Notable (Smith High) (14 page)

Something
exactly
like that was what I had been hoping to hear.

It all made so much sense too. Of course anyone infamous for their ties to the drug trade would not be welcomed into America with open arms. Rithisak Sovann’s reputation for waving around firearms probably hadn’t helped the situation either. And since the lawyers at Brookes and Merriweather couldn’t bring the drug tycoon/hotel owner to the U.S., Mr. Sovann was enjoying his home-court advantage.

Probably.

My theory was definitely based on conjecture . . . but that didn’t make me wrong.

It just meant that I needed to score an introduction to a drug lord and finally get some definitive answers.

Luckily for me, I knew three guys who would all happily jump at the chance to do me a solid, even if a certain high school boy—like, oh, I dunno,
Houston
—started yelling about how we’d be taking crazy risks for no good reason.

I just needed to do a little more sleuthing before sharing my plan with the gang.

Which was why I took one deep breath before I really got the party started.

I
wasn’t drunk—I’d barely even touched my second glass of wine—but something was definitely wrong with me.

The adrenaline rush from playing the part of sophisticated Lake Scott should have peaked hours earlier. I couldn’t figure out what had me feeling all warm and bubbly on the inside. But I wasn’t sure I cared. Some dim part of my mind kept screaming that I needed to raise my guard and get the hell out of there, but the
why
remained unclear.

Years spent fighting for control had never seemed so exhausting. Daunting. Meaningless. The music pulsed through me until I felt positively electric. The urge to dance had never been so strong as I writhed to the vibration of the bass.

This
was what I had been missing, the freedom to move my body the way
I
wanted. Not because it was a staged performance for the benefit of others.

Just for me.

Grinning foolishly, I gave myself over to the music. It didn’t matter that Wesley hadn’t mastered anything beyond the awkward middle-school-level sway that should barely qualify as “dancing.” It didn’t bother me. I kept right on gyrating even when he mumbled something about needing a drink and moved away.

It should have seemed so obvious to me. I had lost count of the times I’d thought those exact words over the past few years. But they had never been true before.

There had been plenty of nights when all I’d wanted was to have my parents tell me that they loved me, without any endgame or elaborate point-tallying system in mind.
You know I love you, Chelsea. . . . I just wish you would
try
to meet your potential.

I shook off the jumble of voices from my past and blinked in surprise at the guy dancing with me. I didn’t remember him. I couldn’t have picked him out of a police lineup if my life depended on it and yet his limbs were entangled with mine.

And I had no idea how that had happened.

Stumbling away from him, I accidentally jarred a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties.

“Sorry, I have to . . .” My words dried up as I realized that nobody was listening.

Most of the strangers crowded around me seemed like perfectly friendly travelers who were just hoping to collect stories about what a good time they’d had on their vacation. They probably wanted to tell all their friends that in Cambodia you didn’t even have to leave the hotel to find a crazy party. The rest happened so quickly, it felt like a blur of movement. Couches and tables were pushed aside as the crowd thickened and the bartender was slammed by drink orders.

Half of the people waiting in line were probably looking only for plausible deniability before they joined the fray.

The whole thing was insane.

Somehow the sophisticated hotel bar had been transformed into a nightclub that had already hit full capacity with no sign of quieting.

None of which had been part of my plan.

As I twisted away from yet another stranger, I desperately searched the crowd for a familiar face. In that moment I would have even welcomed a vision of Logan walking toward me so that I could dismiss it as another one of my seriously messed-up dreams. Even waking up in a bathtub to Houston’s dire threats about girls who oversleep their alarm clocks sounded pretty good to me.

No such luck.

There were too many people blocking my view of the bar for me to catch even a glimpse of Houston; I could only assume that he was still doing his best bodyguard imitation. Then again, it was entirely possible that this new mess of mine had irritated him into bailing once and for all.

I craned my neck for a better look and gasped as cold beer sloshed my neck, trickling down the front of my dress and soaking into my bra.

This wasn’t even remotely fun anymore.

Not when I could feel strange hands touching me, my shoulders mostly, but someone grazed my stomach before trying to cop a feel. I couldn’t make it stop. There were too many people pressed against me. Too many laughing faces everywhere I turned. Too many memories.

I couldn’t even distinguish the flashbacks from a haunting sense of déjà vu.

The high school parties I had once crashed with Logan, Ashley, and Steffani had started this way too: drinks, flirting, dancing, and then an overwhelming sense of panic when the crowds pressed too close. But I hadn’t wanted the girls to think I was intimidated by
anything
so I had lied.

Half of those beverages had been discreetly tipped into potted plants and bathroom sinks.

But the other half I had sipped and swallowed down.

I had needed my boyfriend to pull me into a secluded corner and focus on making everything a bit better, one meltingly slow kiss at a time . . . but Logan had usually been too busy helping everyone else to realize that his girlfriend was coming unraveled.

