Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
D isorder wasn’t allowed in the world I grew up in, where everything was scheduled and orchestrated down to every minute of every day. Chaos, in its pure form, was too wildly unpredictable and created too much conflict. A temper tantrum rarely gave a child what it wanted in the end, unless the time and place were correct.
However, if done correctly, a child throwing a fit to get what it wanted could yield results. Exasperated results, but results, nonetheless.
Calculated chaos—that was my specialty.
“I’m so very sorry about my daughter’s behavior,” my father, the head of staff management at both the hotel and country club, repeated the same phrase over and over, each time growing higher in pitch. “I apologize profusely for her actions—it never should’ve happened.”
He wasn’t speaking to me, of course. After I pulled back from the kiss, my parents hustled the waiter and me from Alderton-Du Ponte Country Club to Massey Hotel a word rarely ever used to describe me.
And before I could reply, the happiness had indeed leached from his gaze to the rest of his face, and Mr. Pennington smiled. With over a decade of watching facial expressions under my belt, I’d quickly learned how to detect a genuine smile from a fake one. Mr. Pennington’s smile, in all its glory, was real. The first real smile I’d received in a long, long time.
I wasn’t sure I liked it.
I started down the corridor from my parents’ office, back toward the common space of the hotel lobby. Mr. Pennington’s footsteps in his generic loafers continued after me faithfully, all the way through the lobby and into the elevators .
“Why did you do it?” he asked once the doors closed. The mirrored panels reflected our images back to us, and I watched him in the glass just as he watched me. “Why did you… kiss me?”
It was cute that he hesitated before saying it, as if he were a little boy saying a curse word. I considered not answering him. He was, after all, a stranger who needed no excuse from me. He’d learn in time, from the gossip of other workers, that Margot Massey did things for no reason. “Were you not listening?”
“You really kissed me to prove a point to someone? Just because you could?”
I let out a slow breath, watching as my shoulders fell with it in the mirror. “Maybe.”
“You go around kissing strangers,” Mr. Pennington began. “But aren’t you engaged?”
“My,” I exclaimed theatrically. “You enjoy gossip, do you? You’ll fit in quite well around here.”
It amused me more than irritated me how he spoke as if he knew my situation. His rapid blinking like a scolded child also was entertaining. What did irritate me, though, was him bringing up Aaron Astor in the first place.
I’d always known it, but it was another thing to be confronted with the truth that my name did not come up unless tied to another man’s.
The elevator door dinged as it opened up to the eighth floor, the warm glow of lighting illuminating the golden hallway. I started down the thin carpet toward my room. “Think about what you want in return for the kiss,” I said without looking back at him. “Despite you being a spy for my parents, I keep my word. Whatever you want.”
Mr. Pennington didn’t immediately respond, and for a moment, I thought he stayed on the elevator. “I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you for your service.” I stopped at my hotel room door and faced him before unlocking it. “Thank you for taking one for my team.”
Even from here, I could see the tips of his cheeks pinken. “Next time… you should work on your technique.”
My eyes dropped to his lips on their own accord. Even though it happened no more than an hour ago, kissing him was hazy in my mind. I’d focused too much on the gasps that immediately rang out. Despite the strangeness of it, I found myself wishing I’d been paying more attention, if only to recall what they felt like. “That sounds an awful lot like flirting, Mr. Pennington.”
“I meant—I meant asking for favors, not?—”
“I got it.”
Now his skin definitely flushed, and in the golden light of the hotel hallway, it almost made him seem angelic. “And it’s Sumner,” he said softly. “Sumner Pennington.”
“Sumner Pennington,” I echoed, and even if I couldn’t remember what his lips felt like, I focused on the way mine curve around his name now. Sumner . It was a unique name; one I’d never heard before. It suited him.
I slid my keycard along my hotel room door. It unlocked with a click, and I twisted the handle. Before disappearing inside, I turned back to him. “Tomorrow, in the morning, I’ll be going to visit Nancy. You’re not coming with me.” I lifted my chin as I looked at him, letting out a contented breath. “But I’ll be wanting brunch afterward, so I’ll come back to the hotel for you.”
“I’ll be waiting for you,” Sumner said, holding my gaze as he did. There was something boyish about his expression, too—the face of someone wholly untouched by this world. It was a useless wish, but I hoped it would remain that way.
This world swallowed people like him whole. It was only a matter of time.
With the dull thought, I inclined my head and retreated into my hotel room, allowing the door to close loudly between us.