Chapter Seventeen
Caleb
The Summit had been transformed.
Orange and black draped every surface, carved pumpkins flickered along the bar top, and someone had strung enough cobwebs across the ceiling to make the place look like it had been abandoned for a century.
The crowd was thick with hotel guests, locals, and people from neighboring towns who’d heard the resort threw a good Halloween party.
Half of them were in costume. The other half were in cocktail attire, pretending they were too sophisticated to dress up.
I fit the scene in my black jeans, black shirt, and black leather jacket. But I hadn’t come to celebrate.
The energy in the room was high, the music loud enough to feel in my chest, and none of it reached me. Not the buzz, the excitement, or the pulse of the crowd. It wasn’t that I couldn’t plug into it—I didn’t want to.
There was only one person I had any interest in connecting with.
Zadie.
I’d been replaying our last night together on a loop. Her hot mouth pressed to mine, her lush curves in my hands, and her broken voice begging please, like she was asking me to save her and ruin her at the same damn time.
Fuck, I’d been so hard for her I’d nearly lost it right there in the hall.
Then she’d given me two words that had detonated everything. I’m pregnant.
I’d walked away. Left her standing in the doorway with tears on her face and the truth hanging between us like an open wound. Drove to the Bay and sat staring at the water until my ass went numb.
She was pregnant. With another man’s baby.
The rage it triggered in me wasn’t simple. It was alive—crawling, expanding, looking for a target. And every ounce of it was aimed at her piece of shit ex. The fucker didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her, let alone have a child with her.
But underneath all that was something worse. Something tearing a hole through my heart.
The woman I’d been consumed by was carrying the one thing I’d always wanted. A family. A future with someone. A life that mattered because it was shared.
And I’d fucked it up. Instead of holding her tighter and telling her I wanted her even more, I'd walked away like every other man who'd failed her.
I don’t want to be your friend.
The words had been true. They were still true. But I’d handed her a rejection the same moment she’d handed me her deepest vulnerability. How the fuck could I undo that?
“Will you stop brooding and get us some drinks?” Chantel materialized beside me, her heels bringing her almost to my height, her witch hat tilted at an angle that was more fashion statement than costume. “You’re killing the vibe.”
“I’m not in the mood for a party.”
“I know. That’s why I dragged you here.” She scanned the room like she was looking for someone. “I’ll take a glass of whatever red they have open. And merde, Caleb, try to look like you’re having a good time.”
She cut through the crowd with the authority of a woman who expected people to move for her—because they usually did—and I headed for the bar.
Zane was slammed at the far end, his hands moving in a practiced blur, pouring drinks and charming customers. Most of whom were women.
Jeremy was working the near end, considerably less busy. I didn’t like the guy, but getting Chantel’s wine without a twenty-minute wait made dealing with him worth it.
I found an open spot at his end beside a girl in bunny ears. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen. Blonde, nervous, the costume making her look even younger. She was leaning away from Jeremy, who was reaching across the bar, his fingers trailing up her arm.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he said, his voice dripping with sleazy entitlement. “You shouldn’t have to get your own drinks looking like that. Let me pay for this one.”
Her giggle was the most uncomfortable sound I’d ever heard.
“Actually,” I said, stepping closer. “This round’s on me. Plus, a glass of red and whatever you’ve got on tap.”
The girl turned to me, breath catching. But my eyes were locked on Jeremy and the look of pure venom he shot my way.
I didn’t fucking blink.
He backed off, but I watched his hands the entire time he poured, because a guy who touched a stranger without permission wasn’t above tampering with a drink. When he handed them over, I nodded for the girl to take hers and then steered her away with my hand between her shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry if that was forward,” I said, bending closer so she could hear me. “But he wasn’t going to stop on his own. Stay close to your friends tonight.”
“Thank you.” She moved closer, her body relaxing and face tilting up. “You’re really nice.”
Her mouth was inches from mine. My hand was still on her back. And that was the exact moment Zadie appeared.
