: Chapter 16

Another four hours of sleep and a shower later, I was feeling more human and less like a bag of bones and anger and untapped come.

After checking for phone calls from Grant, Katie, and Mom and getting an update in text form that Dad was still stable, I slid into one of my black suits (why other colors existed was beyond me. Black was suitable for every occasion. The only exception I made was with gray sweatpants, because those were practically considered lingerie for men) and wandered out of the master bedroom. I descended down the three marble steps to the living room. Black, sleek chandeliers dripped from the ceiling, and upholstered black leather couches and recliners filled the room. The three walls that weren’t floor-to-ceiling windows were bare, raw concrete. Everything about my place was dark, indulgent, and dangerous. An apartment carefully designed in the aesthetic of a modern douchebag.

Inside the gloom and darkness sat a woman wearing an apron-like yellow A-line dress from her last night’s date, with a pattern of dripping ice creams on it, her face scrunched in concentration in front of her sketch pad. Her tongue was peeking out from the side of her mouth—her MO when she was concentrating. I buttoned my shirt and watched her, not making myself known. There was something perversely predatory about watching her without being watched. My mind roamed to places it shouldn’t have gone. Pleasures I hadn’t taken since I’d found out Dad was ill.

Her phone began to ring. “Greek Tragedy” by the Wombats was her ringtone. It was those little quirks about Mad that made her so supremely fuckable. She wasn’t exactly hipster, although I knew she dressed like one and knew her way around an indie playlist. She wasn’t highbrow, but she could hold her own in a conversation with just about anyone in the world, beggar or king. She wasn’t upper class. She wasn’t lower class. She was Maddie class. An entirely unique, sexy species. I had to get her out of my system. I had to fuck her again.

She jumped from the distraction before swiping across the screen and tucking her AirPods into her ears. They obviously weren’t charged, because Ethan’s castrated voice filled my living room.

“Just checking in. Are you back home?” he asked. She looked around her. I might or might not have been standing behind a statue. The Weeping Angel with a cigarette tucked between her fingers, her face propped above a bar counter. An impulsive, tongue-in-cheek purchase after I’d come back from South America to find my ex-fiancée knocked up with my brousin’s baby. The need to shell out a lot of money on something meaningless had been overwhelming back then. As if to say: So fucking what? I can still drop five hundred K on a piece of shit most people won’t agree to wipe their ass with.

“Spent the night at the hospital, then came back to Chase’s apartment this morning,” she said apologetically. “I wanted to make sure he was feeling all right.”

Another thing I didn’t hate about Madison Goldbloom—she didn’t pin the blame on other people. I was the one who’d twisted her arm about coming here. But she didn’t mention that to Ethan.

“Oh,” he said. How eloquent. Seriously, how the heck did she date this guy?

“Ronan is fine, by the way.” She pinched her lips.

“Of course. I was about to ask,” he said. Then paused. No, he hadn’t been. He didn’t care about my father. “Has anything happened between you and Chase?”

“No, of course not.” She sighed.

Silence stretched across the room. These two had the sexual chemistry of a tampon and a ketchup stain together. I couldn’t fathom how she didn’t see it. Madison was fire, and Ethan was . . . what the fuck was he, anyway? Not water. Not earth. He was a shadow. A by-product of something else.

“Do you want to see each other tonight? We were about to—”

Hell to the goddamn no. I stepped out from behind the statue, clearing my throat. “I’m sorry, Ethan. Tonight is not going to work for us.” I rolled my shirtsleeves up my veiny arms, nonchalantly making my way to Mad. I’d promised not to fuck her; I’d never said anything about not preventing anyone else from doing just that tonight. I dropped a chaste kiss to her forehead, which she wiped with a frown, her eyes blazing with horror and annoyance. I held her gaze. “See, Madison will be with me tonight.”

“Chase!” she snapped. “Sorry about that, Ethan. I would love to—”

“Have a relationship in which I am both attracted to and interested in the man I am seeing,” I completed for her, grinning. “I know, Mad. It’d make things so much easier.”

