“I don’t know why, but I feel the need to congratulate you on being a whore. Why does that feel wrong?” I tapped my finger against my chin. “Oh right, because it is. One of these days it’s going to catch up with you.”
“Never.” Gabe shook his head. “A player plays by the rules, knows the game plan, knows every possible strategy and execution. Me getting caught would be like Chuck Norris dying in a stunt. Um, it won’t happen. Want to know why? Because he’s bad ass.”
“Did you just compare your sexual prowess to Chuck Norris’s karate skills?” I asked.
“Same thing.” Gabe shrugged.
Shaking my head, I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. “Crap! He’s going to be here! Hurry, hurry! I have to put everything in my bag.”
“Everything?” Gabe glanced around the room. “Are you planning on moving in?”
Lisa’s answer was to smack him on the back of the head. With a growl he jumped to his feet and started piling stuff in my suitcases. I even caught him try to throw my alarm clock in. Seriously?
“Done!” Lisa sat on the suitcase while Gabe zipped.
“I love you guys,” I gushed, pulling them both in for hugs.
Gabe patted my head like I was twelve, and Lisa looked like she was going to cry. You’d think I’d never visited a boy’s house before. Oh wait. Right.
Someone knocked on our door.
Lisa ran out of my room banging her arm against the sofa as she made her way across the living room and finally opened up the door.
“Hey, Lisa.” Wes grinned and handed her a paper turkey. “Made it myself.” He peered around her. “My girlfriend ready?”
And my roommate officially swooned against the door, putting the back of her hand against her forehead. Gabe was going to have to give her CPR.
“Be still my beating heart!” Lisa said in a southern drawl. “Sugar, your man is here and he is fine, fine, fine.”
“Sorry.” Gabe grabbed Lisa by the shoulders and steered her away from Wes. “She forgot to take her meds today.”
“It’s okay.” Wes chuckled and then lifted his eyes. I stared straight back.
Time stilled.
Okay so maybe it didn’t stop, but for some reason my heart started racing as he took purposeful steps towards me.
First his hands braced my hips.
And then his mouth found mine.
And it was my turn to swoon.
Gabe and Lisa both whistled but I didn’t care. I wrapped my arms around Wes’s neck, pulling him toward me. Mine. He was mine for two weeks, whatever that meant. Boyfriend.
“My man ready?”
He grinned, kissing my nose. “My freshman ready?”
“Low blow.” I glared.
“Had to be said.” He sighed and kissed my forehead. “I’ll grab your suitcase.”
Lisa sighed while Gabe smacked her on the arm, just as Wes came into the living room with my giant suitcase.
“You do know I didn’t ask you to move in with me, right?” he joked.
“A girl has to be prepared!” Lisa defended me. “And who knows what the Seattle weather will do!”
Wes held up a hand as if to surrender and then nodded towards the door. “Let’s go. My crazy dad awaits.”
“Onward.” I thrust my fist into the air and said goodbye to Gabe and Lisa. I was going to meet the richest man in the world. Awesome, what could go wrong?
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Holy shit. I was taking a girl home. Somebody start a fire in Hell — because it’s officially frozen over.
Weston
“You nervous?” I asked as we pulled onto Fauntleroy Way in downtown Seattle. It boasted of only twelve houses in the little gated community meaning we had mega privacy. I swear my dad had cameras everywhere, even at the end of the street just in case someone sketchy wanted to get a view one of us in the pool. Not that they could, there was enough landscaping to make the house its own private resort, not to mention the fact that we had over a half mile of private beach. You know, if you could call a rocky coast a beach. But every summer we had sand brought in from the tropics. Just to make it look legit.
“A little.” Kiersten sighed and looked out the window. “So which house is yours?”
“Everything you see on this side of the street towards the water? It’s all ours.”
“Huh?”
“A main house, two cottages, a few tennis courts, a man-made pond, and then that house over there…” I pointed to the far end of the property as the gate opened making it easier for her to see. “…is where my Oma stays when she visits.”
“Uh, Oma?”
“Grandma,” I corrected myself. “Sorry, my mom was one hundred percent Dutch, so when I was little, my grandma was Oma.”
Kiersten grinned and then sucked in a sharp breath as the second gate opened to the main house. I drove through and tried to imagine what it would look like through her eyes.
At least six thousand square feet, not the largest mansion in the world, all glass windows with sharp angles, allowing for the sun to shine through. It was white and had been remodeled from its original brick form in 1927 to look like an architect’s paradise. There were exactly seventeen steps leading to the massive fifteen-foot tall oak entry, and just as I pulled the car to a stop, the butler walked out and opened Kiersten’s door.
“Ma’am, we’ve been expecting you.”
“Ronald.” I nodded my head in his direction.
He grinned at me. At eighty-two, he was a force to be reckoned with. He wasn’t really our butler anymore, since technically he’d retired twenty years ago, but my dad hadn’t the heart to let him go, so now he greeted guests, brewed beer in the cottage my dad let him live in rent-free, and basically kept the house running since my mother’s death.
“Mr. Weston.” Ronald clapped his hands on my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug. “It’s been too long, how are you?”
He knew I was sick.
But he never treated me any differently. He just refused to discuss it — I understood though — everyone in his life was gone. He and my brother had been very close. He’d taken Tye’s death really hard and I knew mine would be just something else that might cause his heart to finally give out.
“Good, I feel great,” I lied and hugged him back. “Dad home?”
“In the study waiting.” Ronald smiled and clapped twice. Two staff members ran down the stairs to grab our stuff.
I held out my hand to Kiersten. “Ready to meet my dad?”
“Holy crap.” She wiped her hands on her jeans before latching on to me. “I feel like I’m about to meet the president or something.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “Trust me, it’s ‘or something’. He’s not that intimidating. Promise.” I could tell she didn’t believe me. Her eyes kept getting wider and wider as we walked farther into the house. The foyer had a bridge-like walkway that went directly toward the main room. A huge bay window let in tons of light from the front, we took a right and went to the study.
“Dad?” I called.
“In here.”
I kissed Kiersten’s temple as I clenched her hand and led her into the large study. It was decorated in an Old World style, complete with mahogany-wooded walls and matching bookcases.
Dad was sitting behind his large desk, sipping brandy.
“A little early to hit the bottle, eh dad?” I joked.
His eyes narrowed, and then he laughed. “Yes, well, I just fired Alfred, so I imagine I’m allowed to drink.”
“What?” Alfred had been one of my dad’s closest advisors for years. “What for?”
“Embezzlement.”
I cleared my throat and nodded toward Kiersten.
Dad waved me off. “Surely it’s hit CNN by now.” He tapped his desk as a flat screen descended from the West Wall. Sure enough, as soon as the TV came on, there was news about the scandal.
“So.” Dad turned off the TV. “Who is this lovely creature?”
“Kiersten.” She held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”