Seduction by Song (8 page)

And
I
wasn’t about to give him
anything
. Not for one stupid, luxurious gift. Not for one tiny little detail about his personal life. Not for anything.

“I’d still like to go home now.”

“Then I’ll get the check.” He waves, gesturing for our waiter to bring us our boxed leftovers and the bill. “But I’ll humor me for a while longer, won’t you?”

I roll my eyes and
would
have told him no, but I doubt it would have made much of a difference, anyway. “Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”

I finish my wine—my second glass over dinner—before allowing him to lead me back to the limo. I hadn’t had enough to drink to be truly tipsy, but my inhibitions
were somewhat lowered and I suppose I was more willing to put up with him for just a while longer. If only to see what kind of fool he would make out of himself next.

We don’t drive for long before we stop again, outside of a building I don’t recognize this time. When I realize, as the drive opens the door for me, that he’s brought us to the Hilton hotel, I gasp—and it is the farthest thing from a
good
gasp.

“What the
hell
kind of girl do you think I am,” I ask, my voice low and dangerous.

He laughs and gestures for me to step outside. “I thought I already made that very clear. Trust me, Erin.”

I frown. He keeps asking that of me, apparently not realizing that it’s
never
going to happen. “I’d rather you took me home.”

“After this,” he says, curling a hand reassuringly at my shoulder. I frown at the touch, but he doesn’t leave his hand there long—not long enough to truly disturb me.

When I realize after a moment that we’re at a stalemate here, I relent and step out of the car, hoping to just move things along as quickly as possible just to get it over with.

“I hope you know I’m not going into any bedroom with you anytime soon,” I say.

He grins at my words, making me think back on them for a moment before shaking my head, quickly, as I realize how that I sounded.

“Or
ever
,” I add emphatically.

He laughs again, finally stepping out after me and leading me into the hotel with a hand at my back. “We’ll see about that. It certainly won’t be tonight, I can promise you that much.”

Or any night
, I promise myself silently.

True to his word, he doesn’t lead me to the front desk to check-in or to the elevators to head up to some room. Instead, he guides me to the pool area just beside the lobby.

“Best spa in the city,” he says by way of explanation. “You’ll like it. I promise.”

Despite my reservations, I can feel myself getting a bit excited at the prospect. I hadn’t been able to treat myself to a spa day in ages, and even though there was a hot tub at the pool in my apartment complex, it had been broken for years. Soaking in a hot tub might actually ease all this tension that had built up in my shoulders in the past few hours of enduring Romeo’s pursuit.

“But I don’t have a swimsuit,” I say when I realize this problem.

Romeo gestures to one of the chairs nearest the pool, finally releasing his hold on me. A small bag sits on the chair, too opaque to reveal its contents.

“Do you think I’d forget something so crucial?” he asks with that charming grin back in place. “Changing rooms are to your left.”

I blink, surprised at how well thought out this whole excursion was. I expected him to haphazardly throw together some plans and expect me to jump into bed with him after seeing him flaunt his fame and fortune around, not to plan things out so thoughtfully. I frown, inwardly, and shake those thoughts out of my head. A bathing suit wasn’t about to change my mind about everything I knew about him.

When I take the back into the dressing rooms and pull out the swimsuit inside, Romeo lives up to the terrible reputation he had shown me once more. The bikini inside was beautiful and soft to the touch, but barely covered
anything
. I make a sound of disgust and throw the thing back into its bag, all but ready to march back out there and give him a piece of my mind. If he thought I was going to wear
this
—.

I pause, looking down at myself. I
did
get dressed up and April
did
suggest giving him something to miss once he failed to win me over. Stripping down to a bikini could only help this cause, and it wasn’t as though I wasn’t secure enough in my own body to wear such a thing.

Mind made up, I strip out of my dress, folding it carefully to keep it from wrinkling, and step into the bikini, tying the knots carefully behind my neck and at my hip.

There.

I look at myself in the mirror for a moment, satisfied. Romeo would get the eyeful he wanted, and then he’d never see it again—that’d show him.

He’s lounging in one of the chairs by the hot tub when I reemerge from the dressing rooms, clutching my clothes close to myself. I feel my cheeks heat up when I see him rake his eyes down my body without any hint of shame, and his lips curl up again as he holds a hand out to me.

“Come.”

I ignore him, bypassing his hand entirely to set my things down on a chair far away enough from water that they wouldn’t get soaked. Then, still ignoring his beckoning gaze, I step into the hot tub and sink in down to my shoulders, making a soft, content sound as the heat surrounds me.

Romeo joins me a second later, still apparently amused by my adamant refusal of help from him. He sits almost uncomfortably close to me, draping my arm over my shoulders and stroking his fingers up the side of my arm. The lull of the heat of the water keeps me complacent—I would normally struggle free of his grip, I tell myself, but this moment is too nice to ruin.

I close my eyes for God only knows how long. Do I fall asleep? I don’t think so, but when I open them again, coming to my senses, I realize that Romeo had been humming next to me. The tune is unfamiliar, so I suppose it must be one of his songs. It’s quiet and mellow, soft and sweet, and I truly enjoy it for a moment before carefully pulling away from his one-armed embrace.

“
As nice as the water is, I really would like to go home now.”

This time, for what feels like the first time this whole night, he doesn’t argue.

