16. CALLUM
16
CALLUM
Liam waved me over when I finished giving Chloe a tour.
For the best. It took everything in me not to kiss Chloe. Push her up against one of the doors in the rooms. Instead, I silently relish in the way she looks in that dress. A goddess in silver.
He was talking to an older gentleman I didn’t recognize, but their conversation was animated and serious.
Who I did recognize was Samantha’s mom. Why is she here?
Over Liam’s shoulder, I keep an eye on her, ensuring she doesn’t find her way to me. A few minutes pass and when her conversation wraps, she glides in my direction.
Did my mom send her?
What if she’s expecting to meet my girlfriend?
I need Chloe.
From across the lobby, I spot Chloe heading into the bathroom. I excuse myself from Liam and bolt to her.
Closing the bathroom door behind me, I twist the lock after double-checking that it's only her in here.
“Henry.”
Chloe opens the stall door, perplexed to find me here. “You know this is the women’s restroom, Pretty Boy?”
She leans against the counter to wash her hands, the back of her dress halfway zipped up. I step behind her, pushing my hands against the cool counter and cage her in.
“Sullivan,” she exhales slowly, head rising to meet mine in the mirror .
“I know you haven’t agreed to be my fake girlfriend, but I need you to be tonight. No trial. Real pretending. I need you, Henry.”
Chloe doesn’t react, but I catch the way her chest rises and falls. The pace picks up as the air in the room seems to evaporate. “Why?”
“Samantha’s mom is here.” I told Chloe about all the dates I had gone on. She nods, pools of silver still locked on me. “She can’t see me here alone.”
“It’s your hotel. Why wouldn’t you be here alone?”
“It won’t matter.” I lean forward. My chest grazes her back. “Please.”
On a sharp inhale, Chloe replies, “Okay.” Her chest falls and she asks, “I’ll help you but I need something from you.” I tilt my head. “Can you zip me up?”
Releasing my death grip on the counter, my right hand finds her waist. Gripping it and the fabric, I use my left hand to finish zipping up the remainder of her dress. Flattening my palm against her back. Her skin warm to the touch.
I pause. Look at her. Really look at her.
Chloe Henry is beautiful.
There’s a pattering of my heart that reminds me of the way someone knocks on your door. A thump. Thump. Thump. Knocking on a door to the home and love I’ve always wanted.
Does she know she’s knocking? That she’s inviting herself in?
Our breathing syncs. Chloe twists, turning to face me. One hand still tight on her waist. I lift the other—everything happens in slow motion—to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She wore it down, straight with one side slicked back.
“We should go.”
I drop my hand and step back, but we don’t move any further. We linger there, staring at each other.
Chloe shuts her eyes and rolls her shoulders back. “Ready?” she asks, reopening her eyes. A mask slipped back into place.
I hold the door open for her .
We walk side by side toward Samantha’s mom. Each step closer to the lion’s den, my muscles tighten. Shoulders pinch closer together and my throat goes dry.
How are we going to pull this off?
I should have never agreed to this idea.
You’re an idiot for pulling Chloe into this.
Chloe takes a step closer to me. Her hand finds mine, moving it discreetly around her, leaving it on her lower back. “If we are going to pull this off, you need to act like you are into me,” she whispers, as if she is a ventriloquist. Her mouth in a glowing smile.
“Mrs. Donaldson.”
“Callum, darling.” She kisses my cheeks, resting a hand on my shoulder. Pulling back, she turns her attention to Chloe. “And you, my beauty, are?”
“Chloe Henry, Callum’s girlfriend.”
Mrs. Donaldson’s head tilts. “Girlfriend. No wonder my Samantha is so brokenhearted.” Chloe gives her a tight smile. “I must know all the details.” To tell my mother. “How did you meet?”
Shit. We didn’t talk about this.
Before I have an opportunity to respond, Chloe jumps in. “Callum is friends with my best friend. We’ve been around each other all summer. Asked me out several times till I gave in.”
Of the three of us, I don’t know who would win the award for the fakest smile. “I see,” Mrs. Donaldson replies before returning her attention to me. “This place is brilliant, Callum. Exquisite.”
“It was Callum’s idea to open a location in the States,” Chloe adds.