Then one night I started wondering if my boyfriend preferred confiscating car keys from drunken strangers because he was no longer interested in me.

By the time I had downed a couple of drinks, I was convinced that he wanted to break up but couldn’t say the words to my face.

Jake had started grinding with me when I was staring at the bottom of my third drink. From there the night got a little fuzzy. I remember thinking that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, not when Logan had practically ignored me the whole evening.

And being flattered that an older high school guy would be interested in
me.

Now I lurched unsteadily toward the bar, no longer even trying to apologize as I attempted to escape the crowd, the memories, and an overwhelming sense of shame that I’d been so determined to make someone—anyone—love me that I had lost myself.

That it could still happen to me again.

Sweat dripped down my back, and all I wanted to do was shower away the stickiness of the spilled beer and chug water until I felt clean inside. But I couldn’t seem to find a way out. Not with a throng of flailing bodies surrounding me, blocking me in. I only grew increasingly claustrophobic when the world started spinning.

Oh yeah, something was definitely wrong.

Panic flaring, I raised my arms as if I were playing a drunken version of Marco Polo and tried to stumble my way to freedom . . . only to be halted by two strong hands that gripped my shoulders. I couldn’t manage more than some feeble thrashing.

“Calm down, Chelsea. Breathe!”

The familiar voice had my arms going all tingly and my knees weakening. It was the alcohol, a distant part of me reasoned. A dangerous combination of alcohol, adrenaline, claustrophobia, and flashbacks.

That had to be the reason.

“Houston.” I gasped for breath as he forcibly pulled me away from all the flailing limbs and sweaty bodies. “I don’t feel so good.”

Although the way he cradled me against his chest and began gently stroking my back, as if the wet material wasn’t entirely disgusting, that felt beyond good. My panic began to ebb away because I knew that I was safe. Houston wouldn’t let anyone hurt me.

Even if he wanted to strangle me himself on a semi-regular basis.

“Hey, man, take your hands off Lake!” Aaron pushed his way out of the crowd behind us and succeeded only in jostling me forward.

Houston stopped walking and cupped my face with his hands, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with following Aaron’s instruction. Not when he stared even more intently at me than usual. Some emotion swirled around in his eyes but vanished behind a cold, hard mask before I could figure it out.

“I’m making sure she’s okay,” Houston replied coolly.

“Yeah? Well, keep your hands to yourself!”

Which seemed a little over the top to me considering that Houston’s hands hadn’t strayed anywhere all that interesting. Much to my chagrin.

“Is there a problem here?” Wes asked, finally making it through the crowd and appearing at my side. “Is this guy bothering you, Lake?”

My head felt heavy, but I forced myself to mumble, “Fine. Sleepy.”

“No, she’s
not
fine.” Houston’s voice held barely contained anger, but his hands remained gentle. “She nearly collapsed out there.”

“From one glass of wine?” Aaron said skeptically. “I doubt it. Buzzed maybe, but unless she’s allergic, she shouldn’t be more than that.”

Houston frog-marched me over to an empty chair before he turned to the two lawyers. That’s when reasonable, rational, intelligent, Student of the Year,
let’s think this through
Houston? Yeah, he punched Aaron right in the face.

It was epic.

His fist connected with Aaron’s jaw, snapping back his head just like in an old-time western. Except in the movies, the hero usually doesn’t start shaking out his hand and yelling, “Damn, that
hurt!
” And usually the bad guy doesn’t glare and say, “I’m going to sue you, asshole,” before lashing out with a left hook of his own.

I started yelling for help before Houston even hit the floor.

Nobody appeared willing to intercede. I caught a few people taking photos of the brawl on their phones and shouts of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” rang throughout the bar while Aaron and Houston rolled around in a tangle of thrashing limbs.

I grabbed desperately at Houston’s jacket, but he refused to release his grip on Aaron’s leg.

“Houston! Knock it off!”

“Not. Now. Chelsea,” he grunted. “I’m busy.”

I tugged again and very nearly got an elbow in the stomach for my efforts. “Somebody help me!”

Wesley stared at the three of us on the floor in confusion. “Chelsea? You said your name was Lake.”

Because it was really important for us to get
that
cleared up in the middle of a fistfight.

“It’s a nickname,” I snapped angrily. Houston no longer had the advantage of surprise working for him, and Aaron was starting to get into the swing of it.
“Help me break them up!”

Wesley clearly didn’t want to intercede, but through more luck than skill he managed to pull Aaron back a few steps. “How do you even know him?”

“He’s my photographer, okay?”

“Oh.”

That’s when he actually put some muscle into separating the two lunatics. Typical. Wes didn’t want to run the risk of getting caught in the crosshairs of a right hook if he didn’t think he had a shot with me. I had a feeling that wouldn’t last if I happened to mention the illegal age gap separating high school from
law school
.

