Chapter 18 #2
Tripp wouldn’t like me alone in an elevator with a man, I think, but I have no time to react when Calder, still sporting a black eye, joins me in the small, mirrored car.
With a hard swallow, I decide to brazen it out. “Hi. Calder, right?”
He gives me a crude once-over, his stare lingering on my earrings.
My engagement ring.
A chill rents the air, and I press myself back into the corner as the elevator begins to move downward. I only have to make it ten seconds, right?
“Well, as a maid, I would say it’s more appropriate for you to call me Mr. Hamilton, but it appears you won’t be a maid much longer, hmm?”
My cheeks smart, like I’ve been smacked. “Did I do something to offend you?”
“Besides social climbing way above your station?” He shrugs. “Not really. It’s actually rather impressive, the way you’ve managed to bag the biggest fish in the pond. Congratulations. You must be incredible in the sack.”
I recoil and cast my eyes down to the ground, knowing, as a woman alone with a hostile man, it’s never a good idea to engage. But I could really use one of those panic buttons right about now because that’s how I feel. Panicked.
“Imagine…” Calder drawls, shaking his head. “Your whole relationship with Tripp started as a bet.”
I jerk my chin up, the chill in the air beginning to permeate my bones. “What?”
He hits the emergency stop button on the elevator, grinding the car to a halt, and my blood starts to feel icy and sluggish.
Calder laughs. “I knew he wouldn’t tell you.”
“Tell me what?” I ask, my voice sounding far away.
He turns to face me, propping a shoulder against the wall of the elevator.
“We bet Tripp that if he pursued you, you would be digging for gold by the end of the week.” He looks pointedly once again at my earrings, and all I can think is, Thank God I didn’t wear the necklace, as he taps his chin.
“If you really think about it, he lost the bet. Or did you buy those earrings yourself?”
His raucous laughter turns my stomach.
He can’t be telling the truth, right?
Tripp wouldn’t make a bet like that. Would he?
If you really think about it, he lost the bet.
If you really think about it, he lost the bet.
That statement is ricocheting around the inside of my skull.
It’s true, isn’t it? How long did it take me to cave in and start accepting Tripp’s gifts and gestures? Three days?
“I…I…It’s not like that.”
“It’s not?” Calder tilts his head. “I’d bet my summer house in Amalfi that you’ll be attending Yale in the fall. Am I wrong?”
Tears flood my eyes.
Oh God. Did I inadvertently use my fiancé?
Have I proven myself an opportunist?
Does Tripp believe this terrible thing about me, deep down?
“H-he just asked them to review the application again…”
“Aw. Sure, sweetie. I’m sure Yale wasn’t simply terrified of losing their biggest donor.” He smacks the emergency button again, and the elevator lurches into movement, but my stomach remains trapped between floors. I’m numb. I’m freezing. I’m ashamed.
“Anyway, don’t feel too bad,” Calder says before exiting the elevator. “I’m sure you’ll more than earn it on your knees and back.”
With that accusation ringing in my ears, I sprint off the elevator, down the hallway, through the staff locker room and out the back door.
Fifteen minutes have passed.
It’s too long.
I stand in front of the door of my room, clawing at my throat, sure I’m suffocating.
It shouldn’t take longer than five minutes to give notice. Three minutes to ride the elevator up to the top floor. Vida should be here by now.
Not for the first time, I call her phone, but it goes to voicemail.
She still hasn’t responded to my thirteen text messages.
What the fuck is going on?
Raking a frantic hand through my hair, I pace to the balcony and step out, hoping a deep breath of coastal air will stop me from ripping this resort down to the studs. I need to figure out how to live with this obsession with Vida without becoming destructive. Or is that impossible?
I’m pondering the answer to that when I see her running on the beach.
Running away. In the direction of her house.
She turns her head briefly to look back at the resort, and her expression is nothing short of stricken. Devastated. And just like that, my rapidly firing heart is in my mouth, my intestines feeling as though they’re being pulverized between grinding gears.
“VIDA!”
She continues to run, and I bellow in denial.
That’s when I see Calder swagger out the back door of the resort. The employee door where I asked Vida to go out with me. What the hell is he doing there?
Did…Did something happen between him and Vida?
Did he…
The bet.
The bet.
She knows about it.
That certainty floods me with a sour sickness that almost drops me to the floor.
Somehow, I find the willpower to stay on my feet and run, no other option but to reach her.
To make her understand my intentions when I made that stupid fucking bet.