“Nothing is more difficult than you.” She tried swatting me away, but you could hear the grin in her voice. Her face was glowing. Mission accomplished.

“The word you are looking for is hard,” I quipped. “And thank you.”

“You are a nightmare.” She chuckled.

“But the sexy kind, right? Where you wake up with puckered nipples and ruined panties?” I egged her on. She was getting flushed, her eyes wide and full.

“I’ll leave you to deal with this, Maddie,” Ethan said coldly, hanging up before she could salvage the conversation.

Mad stood up, waving her phone in the air. “Stop clam-jamming me!” She pretended to slap my chest.

I grabbed her hand, biting the tips of her fingers playfully. “If I’m not getting some, no one in this fake engagement is.”

“We have no relationship!” She threw her head back, growling. “I cannot believe I tried so hard to keep you when we were together, only to find out you wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Give it a few weeks,” I jested.

“Stop saying that. It is disrespectful to your father. He could live for months. Even years.”

“No, he can’t.”

“Chase.”

“Mad.”

She stopped, scrunching her forehead. “Why do you call me Mad? Why not Mads? Maddie? Madison? Virtually all my other nicknames.”

I knew the answer. I’d known it for some time now. But sharing it with her felt like crossing a line, especially when I suspected I’d let my mouth run freely yesterday before I’d passed out on that hospital bed. I looked down, caught a glimpse of the wedding dress she was sketching, then looked back up. “You’re talented,” I said, changing the subject.

“And that’s surprising?” She took the hint.

“No.” Yes. “Your sketches are clean. Elegant. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I can be clean and elegant. I choose to dress quirky and all over the place.”

“Why?”

“Because it is my personality in textile form.”

“Are you bipolar?” I deadpanned.

“Offensive.” She pretended to gag. We were good together, and she knew it. I knew it, too, which was why it was exceptionally dumb of me to continue pursuing her. She looked back at the page, frowning. “I don’t think people are going to like it. Sven, specifically.”

“Why?”

“Too many details.” She gestured toward the sketch with her hand, pointing at the sleeves, the collar, and the tulle. “Traditionally, the Dream Wedding Dress is much simpler. Cleaner lines, minimal detail, not much character. The emphasis is on the cut and the superior fit. Plus, all the dresses Croquis ever showed were pure, swan white. This one isn’t.”

“What is it, then?”

“Crème.” She bit her lower lip. My eyes slid up from the sketch to meet her gaze. She waved the sketch off. “It’s fine. Worst-case scenario, I’ll cut some of the detail.”

“No,” I said. “You won’t. It’s perfect, and it’s you. Keep it.”

Her throat worked. My eyes dipped to her delicate neck. I wanted to kiss it.

“Okay,” she whispered. “Thanks.”

“Got any sleep?”

“Yeah, some.”

“Wanna hop into the shower? Maybe I could drop you off at yours?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Let’s go to work. We can still recoup some of the day.”

I grabbed my keys. I knew she’d follow. She never missed a chance to cease communication with me. But for the first time, I gave a shit.

I mean, of course I gave shits.

I gave a shit about Dad.

About Black & Co.

But never about a woman. Never about a date. The uneven rattle in my chest was a warning sign. My heart tested itself. Tap, tap, tap. Is this shit working?

I gritted my teeth and punched the elevator button, not looking behind me to see if she was there.

Three days later, Dad was conscious and good to leave the hospital. I picked him up while Mom prepared the house, whatever that meant. I drove around in circles, buying time, and he didn’t seem to mind, even though his time was precious. It occurred to me we hadn’t had a meaningful conversation about something that wasn’t work since the C-word had struck. Work was a safe topic. I doubted he could remember anything from when Julian had barged into his hospital room with his contract. Dad had still been unconscious when that had happened. Grant had advised me to go easy on him and not talk about things that might spike his blood pressure. Bothering him with the Julian bullshit wasn’t on my agenda.

