Chapter 23
POV: WHEN CHICAGO’S BIGGEST PLAYBOY GETS CAUGHT IN … WAIT, WHAT IS THAT? #VEHICULARHUMILIATION
AXEL
“What the actual fuck?”
I stared at the carnage in front of me, my brain struggling to process the level of petty genius Dakota had just unleashed.
All four tires on my Mercedes had their air let out, and the caps were arranged neatly on my hood. Which meant … she’d staged this whole thing.
Diabolical. Brilliant.
I was going to murder her.
But that wasn’t even the worst part. Oh, no. Standing next to what I could only assume was my “rental car” was a guy with a clipboard, grinning.
The car—and I use that term loosely—looked like Barbie, Hello Kitty, and a five-year-old girl’s fever dream had a three-way and spawned this … abomination.
Hot pink. Gradient paint job. Glitter. A fucking convertible with what appeared to be whiskers made of black wire protruding from a kitten nose on the front bumper.
Googly eyes stared at me from the hood like some demented cartoon character, and I’d bet my left kidney there was a tail attached to the back.
This wasn’t a car. This was vehicular humiliation.
“Mr. Pierce?” Clipboard Guy approached, all smiles and sunshine. His T-shirt read Sparkle Car Rentals. Fun Rental Cars for a Fun Price! in Comic Sans font because of course it did.
“I can’t take this car.”
A pause. Like he was legitimately surprised by my pushback.
“Actually, it’s one of my most popular models.” He said this like it was a selling point. Like normal human beings regularly chose to drive around in a motorized stuffed animal.
“I need something else. Something that’s not … a hot-pink kitty.”
He scrolled through his phone with the urgency of a sloth. “I’ve got a ladybug or a cow available, but they’ll take at least an hour to get here—”
“No. No animals. I need a normal car with a normal paint job.”
Okay, now he looked annoyed. “Yeah, that’s not exactly what my company does, man.”
Of course it’s not.
“Forget it.” I yanked out my phone. “I’ll get a rideshare.”
God. Dammit. Forty-two minutes for the closest ride. The next app? Even worse. I checked my watch, like I’d have magically factored in an extra forty-two minutes into my commute. Shit.
“I’ll take a taxi,” I declared.
Clipboard Guy was already walking away. “They take forever to flag down in this neighborhood.”
Crap. He was right, and we both knew it.
“Any chance you have a portable tire inflator in that thing?” Please say yes. Please say yes.
“No.”
Dakota. Fucking. Blackwood. I will haunt you from the grave.
“How were you getting back?” I challenged. He’d obviously driven the cat car here.
“My coworker. But he won’t be here for at least 30 minutes.”
Shit!
“Good luck.”
“Wait!” The word tasted like defeat. “Let me borrow your tires.”
He stopped. Turned. Stared at me like I’d suggested we sacrifice a goat. “Pardon?”
“Your tires. I’ll pay to borrow them. Just need to swap them onto my car for one meeting, and then I’ll bring them right back.”
In the awkward silent seconds that passed, I realized just how ridiculous I’d sounded. Even I knew it wouldn’t work, but I guess when faced with a Kitty Mobile, one panics.
“First of all,” he said slowly, “these tires won’t fit your rims. Second, I don’t carry tire-changing equipment. Third, if you’re too impatient for a rideshare, how long do you think changing four tires will take?”
Dammit. All. To. Hell.
“You could call AAA,” he offered helpfully. “But they’ll take longer than a taxi.”
My heart hammered against my ribs as I checked my watch. The meeting started in twenty minutes.
“I’ll give you everything in my wallet to drive me to the restaurant.” Maybe if I wasn’t the one driving, it would be less humiliating. Maybe I could hide in the back seat. Lay down, below window level.
His expression shifted from reluctantly helpful to offended. “I’m not a chauffeur.”
I pulled out my wallet, flashing the cash like some desperate asshole. “$150.”
His lips thinned. “I’m a business owner, not a driver.”
He’s the owner of this ridiculous business, and I’m basically calling his baby ugly.
The guilt hit me then, sharp and unexpected. Here I was, the penthouse-living Mercedes owner, throwing money at problems like some entitled prick. If he only knew I’d clawed my way up from nothing, maybe he wouldn’t be so determined to humble me right now.
“Please.” The word scraped my throat raw.
He shook his head. “If your meeting’s so important, take the car.”
My jaw clenched so hard, I feared jawbone damage.
The bastard had me cornered, and he knew it.
“Fine!” I said. “I’ll take the cat on wheels.”
Maybe I could hide inside Chicago traffic. Park far from the restaurant. Sprint the last few blocks. Maintain some shred of dignity.
I signed the papers with more force than necessary, my signature looking like an angry scribble.
As I pulled out of the garage, there she was. Dakota. Standing on the sidewalk instead of the penthouse, waving at me with that shit-eating grin plastered across her face.
Our eyes met across the distance.
And she—she—had the absolute audacity to blow me a kiss.
My blood pressure nearly exploded my heart right then and there, and it didn’t recover either. Any hope of blending into traffic died a spectacular death the moment I hit the street.
In a sea of sensible grays, blacks, and whites, my hot-pink nightmare strutted down Michigan Avenue like a neon billboard advertising my humiliation. The convertible top, naturally, wouldn’t close, leaving me completely exposed to the pointing, laughing, phone-wielding masses.
Pedestrians doubled over with laughter. Drivers honked. Not in anger, but in amusement. Someone actually applauded as I crawled through a yellow light.
I wanted to disappear. I wanted to sink through the pink leather seats and emerge somewhere far, far away. Preferably somewhere Dakota had never been born.
Things got exponentially worse when some jackass in a pickup cut me off, and I instinctively hit the horn.
MEOW.
The sound that emerged wasn’t the sharp blast of a normal car horn. It was a loud, obnoxious cat sound that echoed off the surrounding buildings like an audio announcement of my shame.
The pickup driver nearly swerved into a parked car; he was laughing so hard.
Blood roared in my ears as I inched closer to the restaurant, my hands gripping the steering wheel like it was Dakota’s neck. But the absolute worst moment—the cherry on top of this shit sundae—came when I was stuck behind a delivery van, waiting to turn right.
Because when I glanced over at The Blackstone’s outdoor seating area, positioned right there on the sidewalk next to traffic, I locked eyes with two very familiar faces.
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
Of course the executives were sitting outside. Of course they had front-row seats to my vehicular humiliation. The very men who controlled the funds that could rescue my business from its cash flow disaster with one healthy investment.
Their gazes swept over the hot-pink monstrosity, taking in the whiskers, the googly eyes, the fuzzy (yep) tail on the back, the sheer impossibility of what they were seeing.
Then, because this day couldn’t get any worse, they burst out laughing. Not polite chuckles. Not suppressed snickers. Full-blown, tears-streaming, can’t-breathe laughter.
Frank Prescott, CEO of Prescott Industries, was literally holding his side. Carl Chen was wiping tears from his eyes.
I sat there in my pink prison, trapped by traffic, while the two people who held my company’s future in their hands watched me inch past in what could only be described as a motorized cat toy.
And as I did, one thought beat through my anger:
I’m going to kill Dakota.