“Maybe this is a conversation that needs to happen privately. Some things need to be said behind closed doors due to reactions they may invoke,” Megan cut in.
Chad blinked a couple of times as if that thought had never entered his mind. His mouth gaped open and his eyes widened. I might have considered him cute if it wasn’t for the small bit of food I could see. Really, it shouldn’t surprise me. He might be computer smart, but he was still a blond. Sexy as hell with his tanned skin and muscles for days, but still a blond with blue eyes that others probably fawned over. Not to mention the hint of a sexy as sin British accent from when he lived there as a kid. I refused to cower.
When I glanced at Megan, she started to squirm in her chair as if with each passing second, she got more uncomfortable. Between her and her brother, I started to worry even more. I swallowed hard, trying to down the small bite of food I had popped into my mouth. I couldn’t taste anything. I couldn’t tell you what that bit had in it. I only knew it got stuck in my throat and I started to choke. “He can tell me,” I wheezed
“No, I think Megan is right.”
“Chad—”
“No,” he interrupted me. “This really does need to happen behind closed doors. I’ll take her home after dinner and drop by your apartment.”
“Or you could call and save yourself the trip and me the pain of having you around.” My snippy attitude firmly in place, I crossed my arms over my chest anticipating he would back off.
I should have known better.
Crossing his own arms over his chest, he stared me down and smiled broadly. Damn him, his white teeth, and his overly confident personality. “I don’t think so. This isn’t something you talk about over the phone.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to come over.”
“Maybe I don’t care what you want or don’t want since…” he stopped himself abruptly.
“Since what?” I challenged as I twirled my fork in my linguine and slurped it into my mouth.
His eyes darted to his sister and then back to me. “Nothing.”
****
Chad
Bring Emma up tonight, would’ve been a huge mistake, but it was true. I didn’t care, or tried to tell myself that I didn’t care because of how she treated others. Why should I? She didn’t give a shit about how she treated other people she thought were lower than her.
Tonight was about throwing her off-kilter. I saw the way Rayne looked at Megan when she noticed I brought my sister, and the look of pure disgust that flittered across her face. And that simple expression made me want to turn on my heel and walk out, and at the same time it reinforced the reason I was here doing what I was doing. She had to pay.
I could practically feel my sister’s eyes burning a hole in my head. Megan may not like Rayne, however, she believed karma needed to do the work, not me. First stone and all that bullshit. I’d waited on karma and discovered something…sometimes karma needed a little push to get the ball rolling.
Ignoring Megan, I focused on Rayne. She was tiny in stature with her long black hair and her shiny blue eyes that sparkled like jewels. Her nose was slightly upturned. It was something that I thought made some girls noses resemble a pig, but on Rayne, it enhanced her beauty along with her high cheekbones that always had a rosy flush on an oval face. I could almost see why guys wrote sonnets to her, but I wondered how they could possibly get past her attitude.
I watched her as she tore into her dish, slurping her noodles and making a slight mess. It was almost cute, if I didn’t hate her so much. Either she really liked the dish, or she was nervous about something, and I bet money on the latter. Bryan used to tell me how she would eat a gallon of ice cream and a whole pizza by herself right before any big tests.
“Chad?” A high pitch, very breathy feminine voice called out to me with a strong southern accent.
Tearing my gaze from Rayne, I looked around and found a platinum blonde who had tits the size of milk jugs waving frantically at me. I remembered her and the way she was able to bend her body like a pretzel during sex. It made for a very memorable night. “Bonnie!” I stood up and gave her a hug when she rushed to my side. I always wondered if I squeezed her too hard if her tits would explode and she would fly backwards like the characters in the cartoons. “How are you doing, gorgeous?”
“Better now that I got to see you. You never called me after that night,” she pouted.
“Hey, you were the one that said you were going to get back with your boyfriend. Why would I call if you weren’t single anymore?” Tapping her chin with my finger, I winked at her. My wink contained the power to soothe all broken hearts, at least it had known to do so in the past.
In what could only be described as a child-like voice, she said, “I know, but I missed you.”
“Awe. I missed you too, but you know I can’t compete. How are you and your boyfriend doing?”
“We broke up again and I’m single now.” She batted her eyes at me, trying to reel me in.
“Sorry, gorgeous, but I can’t. I still got your number, though.” It was true, I kept all of the digits of the memorable girls I had been with. While I worked on Rayne, however, I didn’t want to deal with any kind of distraction. Besides, Bonnie was a clinger.
Blinking, she glanced around my table, noticing for the first time that I had company. “Oh! I didn’t realize…” She let her sentence taper off and then she asked soft enough for only my eyes, “Is it serious with either one of them?”
Laughter almost spilled out, but I held a tight rein on it and nodded. “Very serious. One of them is forever.” It wasn’t a lie. It just wasn’t the entire truth either. My sister would be with me forever. The other…would be brushed to the side as soon as possible.
Bonnie gasped and suddenly her expression turned from hopeful to downtrodden. “Oh. I didn’t realize.”
