Elite - Chapter 25
Saturday
Miller caught my wrist right after I made it into the hallway. “There’s a bathroom attached to your room, Brooklyn.”
God. Stupid rich people with fancy bathrooms in their bedrooms. I’ll never get used to this stuff.
“Oh. Right. Well, I’ll just use the downstairs one now since I’m already on my way.
” I actually didn’t even know where the downstairs bathroom was.
But there were probably several. I’d eventually find one.
He looked down the hall to see if the coast was clear and then pulled me to his chest. “You can tell me the truth. You know that.”
I breathed in his familiar scent. “Isabella said it was Tiffany’s fault for not watching Sir Wilfred better. Mr. Pruitt is going to fire her.”
“Who is Sir Wilfred?”
“Isabella’s stupid new dog. But that’s not even the point. Isabella did it. The clothes weren’t ripped by a dog. They were cut with scissors.”
Miller shook his head.
“But I’m going to go fix it. I’m going to go talk to Mr. Pruitt now.”
Miller tilted his head down to mine. “You’re amazing, you know.” It looked like he wanted to kiss me.
I smiled up at him. “I’m not amazing. But I am going to try to save her job.
” I looked down the hall to see if anyone was looking, but Miller grabbed my jaw and kissed me.
Every now and then when I’d climb in his bed and talk his ear off, he’d kiss me.
Maybe to make me stop talking so he could sleep.
Maybe because sometimes he just wanted to be closer to me.
I didn’t know why sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t.
Maybe it depended on what I was talking about.
But this kiss didn’t feel sleepy. Or convenient.
It felt a lot more real than all the others. He pulled away far too soon.
“I want to make sure you know how I feel,” he said. “I’m not a grand gestures kind of guy. But I’m here for you. I know you’re confused right now. But I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
He smiled. “Not even a little.”
“You’re going to get yourself fired,” I said with a laugh.
“Maybe so. But I don’t care as long as you come with me wherever I go afterwards.” He pushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“I thought you didn’t want me to run away from here anymore?”
“The unselfish part of me. But the selfish part? I want to get you as far away from these people as possible.”
Something about the way he said it made me remember what Mr. Pruitt had said. “Do you watch me 24/7?”
His eyebrows pulled together. “What?”
“Mr. Pruitt said that it was your job to watch me 24/7.”
“Yeah, technically that is my job.”
I stared up at him. “What does that mean? Like…are you…are there…” I looked up at the ceiling. “Are there cameras somewhere?”
“There are cameras everywhere, Brooklyn. Their locations were listed in detail in the contract you signed. Remember?”
“Oh. Right. Yeah.” I definitely didn’t remember. Since I hadn’t actually read the contract . “Wait. So you watch me when I…change?”
He shifted away from me. “It’s not like that. I’m not staring at the screens nonstop. I don’t watch you undress. I’m not a creep.”
It felt a little creepy to me. Suddenly the feeling of being watched made so much more sense. “Who else is watching me?”
“Each of the security detail is assigned one person.”
“Then don’t they see me coming downstairs to you at night?” My heart was racing. And I wasn’t sure if it was because I was mad that he was watching me. Or I was worried that someone else was.
“There aren’t any cameras around the staff floor. Or anywhere near the door to our floor for that matter. There’s no reason for them.”
I nodded, not feeling all that convinced. “Is someone watching us right now?”
“You’re the only one living in this wing.
” He pulled out his phone and brought up a screen filled with different shots and angles of the apartment.
“So I’m the only one that needs access to the cameras in this wing.
” He showed an image of us on his screen.
I could also see a few angles of my bedroom.
Kennedy and Tiffany were laughing about something and Justin’s hands were on his hips.
At least there wasn’t a shot of my bathroom.
But still. It all felt wrong. Why hadn’t Miller told me he was watching me? “I…I should really go talk to Mr. Pruitt.”
“You’re not mad at me, are you?”
I looked up at him as he shoved the phone back in his pocket. I wasn’t mad. I knew he was doing his job. And if I’d read that stupid contract, I would have known about the cameras. It was weird, though. I’d had no idea he was watching me. “You swear you don’t watch me change?” I asked.
