
dating
. I had come there for a hookup. Right? An isolated event that might turn into a casual sex relationship with one of the sexiest men I’d ever met. Not a real relationship. Not with … my mind stuttered a little.
Not with a maintenance guy
. I’d thought it before. It just hadn’t, in my mind, sounded so
bad
before. Why had I looked down on Carter? Just because I used to have rich parents? I shifted uncomfortably, another mark tallied in the
Chloe Was a Bitch
column.

“You wouldn’t want me to hang out with her. As friends.”

It took a moment for my mind to catch up. “Right.” Regardless of whether Carter and I would ever be official, I didn’t think I’d
ever
be okay with my boyfriend hanging out with someone he used to sleep with.

There was a break in traffic and we hurried across the road, my hand tucking back into his, his grip strong and reassuring as we turned the final corner before our building.

“So…” He squeezed my hand. “Nothing is going on with you and this guy on the set?”

“No.” I looked up at him. “He’s just an ex who showed up on set. Joey would love me to date him again, but…” I shook my head and looked away, down the street toward our building. “We’re over.” I tried not to think of Vic’s mouth, skimming down my neck as he held me down and thrust inside of me.

Carter let out a low whistle as we crossed the street, just steps away from the building, just steps away from being alone. My body tightened in anticipation, my steps hurrying—

I stopped when I saw what he was whistling at, a low-slung red Maserati convertible parked on the curb, my mind immediately shuttering back to the past.

“That’s your car?” Vic smirked at Mom’s Mercedes station wagon. “You’re going to show me around Miami in that?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I got rid of mine when I moved to New York. Trust me, this isn’t my vehicle of choice.”

“And what would be?”

“That’s easy,” I teased, opening the door and stepping into the car. “A Maserati. Red. Like all the hearts I plan on breaking.”

My breath caught in my throat.
Vic wouldn’t have.
We stepped closer, Carter pulling on my hand, his eyes on the car, and I saw an envelope on its windshield, my name printed on the front in black calligraphy.

We stopped before it, and he followed my eyes, his arm reaching out and plucking the white envelope from the windshield.

“Chloe?” My name was a question on his lips, and I stepped back, away from the envelope, away from the question, away from this outrageous gift that would suck me close and run me over.

“Chloe?”

The second time he called my name I was already running inside, my heels loud on the lobby marble then silent on the carpet. I took the stairs, pulling off my stilettos and sprinting, my heart loud, breath hard, and I was winded by the time I got to my apartment and slammed the door shut.

I screamed. Hard and loud enough that a thump sounded from above. Three thumps. The kind a hard heel slammed into the floor makes. I stopped screaming and moved to the couch, punching pillows before grabbing a box of tissues and ripping off a handful. I blotted tears, blew my nose, and cursed Vic’s name.

This car was nothing to him; it was a pawn in a chess match where my heart was the prize, and his strategy was so much better than mine. His strategy was born from a lifetime of having everything, including me. His strategy took risks because he had nothing to lose.

My strategy was to play defense and gamble nothing and protect myself, and I did a shitty job of that when I let him push up my skirt and fuck me in Joey’s trailer.

The knock was soft and gentle. I almost missed it, the timing coinciding with an enormous blow of my nose. When he knocked a second time I stood, walking over to the peephole and looking through it. I sank against the door, almost relieved when I saw it was just Carter.

“Everything okay?” he called out.

“Yeah.” I wiped at my eyes. “Sorry about that.”

“No worries. I’ll just remember, come your birthday, that you don’t like cars.”

I laughed.

“What should I do with the card?”

I should have told him to throw it away. I should have told him to rip it into tiny pieces and stuff it down a garbage disposal. “Can you slide it under my door?”

Through the peephole, I saw the playful grin that crossed his face. “No goodnight kiss?”

I smiled, and a fresh stream of tears leaked out. “Not tonight.”

The white envelope slipped underneath the door. “Thanks,” I said quietly.

“No problem. Good night, Chloe.”

I smiled, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Good night, Carter.”

He turned and left and for a long beat, I stared through the peephole at the empty hallway. Carter would never be able to buy me a Maserati. Did it matter? It felt like my old life was another person entirely. I didn’t want the Maserati out front, not when it put me back with an unfaithful man, back in a life that suddenly felt hollow and superficial.

I bent down and picked up the envelope, running my fingers over the white parchment, my name jotted on its surface in a script that was familiar and one hundred percent Vic.

I ran a finger under the seal and opened the envelope. Pulled out a square card and, with a shaky hand, flipped it open.

This car is fast, like the beat of my heart when you smile. Fierce like your spirit. Incomparably gorgeous, like its new owner.

This is not a bribe or a lure. It
is
a stick shift, but you’ve never had trouble handling that before.

Enjoy it baby.

Paper-clipped to the back of the card, a folded piece of paper: a car title. I unfolded it carefully and saw my name on the owner’s line, my new address below it.

Typical Vic. The man gave a gift that would be a pain in the ass to give back. My mind spun with all of the issues that having a car in New York would bring. Parking. Insurance. Gas. I couldn’t afford the damn thing, even when it was free. My hands reached for my cell, my fingers dialing Vic’s number, then my brain kicked in and I stopped, and set down the phone, stepping away. I brought my hands to my head and took a deep breath. I needed help. Freakin’ psychological help to stay away from this man. I stepped back to my phone and called the next best thing.

The girls were still at the club. I asked them to come over, and they didn’t ask questions. “We’ll be there in twenty,” Benta said and—eighteen minutes later—she buzzed the front door.

Dante took a stool in the kitchen, Cammie went for the liquor, and I headed to the living room. “What’d he do?” Benta asked, plopping down on the chair, pulling off her heels and tucking her feet underneath her. “Do I need to kick his sexy ass or what?”

“It wasn’t Carter.” I sank into the couch.

“What the F is this?” The shout came from the kitchen and I didn’t move, just closed my eyes and waited. Cammie had obviously found the card. From beside me, I heard the scurry of bare feet as Benta rushed to her side.

“Holy shit, Chloe,” Benta said, her accent strong. “This is big, even for him.”

I heard the screech of the stool as Dante stood. Great, a freaking party around words specifically designed to break my heart. “Smooth,” he muttered and I heard the crinkle of the title as it passed hands.

“It’s not smooth,” Cammie snapped, and one of my kitchen drawers slammed shut. “It’s pushy.”

“And ridiculous,” Benta chimed in.

“And pimp,” Dante said. “And generous. And sweet.”

“It’s Vic,” I said helplessly, watching Cammie enter the living room, her hands steady as she poured me a large shot of Patrón.

“What does that mean?” Dante asked from the kitchen.

“It means,” Cammie said, passing me the glass. “That our little Chloe here is in trouble.”

It’s Vic
. The girls understood. Three simple letters that make up a name. Three simple letters that spell

DOOM.

TROUBLE.

TEMPTATION.

I lifted the glass to my lips and downed it.