We dry off quickly in our respective dressing rooms and I slip into my dress, keeping the bikini on underneath to get changed quicker. He asks me to give my address to the driver, not wanting to drop me off at the coffee shop and make me walk home alone so late at night. I’m reluctant and hesitate for a long moment, but finally do give my address. If Romeo wanted it so badly, I’m sure he could find out where I lived—it was good to know that he wouldn’t breach my privacy in such a way.

The limo pulls up in front of my apartment in what feels like no time at all. I must have dozed off in the car, the mix of warm water and wine from earlier that night lulling me into a calm sleep. I shake the drowsiness out of my eyes and step outside as soon as the doors are opened for me. Much to my surprise, Romeo follows me out.

“I’d invite you up for coffee,” I say, clearing sleep away from my voice to make sure he hears me loud and clear, “but it’s late and I’d just prefer not to.”

He laughs, the chuckle quiet and intimate in the night. “Oh, you’ll be changing your mind about that soon enough.”

“Yeah, except for the part where I
won’t
.” I take a step back towards my building, frowning when he takes a step forward. “You promised you would leave me alone after this night if I never wanted to see you again.”

“I did say that,” he says, nodding agreeably as he brings a hand up to my chin. Curling his fingers at my chin, lightly, he tilts my head up to him. “Now I want you to say to me, straight to my face, that you never want to see me again.”

I look up, ready to tell him just that—it would have been so simple. It would have been an end to all this. The words don’t come, though. It isn’t that I was falling for him or some shit like that, but it—it hadn’t been a
completely
unpleasant night.

“Look, Romeo—.”

“Can’t say it, can you?”

I huff, annoyed, and knock his hand away. “Would you let me
speak
?”

He nods after a second, gesturing for me to continue.

“The movie—that you remembered, from my notes. That was a nice touch,” I begin, speaking my thoughts more honestly than I thought I would—he deserved the truth, I suppose, even if his ego really didn’t need stroking right now. “And you’re a charmer, and you’re attractive, and we have a lot in common by way of our families—but you know all that, and you think
that’s
enough. You think you can flaunt that around, flaunt your money around, and
buy
me with fancy meals and hotel spas. Well, you’re wrong. Dead wrong.”

To my surprise, he doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t look offended, either, or even surprised—he simply watches me like he’s amused, the same way he’d been watching me all night.

“Nothing’s changed. You’re still arrogant, too confident for your own good. Some girl’s going to like that one of these days and you’ll make her very happy, but that girl is
not
me.”

“Erin,” he says, finally interrupting just like I expected him to. “That wasn’t what I asked Erin. I said, tell me straight to my face that you never want to see me again.”

I frown. Of course he realized by now that I wouldn’t say anything so harsh—it wouldn’t be entirely terrible making his acquaintance. He wasn’t
horrible
company, I suppose, but he wasn’t what I wanted in a man. There was no way of saying one of these things without implying that the other was false, though, and he knew that. What a cunning trap.

Ultimately, I just shrug. “
I don’t have to say anything to you. We’re finished.”

As I turn to enter my apartment, he reaches out and stops me with a hand at my wrist.

“Think about the music video,” he says. “You do dance divinely, just as I said. I want you, in more ways than one. My priority now is to have you in that video. You have the details—think about it.”

I allow him to hold onto my hand for a moment longer before pulling it back, gently.

“Goodbye, Romeo,” I say, firmly.

As I finally make my way up the steps, I hear him say behind me, “Goodnight, Erin.”

April, naturally, wants me to tell her
everything
. She was waiting up for me when I got upstairs even though it was well after two in the morning by the time I got home. I laugh her questions off, promising that I’d fill her in the next morning. I was far too tired to even think about my adventures that night, much less tell a story about them. As soon as she lets me go, only after making me really
swear
that I would spill in the morning, I flop down in bed and curl up for the night after stepping out of my dress.

Before dozing off, I remember to grab my purse and check my messages. Logan was probably going to want to talk about Dad’s birthday soon, and I bet the other girls would want to know about my
secret
date as well. (April and I had agreed to tell them about the date, because it was too much to keep a secret—but we
didn’t
tell them it was with Romeo. That would’ve been a total train wreck.) As I fumble around for the phone, my fingers brush up against something foreign in my purse.

I frown, pulling out the rectangular object that was so soft to the touch. When I realize that it’s the box containing the diamond bracelet Romeo had gotten me, I frown and sigh.

That bastard. Of course he slipped it into my purse when I wasn’t paying attention. Now I would
have
to see him again to return the damn thing.

With sleep knocking on the door to my body, I drop the bracelet back into my purse and pull my covers up over my shoulders. Whatever came next, I would deal with it tomorrow.

What wound up coming next was practically an intervention. When I stumble out of my bedroom the next morning, April is waiting diligently on the couch, probably waiting to keep me to my promise from the night before. What’s more, Maddie and Juliet were right there with her.

Maddie screeches as soon as she sees me, leaping off of the couch to bound over to me and wrap a hug around my shoulders. I groan at the noise and excitement, which I usually loved about her—just not
this
early in the morning. Sure, it was nearly noon, but I was
just
waking up.

“Erin, how
could
you,” Maddie says, though there’s no anger in her voice—only the sound of that great, big smile on her face. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us you were going out with
Romeo Ortiz
!”

“I didn’t tell!” April says quickly.

I frown, finally putting the pieces together. Maddie and Juliet must have found out about Romeo, but if
April
didn’t tell, then how…