10. Queenie
CHAPTER TEN
QUEENIE
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘ALL THE GOOD GIRLS GO TO HELL’ BY BILLIE EILISH
“You didn’t have to do that,” I whisper five minutes after Chachu leaves. Without punching Noah or killing me. Noah’s gulping down a full raspberry pie with his left-hand and not even looking at me.
I stash him in the last booth at the very back of the diner, safe from curious eyes.
“I don’t want to lie to –”
“This pie is incredible. Did you make it?” He licks the spoon clean and lays it on the table.
“What? No. I didn’t,” I answer impatiently. “Pestroni, the chef…he is trying a new recipe with wheat flour, lemon, and vinegar to give the dough the same rise.”
“It’s delicious. And.” He taps the plate contentedly. “Healthy. I could eat this forever.”
Most of the chatter around the diner is back to normal, but Mischa keeps shooting me hyper looks I cannot return. And I am so glad Rohit Chachu did not have a full-on meltdown at my place of work because an Australian cricket player just casually told him we were cohabiting together.
“Are you listening to me? You’re not my boyfriend. We can’t—” I grip the edges of the table.
“Do I have to tip forty percent because you’re my girl and you work here, you think?” He pulls out his wallet and casually places a hundred on the table. The full pie costs twenty-dollars.
“Stop saying that.” I see red. “I’m not your girl. And forty’s too much. You don’t have to?—”
“Whatever you want to say to me, and I assume it’s plenty, judging by the steam coming out of your ears, I’d like to tell you three things before you do.” Noah lazily twists the plate.
“ What ?” I snarl. “What three things?”
“We can’t have a fight here. It’s too public and I’ve had enough public displays for a decade, haven’t you?” He smiles thinly.
I concede he has a point. “Fine. I have too. But if you think I’m going anywhere alone with you after last night?—”
“Which brings me to my second point.” He holds up two fingers. “What you’re experiencing right now is an excess of emotions. Which will incline you to irrational behavior.”
“Oh, you got that right, buddy.” I grunt, while maintaining a pleasant smile on my face. “I have extremely irrational thoughts right now.”
“I suggest you hold off on acting upon them because point three—” Noah stands up. Well, he looms, because he is a tall man. Topping me by more than a head.
When he stands so close to me and doesn’t accommodate for my height, I have to crane my neck to look up at him.
And his face is absolutely flat. Blank. There’s no funny quirk to his lips; his eyes are starless. His cheeks are taut with restrained emotion.
Fear thuds in my heart. He is a wealthy fuck boy who could do anything he wanted, and I wouldn’t be able to stop him. It is a disconcerting realization.
“I don’t say this lightly, Queenie,” he talks softly, quickly, “But I am not someone to cross. I really am not. You don’t want to find out why, do you?”
His easy, simple question fills me with rage. All the rage I feel at everyone in the world. So, I smile sweetly, my eyes shooting daggers. “I am not scared of you, Dumaine. Remember who is my godfather and talk appropriately to me.”
“I don’t like you,” he says through clenched teeth.
“And I don’t trust you. You took advantage of me last night,” I whisper.
Hurt sneaks through my words, all over again. I was having such a good time last night. And he spoiled that good time, the memory of it, for me. It hurts the most.
I blink rapidly. I will not be a teary female. I will not.
“ You spent last night with me. You invited me to kiss you. And, somehow, I took —” He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. When he opens them, they are calculative. “Regardless of what you just said, because of your enemy’s vendetta.” He points at me. “I am now caught on video with you.”
I hate this even more than the flat expression. Noah thinking is a dangerous thing.
“So am I,” I hiss back. “And I’ll have to pay tax for it because I’m the woman who was stupid enough to get caught on video with you.”
“You could thank me for quashing Veronica’s plan, you know?” He gives me a withering look. “I did save you from immeasurable public embarrassment.”
“And you could go to fucking hell, Noah.” My eyes glitter manically too.
“Fair enough,” he agrees readily. “Now are you going to grow a conscience and tell your godfather the truth?”
“What truth?” I hedge, while I run through my options. I already know I have less than none. And the one I do have is unacceptable.
“That you dropped out of Thorndon and are currently looking at homelessness as a real option… that you kissed a guy at a party to make Veronica look like a fool.” He ticks off my transgressions one by one. “How would your Chachu react to all this, I wonder?”
“You’re horrible.” Tears fill my eyes, despite my firm resolve. “How do you know about my housing situation?”
