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When I graduated high school, I moved away. Packed up my little Toyota and headed for a new life at college. And the second I left Jennifer started working on Bea like it was her job, and the fireworks were extraordinary. Bea ran away. Twice. Sabrina showed up at my dorm in tears on numerous occasions. By the middle of freshman year, it just seemed smart to move home.
The right thing to do for everyone’s sake.
I wondered if my life would have been different if I had moved away and stayed away. If I’d found a nice boy at college, a poli-sci major who played intermural flag football or something.
I wondered if I would have been satisfied by that life.
Because driving to see Clayton, even as fucked up as all of this was—I still buzzed. I felt alive inside my skin in a way I hadn’t felt for five years. That was the effect of Clayton. And it sucked that only he made me feel this way.
When I exited off the highway, the papers in the passenger seat started sliding toward the floor and I put my hand down on them so they wouldn’t end up all over the place. I’d had a contract made up. Of sorts. The rules we’d agreed on plus the details of the trust that I needed him to set up for my sisters.
And the foundation. Finance, accounting, investing classes, and clubs in area high schools—but only for girls. And scholarships for those girls to go on to college. Special programs for single mothers and women entrepreneurs.
I was demanding three million dollars from King Industries with the agreement that he would donate more annually.
If he was going to buy me, this time around the price was going to be steep.
And that thought—as strange as it was—made me feel better. More in control.
The GPS system directed me to Clayton’s building, though I didn’t need it. Somehow, I knew the way, like I knew every Taylor Swift song, by heart.
Using the new code Clayton texted me, I parked in the underground lot in his building. And then, using another code he’d sent, I got into the exclusive elevator that only went up to the penthouse.
Five years ago, he’d had a regular unit in this building. And I wanted to find a kernel of something grandiose and ridiculous in this move to the top floor and mock him for it.
But the truth was, I’d watched Clayton work for my father. And Clayton worked hard. There were dozens of cancelled dates in our months together. Plenty of times I sat alone at a table waiting for him after he called to say he was running late.
He had been sorry and I understood. Success took work. It had been something I admired about him.
I realized, as the elevator shot me up into the sky, how much time he’d spent with me five years ago. How hard he must have worked to catch up on the things he’d missed when he was with me.
Part of me was pleased it cost him.
Part of me was flattered that he’d made the effort.
For the land, you idiot. And the business.
But…that didn’t feel quite right anymore. I believed what he told me the other day. That he hadn’t done it for the money. Or, at least, not entirely.
He’d done it to save me from my father and James Court. But also because he’d thought he could have it all without consequences. Was that worse? Or better?
The elevator doors binged open and I was standing in a small hallway right outside an open door.
Clayton was there, dressed in a sweater and jeans. He had no shoes on. His socks were gray and light-blue stripes. I counted the stripes on each foot—four light blue, three gray—instead of looking into his face.
Am I doing this?
I wanted to make some kind of casual statement in my own jeans and my tall boots. The green sweater that made me feel so good.
But maybe he was making the same statement.
We should be comfortable around each other this time. We should be ourselves.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hey.” I was trying not to feel shy. Trying to feel bold. And confident. But failing. It was easy to have a theory about how I was going to behave when I was around him. It was harder to put it into practice.
“Come on in,” he said. “I hope you’re hungry.”
I was starving. All that stupid running.
The penthouse was stunning. All glass and night sky. A kitchen along one wall with a long granite counter for casual meals. A formal dining table behind it. A fireplace and low couches on the other side of the expansive room. A big-screen television over the fireplace. A hallway to my left, shadowy and lined with closed doors. The whole space was tasteful and masculine and comfortable.
