Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
T he vast estate of the Alderton-Du Ponte Country Club with Massey Suites looming off to its side was stunning during the day. Willow trees lined the smooth roadway leading up to the grand building, their branches swaying in the wind as I drove underneath. They cleared to display the beautiful eighteen-hundreds-style architecture that expanded with an impressive square-footage.
The structure had gone through many renovations and additions over the years, but still held the charm Mr. Hubert Alderton had fought so hard to maintain. The estate itself was over fifty acres, accommodated with private pools and spas, with their grand golf course spreading out over the greenery. Even the air itself smelled expensive.
Such a beautiful place, but it was as if I could feel my soul shrivel each time I got close.
“Good afternoon, Miss Margot,” one of the valets greeted me as he opened my door. He was in his mid-thirties, tall, but would never look me in my eye.
Please leave , his expression read. When the other valets saw me looking, they pretended to be busy with other things at their station, but it was clear they all shared one uniform thought: Please be on your way, Margot Massey .
No one liked to interact with Ice Queen Margot any longer than they needed to, lest she freeze their hearts. I wasn’t sure when it’d become that way, that even the staff began avoiding me, but I’d grown to expect it.
I passed the man my car key. “Keep it out,” I told him flatly. “I’ll be just a moment.” Without another glance, continuing on toward the pearly gates of hell. I could’ve sworn I heard a sigh of relief behind me.
The Massey Hotel & Suites lobby was just as magnificent as Alderton-Du Ponte, with floor to ceiling windows in the entryway that let in an enormous amount of natural light. The heels of my loafers clacked on the marble floor as I walked through the entrance. I didn’t expect to find Sumner waiting for me—after all, I hadn’t given him a time I’d be back by—but when I did a quick scan, I found him sitting in one of the lounge chairs, bathed in sunlight.
His attention was on his phone, thumbs moving fast as he typed something out. His golden hair was once more ungelled and loose across his forehead, long enough to curve around his ears. I’ll be waiting for you , he’d said hours before, and here he was.
As I approached, the first thing my gaze locked on were his shoes. They were sneakers . Old, dirt ridden. The untied laces on his left shoe were nearly black with grime. He wore dark wash jeans with a tear in the knees and a loose-fitting white T-shirt tucked into the band. He hadn’t been the definition of elegance last night, but at least he’d been wearing khakis .
“Your shoes,” I said without preamble, causing Sumner to jump in his seat. His hands fumbled on his phone, causing it to fall from his grip and bounce into his lap. “Your clothes. Go change them.”
Sumner rose to his feet and looked down at himself once more, his golden hair falling into his eyes. “What’s wrong with them?”
“You cannot be following me around looking like you’re homeless.”
Finally, some of his neutral expression cracked, drawing a line between his eyebrows. It made him look less like a mannequin and more like a person. “ Homeless ?” His tone was a little more than mildly offended. “I don’t have anything like that .”
He was directing his attention to the suit I had on, and I narrowed my eyes at the Gilfman slander. I felt perfectly put together, and my confidence grew from that solid feeling. How he could feel confident sitting in a luxury hotel lobby looking like he’d just taken the walk of shame was beyond me. “Business casual will do.”
“Jeans aren’t casual?”
I could’ve gasped. “You can’t possibly think jeans are business casual . They have tears .”
Sumner stared at me until he could no longer hold back the tiny smile that quirked at his lips. “I know what business casual is. I was just joking. It was a little funny, wasn’t it?”
I just blinked at him.
“I don’t have anything on your level, though. All I have is my work uniform, and the khakis from last night are in the wash, so—” Sumner gave a what can you do shrug.
He was testing me. He had to be. He was acting so… casual. Teasing and acting flippant. There was no professionalism anywhere to be seen for a man hired to be my secretary.
There was no condescension that I was used to from other clubgoers, either. No fear that was common amongst the staff.
The place I’d made our breakfast reservation, Pierre’s, would’ve barred Sumner at entry, dressed like that. It was a rooftop restaurant on one of the tallest buildings in Bayview, with the best views and avocado toast in the county. I’d been looking forward to it ever since moving back from New York, and I debated pushing the issue, forcing him to go scrounge up something more presentable.
Ultimately, I scrunched my nose. “Tie your shoe before you trip.”
In a sort of startled realization, Sumner fell to his knee and tied up the shoe. It hit me then it wasn’t necessarily lunatic behavior he exhibited—he more was like a puppy with its energy unbridled.
He followed me out into the mid-May air, and when I started toward the valet section between the hotel and the country club, Sumner picked up pace until he walked at my side.
I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “Why are you walking so close?”
“I—am I not supposed to?”
It was quite the conundrum, Sumner’s hiring. Sure, my parents thought him unflappable, but how could they hire a man so genuinely unknowledgeable in all things decorum? “A secretary is a shadow,” I told him. “A shadow doesn’t walk beside its focus.”
“Actually, it would depend on the position of the sun?—”
I stopped mid-stride. “Do you have a response for everything?”
“I don’t know about everything ?—”
“A secretary isn’t supposed to ramble on. They’re supposed to be seen, not heard.”
Sumner, true to my parents’ word, remained unruffled. “I don’t remember a ‘vow of silence’ clause in my contract.”
The longer I stared at him, the more clearly I could see the mirth swirling in the blue depths of his eyes like they were a new color of their own. He was teasing me. Not mocking, as I was used to, but teasing .
Without another word, I started back toward the valet, shaking my head. Sumner’s clomping footfalls followed faithfully.