I brushed my fingers along her cheek. “No worries, gorgeous. If anything changes, I’ll give you a call.”
The emotions on her face switched with lightning speed. “Okay. Call me.” She kissed my cheek and then bounced away, her tits jiggling up and down in her tight pink strapless mini dress. Damn, she looked good and I wouldn’t have minded fucking her again…if it wasn’t for the fear of her future clinginess. I also noticed she linked her arm with another guy and walked out of the restaurant. He was older and looked more like a string bean. My guess was she had found a sugar daddy and wanted something on the side. It didn’t change my feelings on the matter. I’d keep her number handy.
“Chad The Slut strikes again,” Rayne muttered loudly.
Megan sucked in a breath, her eyes narrowed on Rayne, and her jaw clenched tightly. I recognized that look. When I had been younger, she always had that same expression right before she decked me. Before she could do anything, I grabbed Megan’s fisted hand and squeezed it. I continued to hold it tightly, afraid if I let go, she would do something she’d later regret. I held my breath, waiting for Megan to calm down. It wasn’t until she opened her hand to grip mine, that I finally breathed a little more easily, the coil in my gut unwinding itself. Crisis averted.
Crisis averted, and I could return my focus to Rayne. “Seems to me you think you know an awful lot about me to say something like that.”
“I know enough. How you have a different bed partner every day of the week. Even when you were with someone seriously, you probably fucked around on her,” Rayne stated as if she were presenting her case before the grand jury in an effort to find me guilty of something.
“You don’t know shit,” I snapped in a low snarl. There were a lot of things that could be said about me, but not that one. She had no clue what went on in my relationship, nor the situation surrounding it. There was no way Rayne knew that in my last serious relationship—which only lasted mere months—that my ex-girlfriend cheated on me. She had no idea that I tried to make it work, but that when it was all said and done, with her deploying, my ex thought it best that we break up.
“Whatever.”
“Yeah, whatever.” The mood and atmosphere went from tense to suffocating. The only thing that could be heard after that was the sound of our silverware hitting the white ceramic dishes the restaurant used. Clank. Clank. Clank.
By the time we were done eating, it felt like we had been sentenced to 50 years to life and were finally getting out on good behavior. I handed the waiter enough money to cover the bill and tip, and then helped my sister out of her chair. All around us other patrons dined and talked, ignoring us. Once my sister was steady on her feet, I told Rayne, “I’ll be by after I drop off Megan at the house.”
“Lucky me,” she sneered.
Rolling my eyes, I turned around and smirked. “Yes, it’s your lucky night.” I wanted to annoy her as much as she annoyed me, and walked away without another word said while she remained seated at the table.
Fuck her, her attitude, and everything else. Maybe it would have been better to leave her alone and let karma have its way with her, but for some reason I couldn’t. Was my sense of justice that determined, or was it more?
Chapter 17
Chad
I was at war with myself. On the way to my sister’s house, she tried to convince me to drop this whole mess with Rayne, but I refused to throw in the towel.
“This isn’t right, Chad,” Megan stressed as we pulled up to her house. I could tell she was worried about me, or at least worried about something. The way she chewed on her bottom lip gave her away. It had been a nervous habit of hers ever since I could remember, and more than once, she had chewed a small hole in it that bled like crazy.
“She needs to learn.” My mantra sprouted from my lips as if it hand wings.
“Maybe you both do.”
I glared at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
In answer, she hit the back of my head like she used to do when we were kids. “Don’t give me your lip. I’m not saying she’s in the right, but I’m not saying you are either. You need to let it go. Bryan will take care of his sister, or Rayne will learn on her own. This is not your battle. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
Quirking an eyebrow, I guffawed. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
She gave my head another slap. “It’s my prerogative. You’re my brother.” Taking in a deep breath, she released it slowly. “If you are really going to go through with this idiotic idea, you need to watch yourself.”
“I’m not the one going down.”
“It’s that cocky attitude that will have you on your knees faster than any man before you.”
I winked. “I’m not going to be the one on my knees. She’ll be down there holding my—OUCH!” This time it hadn’t been a slap to the back of my head, it had been pop on the mouth like my mother used to do any time I cussed in front of her. “What the hell, Megan?”
“I don’t want to hear about any woman on their knees in front of you. Just tell me you’re having safe sex and we’ll leave it at that.”
“Always safe.”
“Good. Now I’m going to go before you want to tell me your favorite sexual position.”
She quickly got out of the car and started to stroll up her walkway from the sidewalk to her front door. I rolled down the passenger side window and yelled, “By the way, it’s cowgirl. I like it when a girl rides me like a bull.” When she spun around, the evil eye she shot me could melt the polar icecaps. She didn’t say anything else though. Instead, she flipped me the bird and stomped up to her door, slamming it shut loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. I laughed.
Megan’s goodbye took the edge off my ire, allowing everything inside me to settle. I was ready to meet Rayne on her territory. It would be dangerous going into the lion’s den to woo her, but I felt I was more than ready for the task at hand. I just had to get her to trust and depend on me solely, and then pull the rug out from under her. Easy. Right? If only I wasn’t doing the majority of my planning and plotting spontaneously.