And once I do that, once I’ve made her understand and she’s back in my arms, I’m going to murder Calder.
I mean that literally.
His days on this earth are numbered.
I will kill him for hurting my angel like this. For trying to come between Vida and me.
I don’t bother with the elevator. I take the stairs in giant lunges and sprint into the lobby, barreling out the back door onto the beach.
She’s only a small speck in the distance, but I’m fast, and I’ve never run harder in my life.
My lungs are on fire by the time I catch up to her, though I still manage to roar her name.
When she still doesn’t stop running, I sweep her up off the sand into my arms, my heart breaking when she fights to get free.
“Angel. Angel. You will stop this and listen to me.”
“Did you really make a bet about me?” She heaves a sob, and my mental well-being begins to crumble like a cookie.
I made her cry. I waited too long to come clean about my idiocy, and now her feelings have been damaged.
I did this. “Did you ask m-me out because of some wager about me being a gold digger?”
My head spins in disbelief that she could consider such a thing to be true.
“No. No, Vida. I was going to ask you out regardless,” I grit out into her hair. “On day one, I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe you would bring me around your friends when they were probably all watching to see if I’d take advantage of you.”
“That is not true. And I bet that you wouldn’t be a gold digger, Vida. I knew you wouldn’t. I knew you better than that after a minute in your presence.”
“But I am. I’m as bad as he thinks I am,” she wails miserably. “Look at all the things you’ve done for me. And I just l-let you—”
“Vida.” I turn her around and shake her by the shoulders, her tear-streaked face flooding me with agony.
“I’m sorry I made that bet. I shouldn’t have cheapened what we have by doing that.
But I only made it so Calder would stay away from you.
I wasn’t as secure in how you felt about me then.
I’d just attacked you in my room. I just…
” I manage a wheezing breath. “I wanted to stake my claim on you, and that was the fastest way to do it, but that doesn’t excuse my actions.
I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner. I should have explained.”
Some of the fight has gone out of her.
I don’t know if that’s better or worse than her trying to get away.
More tears track down her cheeks, and I simply fall to my knees at the sight of them, wrapping my arms around her waist. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
“How can you love me when I’m exactly what they say I am?”
“No, you are not.” My anger drowns out the ocean.
Not anger at Vida. Anger at Calder. At this bullshit notion that he’s put in her head, just when we’ve made so much progress.
“If I hadn’t begged you to take what I’m offering, you’d have stayed working as a maid all summer and attended Dartmouth in the fall.
You never would have asked me for those things.
I gave them freely because I am compelled to give you the world.
A world you deserve. You couldn’t take advantage of me if you tried. ”
A heart-wrenching sob shakes her shoulders.
She sways a little, and I catch her, pulling her down into my lap in the sand.
“You know, I’m going to have him killed for making you run from me.” I vow this against her temple, then kiss the spot to seal my promise. “I’ll kill anyone who does that.”
I’m not sure if she clocks the truth of my words, but time will prove I’m serious.
She tips her head back and looks at me, tears clinging to her long lashes. There’s still some lingering doubt in her eyes.
Fix it.
“What else did he say to you?”
She ducks her chin, but I nudge it back up, forcing her to make eye contact.
“He said I’m going to earn what you give me on my knees and back. That I must be incredible in the sack to have bagged the biggest fish in the pond.”
Oh yes. His death is going to be slow. And painful.
“The reason we’re so good in bed together is because we love each other so fucking much. I am the luckiest man alive to have your body, as well as your heart. But there is no earning. Only sharing. Okay?”
She absorbs that with hopeful eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Am I sure?” I sputter, wiping the tears from her face.
“Did you miss the part where I offered to wear a cock cage, Vida? I’ve fucking lost it over you.
I’ll be in love with you until the day my life is ripped from my hands.
Don’t let this punk put doubts in your head.
I love you. And you love me. He’ll never know what this feels like. No one will.”
Finally, I can see that I’ve gotten through to her and I let myself take my first full breath since I saw her running on the beach.
“I love you, too,” she whispers. “No more bets.”
“All bets are off, angel. I will never, ever gamble on you again,” I say fervently, planting kisses all over her face and neck until she starts to giggle, the sound washing over me like a baptism.
Standing with my future cradled in my arms, I carry her down the beach toward the resort.
“I’m coming with you to quit and then we’re getting on my yacht and sailing out of here. ”
She beams up at me, my little ray of sunshine.
“As you wish, Fiancé Daddy.”
Our laughter carries down the beach on the back of the wind.
THE END