The words “statutory rape” would effectively squash any interest the lawyers had in me, which made the prospect of blurting it out awfully tempting. If I hadn’t suspected that Wesley was my ticket in with Rithisak Sovann, I would’ve marched Houston right over to the elevators without so much as a wave good-bye.

Instead, I maneuvered it so that the parting shot Houston kept trying to throw at Aaron would have to go through me.

“Out of the way, princess!”

“Earth to Houston,”
I hissed, grabbing onto his shoulders. “
Snap out of it
. You’re better than this!”

The words weren’t part of some kind of bizarre attempt to flirt him out of prolonging his fistfight. They were the truth. But then I noticed the way the muscles in Houston’s shoulders contracted and strained against my hands. No wonder he kept himself so controlled all the time: When he actually let loose, he was all pulsing anger and jagged frustration.

And then he snapped.

I’m not sure what happened. One second, his scorching green-eyed death glare was focused solely on Aaron’s face, and the next, his eyes had widened in near panic while his arms instinctively slammed me against his body.

And then he was kissing me.

I
went all gooey.

Instead of shoving him away, I let my fingers go on a little expedition, moving upward from his shoulder blades until I felt the silky ends of his hair. Which may have been when I started kissing him right back.

There was no easing into it, no meltingly slow anything. This kiss contained an edge of insanity that had me fervently hoping it would never stop. That he wouldn’t think about any one of a dozen reasons why we wouldn’t make a good couple, and pull away.

Because with his lips against mine, I thought I could come up with just as many reasons to give it a shot.

Houston didn’t pull away.

Instead, he bent to my ear and whispered, “Keep your head down, princess. We’ve got company.”

No kidding. Right before his tongue had investigated my mouth, he’d personally sucker punched some of that company in the face. If he’d wanted to avoid a scene, he should have rethought that one. I just hoped Ben wasn’t among our witnesses or neither of us would ever hear the end of it.

“You really need to back off, man!” Wesley’s timing couldn’t have been worse. I was in no mood to deal with any more male ego competitions.

Especially when I was starting to feel slightly nauseous.

Houston didn’t let go of me entirely, but I could feel the barrier between us go right back up.

“You’re going to lower your voice while we walk out of here. Otherwise I am going to make sure everyone knows that you drugged my friend,” Houston growled.

Oh god.

Now I really needed to hurl.

Except . . . it didn’t make any sense. I had watched my glass of wine the whole time, and it wasn’t like there were that many other ways to secretly drug me.

Wesley rubbed his forehead as if he were fighting back a killer migraine. “Holy shit,” he murmured under his breath, almost like a benediction.

He’d better hope that the patron saint of wimps was feeling charitable toward him because I certainly wasn’t.

“We didn’t drug her. I swear, I’d never do something like that, and neither would Aaron or Joel.”

Aaron nodded dumbly, but let Wesley do all the talking. Probably because he didn’t want any more punches thrown in his direction.

“Look, we can’t afford any trouble during our merger with Rithisak Sovann. You may never have heard of him, but believe me, he’s a really big freaking deal.”

Houston stiffened, and I wasn’t sure if it was because Wesley had mentioned the drug dealer we were trying to track down or because of the handful of guys in dark suits heading toward us across the lobby, but either way he kept his voice low.

“I’m seeing her back to her room,” Houston informed Aaron and Wesley as he not-so-gently shoved me toward the exit. “Come near her again and I will make your life a living hell.”

“Ignore him, Wes,” I put in. “Suite seventeen. Anytime. Sightseeing.”

“Shut up, Chelsea.” Houston looked as deranged as the guy on his “No edge!” shirt as he picked up the pace. “For the love of everything holy,
keep your mouth shut
.”

“That’s—”

I harrumphed, but with Houston’s arm pressing tightly against my stomach, that was about the extent of the protest I could manage. So I kept my silence all the way to the elevator, where he finally released me and jabbed angrily at the button for the sixth floor.

“Can I talk n—”

“No.”

Okay, that was taking his protector-y alpha-man stuff too far. I mean, the caveman approach back in the bar had been kinda nice, but I hadn’t expected it to last this long. Yanking me into a blisteringly hot kiss? Awesome. Treating me like a misbehaving toddler? Not so much.

And yet I couldn’t stop myself from hoping that as soon as we reached the privacy of our now-deserted hotel suite, he’d start kissing me again and we’d . . . pick up where we left off. Except when we got inside, Houston didn’t appear even remotely interested in reliving any part of our bar experience.

He just handed me a bottled water from the overpriced minibar as I slipped out of my heels.

“I thought you said you could take care of yourself.”

I stared at him in confusion. “I’m fine.”