He smiled. “I swear.”
“Well, that’s good.” I laughed awkwardly.
“I wouldn’t look at all if it wasn’t necessary. But I have to make sure you’re safe.”
Safe from what? And that was the whole problem. It was another thing I wanted to talk to Mr. Pruitt about. Why was any of this necessary? He said if I signed his contract he could fill me in on what he did for a living. “I’ll be back up in a minute, okay?”
He smiled, even though he still looked tense.
“I’m not mad. I promise.” I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
***
I knocked on the big wooden door of Mr. Pruitt’s study.
“Come in,” said a muffled voice from the other side.
The door was heavy and it slammed closed with a loud thud behind me. I’d never seen Mr. Pruitt with glasses on before. It made him look even more sophisticated.
“How can I help you?” he asked as he pulled his glasses off.
Reading glasses. That was even more peculiar. Wouldn’t he need them when he read the morning paper? Did Mrs. Pruitt even know he needed glasses? Did anyone?
He set his glasses down, shaking me out of my thoughts. “You can’t fire Tiffany,” I said. “It wasn’t her fault. Isabella…”
“I know,” he said. “Isabella and her friends cut up all your clothes after you left for the homecoming game.”
“How…how do you know that?” Miller had just told me that only he had access to the cameras in my room.
Mr. Pruitt closed the lid of his laptop. “I have my ways.”
A chill ran down my spine. He had pretty much just admitted that he was watching me too. Who the hell else was watching me? First it seemed like Mrs. Pruitt was. Then Miller. Now Mr. Pruitt too? Was my bedroom on full display for everyone?
Mr. Pruitt stood up from his chair and walked around his desk.
“I’m not a fool, Brooklyn.” He leaned against the side of his desk.
It was the most casual I’d ever seen him.
“Isabella seemed to be in a rather great mood this afternoon, even for homecoming. She and her friends giggled during the whole car ride to the game. And the scissors from my desk were missing. She didn’t even bother to cover her tracks. She’s testing me.”
“Testing you?”
“To make sure I love her more, I assume.” He sighed. “But you’re as much of me as she is. More maybe. Because you haven’t been hardened by my wife. I see so much of me in you from when I was your age. And so much of your mother.”
I felt a lump forming in my throat. Maybe his heart was hardened by his wife. Maybe he was kind to my mother. Maybe he wasn’t always like this. I’d seen glimpses of his kind heart. He was nice to me too.
“My wife will never approve of you.” He tilted his head to the side as if he was inspecting me.
“But I do. I don’t want you to change. I want you to come to me when you think something is unjust. I want you to tell me if I’m doing something wrong.
And I don’t want you to be scared of standing up for what you believe in, even if it goes against Isabella or my wife. ”
“Is that why you liked my mom? Because she told you when things were unjust?”
“I loved your mom because she was everything I could never have. She didn’t care what people thought of her. She was beautiful inside and out. She was honest. She was…happy.”
She was beautiful. And always honest. But I held on to his last description the most. Because knowing that my mom was always happy was what I needed to fall asleep at night.
The memory that even in her last days, I was the reason she smiled.
“She was happy.” Even during the hard times.
She had always been quick to make me laugh.
I wiped beneath my eyes, trying to hide my tears.
She never spoke about Mr. Pruitt. But she also never dated anyone.
I was pretty sure he had broken her heart. And that she’d always loved him.
He nodded. “She wouldn’t have been happy with me. It was good that she left.” He cleared his throat and stood up straight. “You have my word, Anderson’s job is secure.”
“Good.”
He walked back around his desk, seemingly dismissing me. But I had one more thing to discuss.
“I signed the papers,” I said. “So you can tell me what you do now.”
He smiled. “I’m a businessman.”
“Right.” I’d gathered that much. “But what kind of business?”
“You can think of me as a CEO of sorts. Of a lot of different businesses.” He opened up his laptop again.
“Of what businesses?”
“Family run businesses. Well, a few families really.”
“Can’t you be more specific than that? We’re not in public right now.”
He looked up from his screen. “We’re always in public. Even when you think we’re not.”
“What does that mean?”
“That I never discuss business outside this room.”