She was standing a few feet away, serving tray pressed against her side, her other hand at the base of her throat. She stared at me with her brow furrowed and her mouth in a hard line.
Our eyes met, and the room dropped away.
All I saw was her. The determination, the hurt, the fight she carried every single day. She’d survived things that should have broken her. And right now, she was looking at me like I’d just confirmed every terrible thing she believed about men.
Her eyes widened sharply, like she realized I could see past her defenses. Like she knew she couldn’t hide from me.
Then her hand jerked from her throat to her mouth, and she ran.
She moved fast, weaving through the crowd toward the back hallway. I was following before my brain caught up, the bunny girl forgotten.
The break room door was swinging shut as I reached it. Jeremy shouted something behind me, but I pushed through without breaking stride.
The room was empty. There was a desk to the left, the couch straight ahead, and the muffled sound of retching from behind the bathroom door.
“Zadie?” I pressed my hand flat against the wood.
“What did I tell you?” Jeremy’s voice hit me from behind. “I don’t care who you’re related to. Staff only back here.”
I didn’t turn around. “Zadie, are you okay?”
A toilet flushed. Water ran.
“Hey.” Jeremy’s hand clamped down on my shoulder. “I said get out. Go back to your little girlfriend and let me handle this.”
I looked at his hand first. Then at his repugnant fucking face. “Take your hand off me.”
Something in my voice made him comply. His hand dropped, but his chin lifted. “This is my bar.”
“And she’s my—” I shut my mouth before the wrong word slipped out. “I’m not leaving her alone with you. End of conversation.”
The bathroom door swung open. Zadie stood there, pale and wrung out. “My head is splitting. The last thing I need is the two of you measuring dicks out here.”
“Are you all right?” I asked, lowering my voice.
“I’m fine. Bad food.” The lie was automatic and unconvincing.
“Okay.” Jeremy ran a hand down the front of his shirt. “Take a minute, then I need you back on the floor.”
Zadie ignored him completely, her eyes landing on me with cold resolve. “I can take care of myself. Go back to the girl in the bunny ears, Caleb. Wouldn’t want to keep your date waiting.”
“She’s not my date. I’m here with Chantel. I don’t even know that girl’s name.”
Color rose in her cheeks, and her jaw clenched tighter.
Jeremy snickered from behind me. He didn’t need to flex his empty authority. He could see I’d buried myself.
“Whatever.” Zadie pushed past both of us, heading back to the floor. “It doesn’t matter. We’re not even friends anymore, right? Go have a good time with whoever you like. I’ve got work to do.”
She was gone before I could argue. The door swung shut behind her, leaving me alone with an asshole and the ruins of all my good intentions.
“You fucked that up nicely.” Jeremy crossed his arms, looking genuinely entertained.
He wasn’t wrong. And I hated him even more for it.
“Stay away from her.” I held his stare. “I mean it.”
“Or what?”
The question hung between us. I wanted to tell him I’d take him apart. That if he touched her, looked at her wrong, or used his title to corner her one more time, I’d make sure he regretted it.
But violence disgusted me. Even when my thoughts were savage. And my family owned the fucking place—one word, and he’d be gone.
I gave him one last look that he could interpret however the hell he wanted and walked out.
But putting him behind me didn’t kill the rage. It wasn’t all his fault. Fuck, it wasn’t even the situation. It was me.
I’d created this mess by acting like a scared kid, instead of stepping up like the goddamn man that I was. Nothing would need to be fixed if I hadn’t broken it in the first place.
I pushed back through the crowd—through all the noise and the costumes and the bullshit—and searched for Zadie. But either the place was too crowded, or she was hiding from me.
The bunny ears stood out, though. And somehow, that was the thing that kept me from spiraling. Not the ears themselves or the girl they were attached to, but the memory of the look on Zadie’s face when she’d seen me with her.
That look wasn’t indifference. It wasn’t just friends.
It was raw, unfiltered jealousy.
And that was something I could work with.