“Is it?” she asks and I nod. “I’ve stayed in a few of your other properties. Your mother takes us to them on our girl’s trips.”
“I didn’t know that. Which locations have you been to?”
“Madrid. Edinburgh. Paris.”
My hand falls from Chloe’s back, but she catches it in her hand. Interlocking them, she squeezes precisely as my heart does .
Mother has never spoken about going to the hotels. She always seems disinterested in them. There’s a growing pride in me.
We chat with her for another twenty minutes about the hotels.
“Well, I must be going. Just wanted to peek in. I’m certain we’ll be staying here eventually. It was wonderful to see you, Callum, and a pleasure to meet you. . . Miss Henry .”
***
As I search around the lobby, I double-take when I see Chloe still here. She’s helping the staff clean. Chatting casually with them as she collects glasses from the tables surrounding the lobby bar.
Behind the bar, our bar manager, Flynn is doing his own cleanup.
“Good night?” I ask him.
He nods. “Insane. I’ve never made that many drinks in one night before.”
“The turnout was unreal.”
“It’s a stunning hotel. You should be proud.”
“You too, Flynn. Liam and I appreciate you taking a risk on us, moving to Chicago for this.”
“One of the best lessons I’ve learned is that every risk is worth it. We aren’t born with the answers, it’s our responsibility to find them. Stretch our horizons, expand our minds, and try new things. You can’t predict an outcome, so why be afraid of taking the shot?”
“I’m starting to believe that. Is everything put up for the night?”
“Never for you, boss.”
“Callum. Please call me Callum.” I smile. “Any bottles of champagne back there?”
He bends over, digging around the fridge. When he stands back up, he’s holding two bottles of our best, my personal favorite, imported from a small house in Champagne.
“Thank you. ”
“Thank you, Cal. For all of this. A great risk, a greater reward.”
We give each other the nod. Leaving him to close down, I locate Chloe and make my way to her.
“Care for a nightcap?” I say quietly in her ear. Goosebumps pebble across her arms.
“I could be persuaded.”
Circling my arms around her, I let her see the bottles in each of my hands.
“Sure. Give me a minute to drop off these glasses.”
“I’ll meet you at the lift.”
CHLOE
Cal has the strap of my silver heels hanging from one of his pinkies. I couldn’t stand another minute in the four inches. As soon as the elevator doors shut, I hastily slipped them off, a crisp moan fell from me at the feeling of being flat-footed.
He sets the bottles down on a table between two pool loungers.
I pulled them over to face the glass that overlooks the city.
“Wow.” Laying back, looking up at the cloudless night sky. Midnight blue with scattering of bright lights from skyscrapers and stars. Stars. “You can see the stars tonight.”
“The brightest one is next to me.”
I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Couldn’t come up with a better line than that?”
“Why?” Cal shrugs, peeling off the foil around the cork. “I don’t prefer to lie.”
“I. . .” The weird pit in my stomach that I feel when I’m around Cal is digging itself deeper. His one-off comments, the way his eyes reflect the sky. It’s kindling to a fire I’m unsure I want to light.
“Growing up, we used to visit my grandparents at their farm. I loved being outside the city. Sydney, then London. You can’t see shit through the smog, but my grandparents lived in the countryside. There were countless stars. We'd sleep out there when we were old enough after begging our parents to let us. Even on the nights they said no, I’d knock on my brothers’ door quietly, and we'd sneak out.
“We would always promise each other to be up before Mom and Dad. Back in our beds and pretend to sleep so they’d never know. Every time,”—He shakes his head at the memory, and a single silent laugh emerges—“we’d never get up in time. We’d wake to blankets covering us and Dad sitting on their back porch sipping his coffee, steam rolling off the top of it.”
“When’s the last time you did that?” I ask. Cal hands me a glass of champagne.
“With them? Years. Sometimes, I sleep outside on holiday or on our balcony when the sky is cloudless—nights like tonight. But that’s few and far between. Lately I’m too tired. By the time my head hits the pillows I’m asleep.”
I take a sip. “That’s nice.” My body shivers. The summer nights are beginning to cool. Callum shrugs off his jacket.
“Here.”