Pulling up to her apartment, I parked my car and stuck a stick of mint gum in my mouth. I didn’t want to have bad breath when I saw her. I was polite like that. Plus, it gave me something to focus on besides her. When no one else was around, I could admit that she messed with my equilibrium, and I wasn’t sure why, but I couldn’t let it get to me. This wasn’t about anything else except her. I had to remember that.
“Go in there, tell her everything you know, let her cry on your shoulder, and win her trust. You can do this,” I said aloud, trying to psych myself up for anything that awaited me on the other side of her door. I was still pissed off about what she said at dinner, but it was more than that. I knew I wasn’t an angel by any means.
But contrary to Rayne’s belief, I never cheated on anyone. I hated cheaters. I may have been many things, but I would never be a cheater.
I had seen what it could do to someone first hand, and I never wanted to be that man. The way it tore a family apart and pitted one against the other. The way an innocent person felt guilty, as if they were the reason the other person cheated. Guilt, distrust, anger, sadness. I’d seen the full gambit when my grandfather—my mom’s dad—had been caught cheating on my grandmother with a younger woman. I’d been fifteen and never wanted to see the betrayal and hurt and know I was the cause of it all.
A real man never cheated.
I was, and probably always would be, a lot of things, and some of them made me the world’s biggest asshole, but I was also loyal to a fault. If I entered a relationship, I remained true. Besides, I had a perfectly good hand to help me out when my partner and I couldn’t screw our brains out.
With one last deep breath, I got out of my car and ran up to the red bricked building and let myself inside as someone exited. I took my time ascending the stairs, warring with myself about if I should leave her alone for the night or pounce. The mood I was in, it might end up in a yelling match, but if I backed down now, I feared I would have a hard time picking up the torch again. At this perfect moment of time, her shell was cracked, and I had to get in there before she started to fix the gaps. It was now or never.
My iron will did not mean I didn’t drag my feet, nor did it mean that I didn’t hesitate when I finally stood outside her door. I did. I was human.
Swallowing my gum—I forgot to bring the wrapper—I knocked on the door and waited. I could hear someone shuffling on the other side, and then the noise stopped. Nothing but silence could be heard, and yet, I knew Rayne was inching ever closer to the door. Hoping against hope that I would give up and leave. If she thought that, she didn’t know me as well as she thought she did.
I knocked again and this time a distinct squeak could be heard on the other side, muffled by the metal door. I smirked in anticipation. Tonight might actually be a little fun. “You should know that I once waited out my sister for five hours straight.” Not exactly the truth since it had been a lot less than that. During high school, my sister had broken up with her boyfriend and wanted to be alone. She closed herself up in her room, and I felt duty bound to defend her honor, or some bullshit like that. I’d picked a fight with her ex and lost. Being a skinny middle school boy trying to beat up a high school football player five years older wasn’t pretty. I hung out by her door asking her to let me in before I bled all over the hallway. After two hours of waiting, she opened the door and dragged me into her room, because by that time, I had become too stiff to move myself.
Today though, I waited for someone else to let me in.
Rayne’s grumbly growl reached my ears, and I chuckled softly, figuring it wouldn’t help my case if she heard me enjoying her discomfort. Although, after what happened at dinner tonight, maybe she deserved a little discomfort.
Metal scraped against metal, a chain jingled, and then the door opened about six inches. Definitely not big enough to fit my large frame. “Good evening, Rayne. Aren’t you going to let me in?”
“You can say whatever the hell you want to from there and then leave.” Her snarky attitude remained firml
y in place.
“So you wouldn’t mind whoever happens to be passing by to listen in on everything I have to say, including the fact that you are being set up to fail?”
“Stop!” she yelled, her eyes wide and angry. Apparently, she hadn’t been expecting me to say anything like that. Slamming the door closed, the chain jingled again before she opened it. This was going to be fun.
****
Rayne
His words struck a chord of fear in me, and I desperately wanted to know what he had become privy to. Against my better judgement, I let him in.
I had worked hard to get into this building. It was on the historic registry, five blocks away from my office, a mile from the best restaurants and shops, and in the heart of downtown Charleston, South Carolina. I loved it here. It was the lifeblood of the city and by some miracle, I found the perfect condo for sale within my price range when I wanted to buy.
I slammed my door closed after he came in, watching him take my apartment in with sober eyes. The last time he was here, I was shitfaced and couldn’t remember anything. “Don’t get too comfortable,” I warned when I noticed him settling on the couch. He oved the throw pillows to the side as if he were getting ready for a long night ahead. That wasn’t going to happen. He could say what he needed to say and then get the hell out of my place.
“Didn’t your mama teach you about being a good southern lady? Aren’t you going to offer me a refreshment or something?” That damn smirk was firmly back in place and sexy as hell. I tried to convince myself the only reason my heart started racing was because I wanted to slap that cocky grin right off of his face…with an ax, a chainsaw, or maybe a simple baseball bat.
Redeemed: Book Two of the Love Seekers Series Page 9