I nodded even though I didn’t know what he was talking about. “Are you a hitman?” I blurted the words out before I could stop myself.
He laughed. “A hitman?” He laughed again. “Heavens no. And they prefer to be called wet workers.”
What? I’d certainly never heard that term before. And I had a sinking feeling in my stomach about why he knew that random fact. If he wasn’t a hitman, did he hire them? I thought about how he’d asked if Isabella had threatened me with his assets. “Do you have wet workers on your payroll?”
He steepled his fingers above his desk. “Brooklyn, my line of work is dangerous. And by association, my family’s lives are also in danger. And our extended family of business owners. I take every precaution to keep what’s mine safe.”
“So that’s all you can tell me? That it’s a dangerous family business?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Trust me, that’s all you need to know. Don’t you have a dance to get ready for?”
“Was my mom scared of you? Is that why she left?” I needed to know everything. There were missing pieces in my story. I wanted him to fill them in.
“I was married when I got your mother pregnant. I was trying to do the right thing by my family.” He looked back at his laptop.
I thought he was going to tell me to leave, but then he added, “If I could go back, I wish that I could say I’d do it differently.
But my obligations are hard to break ties from.
I had to let your mother go. For her own safety.
She wasn’t scared of me, but she should have been. ”
I swallowed hard. “Should I be scared of you?”
“Are you?”
Honestly? “A little.”
He smiled. “A little fear is always a good thing in my book. It means you’re precautious. It’ll do you well.”
“That was not in any way an answer.”
He laughed. “You have no reason to fear me, Brooklyn. You’re my daughter. I couldn’t make your mother mine. But I already made you mine. You’re Brooklyn Pruitt. You’re protected under my name. You’re untouchable.”
Untouchable. The nickname for the Hunter and Caldwell brothers wasn’t lost on me. Officially I was now one of them. Unofficially? I’d never be.
Mr. Pruitt had said something about my last name being Pruitt before.
Had he actually changed my last name without my permission?
Legally? That seemed like a discussion for a different day.
Because he still hadn’t answered my other questions.
“If I’m untouchable, then why do you have Miller watch me 24/7? ”
“Because sometimes people like to touch what isn’t theirs, now don’t they?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” It felt like I was in trouble. And I’d come here to get Tiffany out of it, not push myself into a hole.
“Matthew Caldwell signed your relationship contract and had a different date than you did. He said your relationship started several weeks before you did. Which means that you were already seeing him before you came here. You’re just like me. Always trying to reach for more.”
“That’s not why I like Matt.” Mr. Pruitt was basically insinuating that I was a gold digger.
“Then why do you like him?”
“Because he liked me even when I was invisible.”
“Invisible?” Mr. Pruitt shook his head. “No one like you could possibly be invisible. And if you ask me, you should be dating Mason. He’s going to inherit MAC International, not Matt. Mason’s the better choice.”
“Maybe for someone else. Not for me.”
“So you’re choosing Matthew then?”
“Yes.” My voice was a little more firm than my heart. I loved Matt. I did. But he…God, I didn’t even know anymore. He didn’t love me enough.
“Very well. I’ll need you to change the date on that document then. So it matches Matt’s.”
He pulled open a drawer and rifled through a few folders. “Here we go.” He handed me Matt’s copy and then mine.
Matt had put in an earlier date. He’d put in the date of his father’s birthday party. Where Matt had followed me into the restroom after I cut my hand. The real start of us. It was as sweet as it was arrogant. Because I wasn’t his then. Hell, I was barely his now.
“And maybe take a lesson from me and stop sneaking off to the staff floor between midnight and 6 am every day. If it continues I’ll have no choice but to figure out who it is you’re seeing and fire him. Do we understand each other?”
Oh my God. Of course he knew. But it seemed like he didn’t know it was Miller. And at least that was a relief. “That’s nothing. I…”
“Do we understand each other?” he asked again.
There was no backtracking. He knew. “Yes.”
“Wonderful. I need to get back to work. But please knock again before you leave. I’d love to take a picture with you in your dress. I need one of you for my desk.” He gave me a kind smile that didn’t at all match his latest threat.