“Oh
right,
” Houston snorted in disgust. “I forgot. Chelsea Halloway is
always
fine. Thugs open fire at her? She’s fine. Strangers spike her drink? No big deal. Well, guess what, princess? Everything is not fine!”

“They didn’t drug me, Houston.”

“Then do you want to explain to me why after one drink with them you nearly collapsed on the dance floor? Why your eyes are still dilated? If you have any handy explanations, I would really love to hear them right about now.”

“I had a panic attack, okay? My claustrophobia kicked in big-time, and I kind of freaked out. But I really am fine now.”

Houston raked a hand through his hair while I pretended not to think about how soft it had felt to touch. My fingers itched to toy with the strands by the nape of his neck again. “And the dilated pupils?”

“I don’t know!” I crossed my arms. “It was fairly dark in there. Maybe that affected them or something?”

He looked fairly unconvinced but seemed willing to temporarily table the issue. “You know that water will hydrate you a whole lot faster if you actually drink it.”

I took a large gulp just to keep the peace. “I thought you didn’t believe in using the minibar.”

“I also don’t believe in putting you in harm’s way. Looks like I’ve done all sorts of compromising lately.”

It was strange thinking of Houston as willing to bend on anything, especially since his words had such a sarcastic bite to them. But truthfully, he’d been a much better team player than I had.

It was way past time for me to reciprocate.

“Everything is going according to plan, Houston. In fact, it’s coming together even better than I could’ve hoped—your bar fight being the one notable exception. We
know
that Rithisak is right here! We’re halfway home already. We make the trade and get out. End of story.”

“Oh, is that all? I’m so glad everything I’ve ever said to you has fallen on deaf ears. Really. That’s just”—he punched his right fist into his left palm and winced at the jolt of pain—“freaking perfect.”

My anger spiked.
Deaf ears?
“Just because I don’t always agree with you doesn’t mean I don’t
listen!
”

“So you heard the part about this being a suicide mission, and you still made a scene in the bar? I’m sure the thugs that kicked the crap out of Neal really enjoyed your show, princess. I’m pretty sure at least one of them saw you with me. So congratulations: You just made their job a whole lot easier. Hell, you even shared our
room number!
”

And that’s when the very last bit of my happy
he kissed me
glow disappeared. Because what I’d mistaken for passion was nothing more than his anger and frustration over the situation. Actually, maybe there was a bit of panic thrown into the mix too. The fear that we would be identified at any moment seemed like strong motivation to me.

I had just been kidding myself into thinking it was something different. That he enjoyed the odd tug of attraction between us because we challenged each other. I had stupidly dared to hope that this amazing guy who had seen me at my very worst still accepted me.

Still wanted to kiss
me.

But Houston had only planted one on me because he needed to shield my face from a thug. There had been no affection involved. No real attraction either. Just his way of fulfilling a promise to my dad that he probably continued regretting even as our tongues tangled.

And once again, I’d been too stupid to see it coming.

I sucked in an unsteady breath before raising my chin in defiance. “My plan is working. And the last time I checked, disagreeing with you wasn’t a crime.”

“Want to know what is illegal, princess? Possession of narcotics. Drug trafficking. If anything goes wrong with your plan, those are the charges we could be facing!”

“What is this really about, Houston?” I asked quietly. The silence following his last outburst made my words resonate through the room. “I told you my plan. I didn’t hide it. You know I’m here to get Neal so . . . is this about the kiss?”

His face became an expressionless mask, but I refused to take the question back. I had to hear it from him that there was absolutely nothing between us. That it had all been in my head. That once again I’d recklessly developed feelings for yet another unattainable guy who wanted to be rid of me.

“Is this about the dancing?” I persisted. “Or the flirting? Or the fight? You’re acting like I deviated wildly from the plan, but I
didn’t
. I kept my word. So . . . what is this about?”

Houston’s green eyes bored into me, and for a second I thought my first instinct was right. That I’d finally found someone who didn’t just see the glossy image I tried so hard to present but the girl underneath that layer of swagger and makeup.

“Nothing.”

That one word from Houston landed like a direct blow. My rib cage ached fiercely as the pain in my heart radiated outward until it consumed my whole body.

I nodded slowly. “Nothing. Fine. When we get back to Oregon we can both pretend that you didn’t kiss me when you thought I was drugged.”

Houston looked away. “I didn’t think I had a whole lot of choices, Chelsea. I needed to get you out of there unseen. But . . . I’m sorry. It never should have happened.”

The satisfaction I felt in being right about something didn’t even begin to soften the sharp sting of rejection.

“You won’t get any objection from me, cowboy. I thought we might be able to make it through this thing as friends but . . . well, so much for that plan. Now if you don’t mind, I have a suite to enjoy.”

Then I headed straight for the bathroom and tried to shower off the sticky remnants of beer and sweat along with the awful sensation that no matter how hard I scrubbed, I would never be clean.