The valet barely looked either of us in the eye as he passed me my keys back, rounding the car to open my door for me. I debated on having Sumner drive, to milk his secretary services for all they were worth, but slid into the driver’s seat and revved the engine. Once Sumner sealed himself inside, I stepped on the gas before he slid his seatbelt on.
In the four years I’d been in New York City, I hadn’t driven once. Even on the rare occasions I’d come back to Addison with my mother for events, I’d rarely had a chance to take my car out for a spin. The route to Nancy’s yesterday had far too many hills and blind spots to drive as freely as I did now.
This route to Bayview had no traffic, no hills, no crosswalks—nothing but a clean stretch of asphalt that I could barrel down, and bask in the adrenaline as I did so. If the windows had been open, my hair would be flying everywhere.
Sumner, though, was not as entertained.
“Can you—” He clutched the handle above his head. I almost thought it’d rip from the ceiling. “Can you slow down?”
Now it was my turn to bask in the mirth of the moment. I revved the engine in response to his desperation, adrenaline pouring into my veins at the glorious sound. I was already in the top gear, but let my hand rest on the shifter. The tires sang in response, creating a beautiful symphony of noise. I teased the speedometer, daring it as high as I could before allowing the speed to creep back down, only to make it spike again.
“You may not care about dying, but I do,” he bit out, his other hand coming down and grabbing where mine rested on the gear shift. Grabbing it tight —the bones in my hand shifted, and I jumped at the sudden touch. “Slow down.”
I tried not to think about how his hand swallowed mine, but allowed myself one glance to see the tendons accentuated through his skin. A nice hand . “Say please.”
Sumner didn’t, but he also didn’t let go. His eyes were squeezed shut.
“Don’t tell me you lost your parents in a car accident or something.”
“I don’t have to have a tragic backstory to hate you driving a hundred miles an hour.”
“Oh, please , we only hit one hundred once . We’ve been sitting at a calm ninety-five?—”
“Just slow down,” Sumner repeated for the millionth time, but only then did he tack on, quietly, “ please .”
I lifted my foot off the gas pedal and shifted the gearstick, the car slowing with the speedometer following suit. Sumner loosened in his seat, as if melting into it. A part of me loved that I could draw out a reaction, while another part—an irritating part—felt a little guilty. “Because you and your sorry excuse for business casual , we’ll most likely have to eat somewhere else. The place I made reservations for would rather close its doors than let a sneaker as dirty as yours touch their floors.”
Sumner still didn’t open his eyes despite the decline in speed. “You should’ve told me we’d be eating at a Michelin Star restaurant for breakfast.”
“It’s brunch .” The correction came out exasperated. “And you should’ve told me that you didn’t have more than one pair of dress pants.”
“What, you would’ve lent me some of yours?”
“I’m not sure if I’m flattered or offended if you think my pants will fit you.” From the corner of my eye, I looked down at the gearshift—at his curved fingers. “How long are you going to hold my hand for?”
Sumner’s eyes popped open, focusing down on our hands in shock, as if he thought he’d been gripping the gearshift itself the entire time. He snatched his fingers back as if I burned him. “Your parents hired me to be your shadow,” he said, bringing back what I’d said at the country club. “They hired me because you have crap people skills, which—yeah, I found that out within five minutes of knowing you. Having to follow around a rich girl because she can’t keep herself from causing trouble isn’t really ideal, I’ll be honest. We could fight this, and be bickering for the two weeks until your fiancé comes to town, or we can actually try to be… pleasant with each other.”
Again, that word. Pleasant . I listened to his self-proclaimed honesty with a straight face, my sunglasses shielding my gaze. Though his voice was firm as he spoke, his hands fidgeted in his lap, fingers tracing his knuckles. Something about the way he looked at me now, the way he spoke while attempting to hide his nerves, reminded me of last night after my parents left us alone. Like these were his true colors.
It wasn’t as if the casual, teasing nature of his wasn’t his true self, but this was Sumner Pennington when his buttons were pushed.
“I’ve thought about what I want,” Sumner went on, staring straight through the windshield. “In exchange for letting you kiss me.”
I curved my fingers over the leather of the steering wheel. “Go on.”
He hesitated. “You said it could be anything I wanted.”
“I also said go on .”
“Instead of me being your secretary,” he began slowly, “I want us to be friends. ”
I’d been anticipating some sort of outlandish request, due to his hesitation, but the direct way he spoke once more caught me off guard. Friends . A nonchalant, easy word that slipped off his tongue, one that was near alien to me. The word felt as if it only could apply to Destelle, who was however many miles away from me. Friends . I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did Nancy talk to you?”
Sumner blinked. “Who?”
I knew the old lady had a strangeness to her, but it was uncanny that Nancy pushed me toward Sumner and here he was, meeting me halfway. He was a stranger to me—granted, a stranger I’d kissed.
I fought a smile. “Interesting.”
“W-What is?”
“You are.”
“I thought you said I was disappointing.”
“I suppose the jury’s still out.” I glanced over at him. “Trying to find out which side you’re on is what’s interesting.”
“I’m not on anyone’s side,” he said, but it sounded like a lie.
And even if it was a lie, I didn’t mind it. I didn’t know what was so different, a secretary or a friend, and why he requested the latter, but it worked in my favor. My parents might’ve had the influence of money over Sumner, but they weren’t the ones spending time with him, after all. I was. I slowed even further as we entered Bayview city limits, allowing myself a small smirk. “Good. That means I can still sway you over onto mine.”