I take it, pulling it over my shoulders. “Thank you. Are you close with your family?” We’ve talked, most of the conversations slightly one sided from his quietness. Hearing him willingly share is the cherry to tonight.
“I am with Audrey, my little sister.”
“I’ve met her.” He tilts his head. “Virtually.”
“We’re only a couple of years apart. Our brothers, Jack and Harrison, are older, married with kids, different stages of life than us. By the time I was ten, they were off to school or back in Australia.”
“I didn’t know you were from Australia.”
“I am. Claim both. Mom is from Brisbane. Dad is from England. He grew up on the farm, but when he turned eighteen he decided that wasn’t his life. Herding sheep and milking cows. He took off for Sydney, loving the sun and beaches. Picked up surfing and met my mother at a competition. Eventually, they found their way back to England when we were all young.”
I sit up, eyes wide. “Please say no for me.”
“No,” he says, and I’m instantly disappointed that there is no Australian accent.
“Dang. I was hoping under your English accent there was an Australian one. You know, no,” I give it my best shot.
He laughs and a bit of champagne comes out of his mouth. There is a drop running down his chin. I reach forward, running my thumb across it.
Not exactly sure why, but I did.
“When are you seeing them next?” I ask, trying to steady my increasing heart rate.
“I’m going to fly home for Christmas.”
“They’ll love to have you home, I bet.”
“Yeah.” There’s something in how he draws out the word—a quiet sigh at the end and the slight tension in his shoulders. I think back to that night in my bathroom, his dazed confession. Or how he needed a fake girlfriend.
I let it drop, letting the silence blanket us.
I lay on my side, glancing between him and the sky.
“Now you,” Cal says. “I told you something about myself, it's your turn.”
I could tell him about my family, about my past. I could, but I won’t. “I hate smarties.”
“They are gross,” he agrees. “What about your family, Henry?”
“Miller is my twin brother. He’s the one I told you about moving here with his kid. Mom and Dad are back in Boston with most of my extended family,” I say quickly, ripping the Band-aid of information.
“Do you think your parents will move now that he’s here?”
“No, they love the northeast.”
“Do you miss them? ”
I blink several times. “I’m not the child that is on a different continent. I’m a short flight away from my parents, and Miller is here. Doesn’t seem fair to say I miss them.”
I do miss them, though, more than I like to admit.
“Mmmm, I think you can be sitting right next to someone and miss them. Missing a person doesn’t have to do with the proximity to them physically.” He shakes his head. “Do you miss your family?” Cal asks again.
“I. . .” Every day. The words get caught in my throat. The shame and guilt that comes with admitting the truth claws at them, dragging them back down. “Yeah, I do.” I inch up the lounger. “What about you?”
“No,” he says blankly.
We return to silence, the stars keeping us company.
“I like this. Up here. Talking with you. It’s quiet.”
“Me too,” he says, barely above the whisper.
“Can I ask you another question?”
“Anything, Dais.”
Don’t ruin this, Chloe. The question I want to ask, fades away.
“Did you always want to go into finance?” I ask instead.
“Sure.”
“Don’t go tight-lipped on me now.”
“It was the plan. I needed to go into finance.”
“You mean want?”
“Needed.”
“What did you want?”
“I don’t regret it.” His tone is stern and commanding. “I wouldn’t be able to work with Liam as I do, and I love getting to be involved with all this.” He gestures to the rooftop, the pool, the bar, and the view of the Chicago skyline. “It’s brought me opportunities and taken me places I never imagined. I have difficulty looking back and knowing what I wanted then because it wouldn’t have given me this.”
He rolls over, head propped on his fist .
“What about right now? What do you want?”
Cal doesn’t skip a beat with his answer. It catches me off guard, but it’s the same thing I want. And it’s not because of the alcohol pouring through my veins. I wouldn’t need liquid courage for this. Warmth spreads throughout my body, from head to toe.
“I want to kiss you.”
Sure, he’s observant, but even in the darkness illuminated by the stars, I know he can see how still my body goes. Through me to my pattering heart.
“What do you want, Chloe ?”
There’s the ding of the elevator, and a group of people stumble out laughing.
“Oh, sorry, boss,” one of them says when they spot Callum and then me.
“I should go.” I pull away, taking off his jacket. “Have a good night, Pretty Boy.”