“Your car’s dashboard fell open last night. I got a peek at the eviction notice. It was not intentional,” he says gruffly.
“But you’re not above using it to blackmail me into what…being your girl?” I growl. Just saying the phrase makes me dizzy with anger.
“It’s not blackmail. Think of it as coercion, Madhavan,” he chirps. “You pretend to be my loving girl in front of the town and especially my coaches and I’ll let you crash at my place for the summer. Once summer is over, we’ll never see each other again. And I’ll not snitch on you to your godfather.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I say shakily. “He won’t believe you.”
“Are you willing to bet on it, Queenie?” Noah leans close, puts a hand on the edge of the table and talks right in my ear. “Because I’m betting my whole future on this camp. And I’ll not stand by and let you take it away from me.”
To the outside world, we are playing a happy, handsy couple. Only my heart’s thudding rapidly.
I can’t stop the shudder that comes on at his threatening words. I give him the most distasteful look I can muster. “Don’t tell me daddy won’t buy you a spot at another camp?”
“There is no other camp like this,” he responds. “And you’ll never mention my father again. Ever,” he ends shortly.
“I wish I’d never met you, Dumaine. You’re an asshole.”
“Asshole.” He tastes the word. “As endearments go, it is unique.” He smiles again, all surface charm and menacing eyes. “I’ll take it.”
“I hate you.”
The smile gets wiped off. “I don’t care,” he says flatly. “I don’t care if you hate me, Queenie. Just keep to the terms of the agreement and we’ll be fine.”
“We’re not…I’m not fucking you,” I whisper the words out.
I am never coming near you if I can help it. Even though a damnable heat ignites in my skin whenever he stands too close to me.
Noah blinks, once. His lashes are long as they drift over his sculpted cheekbones. “That’s what showerheads and socks are for,” he says easily. “Just don’t fuck anyone else when you’re with me and we will be fine, baby.”
“Don’t call me baby,” I say indignantly.
“Sorry, asshole’s already taken.” He winks again, the bastard. “Now, smile. I’m going to kiss you.”
I hold my breath, glaring mutely. And unable to do a damn thing about it.
Noah bends and kisses my forehead. His lips leave a trail of heat on my skin. I hate it so much.
I careen on the edge of a parapet. One where my former, semi-normal life beckons me and this new normal is one tragic fall away. “I can’t?—”
“Don’t say, ‘I can’t do this’, Queenie. I’ve been playing nice with you so far because you’ve had an extremely shit day. Believe me, so have I.” He is pure power as he stares me down. “And you don’t want to make it worse.”
“What will you do to me that’s not already been done?” I throw defiantly at him.
Even though he is right. I have learned my lesson when it comes to going up against powerful people. I don’t have another fight in me.
He pats my hot cheek and shrugs. “Try me and find out.”
“I’m not sharing a room with you. Or a bathroom,” I tack on, remembering his showerhead comment. “In fact, I don’t want to see you unless I have to.”
He writes down an address on the bill I rip off the pad and shove at him.
“Done. The cottage is big enough you’ll never have to see me if you don’t want to. And your room comes with its own bathroom. But in public, you’re coming to my matches and cheering me like a fucking maniac. Got it?”
“You’re Australian,” I jeer at him. “I’m not going to cheer for a rival team player and betray my India.”
“Like a fucking maniac,” Noah repeats. “I won’t be opposed to those tiny bikinis with my face painted on your…” He drops his eyes to my chest.
I fight the instinct to fold my hands and give him this victory.
“Eyes up here, asshole.” I point at my chin. His gaze is physical as a touch. I hate it. The reaction I have to this man I now loathe needs to be studied for future generations.
“Besides.” He licks his lips as if he is tasting me. “Think of how mad Veronica is going to be when she sees you with me. I’m Noah fucking Dumaine, you know.”
I step close to him, put my hands on his broad shoulders and kiss him on the cheek. He sucks in a breath, because it’s the first time I’ve voluntarily touched him. I resist the urge to dig my fingers into his jacket and gouge the skin.
“You are the goddamn devil, and I can’t wait for this summer to be over. Now get out, Dumaine, before I have you thrown out.”
“Hellcat,” he mutters, just for me.
“And don’t you forget it, Noah fucking Dumaine.” I smile one last time and walk away from him.
How in the world did I ever think this man was a sweet and harmless male specimen last night? Impaired judgment be damned, he is diabolical.
I fall off the parapet and into straight up insanity because I have to fake it as his girl.