We were circling the same side street, passing the same Pret coffee shop and the swell of the same cluster of students huddling together, and waiting on the same traffic light. There was something depressing about other people’s joy while you were miserable. It was all very in your face.

“I wish we could get out of the city,” Dad murmured, looking out the window. “It feels filthy in the summers without the rain or snow to clean it up. Doesn’t it feel filthy to you?”

As he said that, smoke billowed from three different manholes, and some drunken frat boy hurled a beer can across the street at his friend, laughing.

“We can get out of here, if that’s what you want,” I said, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. I didn’t want to leave the business with Julian sniffing around the management floor. I didn’t want to leave Madison to fall in comfort with mediocre Ethan. What kind of name was Madison Goodman, anyway? I couldn’t let her go through with it. But Dad’s wishes had to take the front seat.

“Julian suggested we go to the ranch house in Lake George for the weekend. He even had it prepared for us,” Dad added.

Julian would drown you in the lake if it means inheriting the business, I was tempted to reply. I smiled serenely. “He did that? Great idea.”

“You can bring Madison, of course. I think she’d like it there. Lots to do. Very outdoorsy. Where is she from again?”

“Pennsylvania,” I answered. “Just outside Philadelphia.”

“Does she have any siblings?”

“No. Her mother struggled with . . .” I stopped.

Dad finished for me. “Breast cancer, right?”

“Yeah.” I was an idiot. An idiot who needed to change the subject. “Her parents owned a flower shop. Well, her dad still owns it.”

“Are they close?” Dad asked.

“Yup, real tight. She goes to see him and his girlfriend every other month. They take vacations together every year.”

“You know a lot about her, don’t you?” He turned to look at me, smiling. I did. I didn’t remember listening to what she had to say—not intentionally, anyway—but I remembered everything she’d told me about herself. Which wasn’t much, because talking was never something I’d encouraged in our relationship. But right now the burning question was whether Mad was going to humor me by joining me for another weekend outside the city. I didn’t think she would.

My father’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he picked it up on speaker. “Jul,” he said, his voice softening. He definitely didn’t remember the contract. “How is Clemmy?”

“Huh? Oh yeah. She’s fine.” Dad must’ve cockblocked the real reason he was calling. I wondered if Booger Face was ever in Julian’s mind. “Hey, look, Amb spoke to the maintenance company. The house in Lake George is good and ready. Should I pick you and Lori up, say, Friday morning?”

He was going to whisk my parents off for a weekend with his family? Sans Katie and me, while Dad was on the brink of dying and pretty much in hospice care? Hell no. I could smell his plan from miles away. Julian wanted to butter Dad up before he went for the CEO kill. Somewhere my sister and I couldn’t stop him.

“Sounds good,” Dad said. “Have you spoken to Katie?”

“No. I think she has a volunteering gig with Saint Jude’s this weekend,” Julian said. It sounded like he was sifting through papers in the background. Possibly more bullshit he wanted my father to sign. “You know how Katie is. Always a do-gooder.”

“You should try again. Katie usually volunteers every end of the month.” I butted into their conversation.

There was a pause from Julian’s end. Then he recovered. “Chase. I didn’t realize you were there.”

“He is my father.”

“Biologically, anyway.” Julian laughed good-naturedly. “You two are very different, though.”

“What’s that?” I asked, taking one last turn onto that side street before making my way to my parents’ apartment building. “Would I like to join you at the ranch? Of course I would. How nice of you to offer, Julian.”

There was a pause and then, “Bring Maddie with you. Amber’s been dying to see the engagement pictures.”

“I will.” Will I? Last I checked, Madison was going to extreme lengths to avoid me. She’d been dodging my calls and text messages. At this point, the only thing stopping her from slapping a restraining order against my ass was the fact we worked in the same building. Still, I couldn’t not be there. She had to understand.

“Great. Looking forward to it.” Julian’s voice was too relaxed. Too blasé.

But I was too enraged to realize it was a trap.

Too goddamn rabid to know what I was willingly walking into.