AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Twenty-Two
Something was extremely wrong. Drew had been continually texting back to Jenna’s frantic message, and she wasn’t responding. She wasn’t at her place for the dinner either, nor was she at the Arm’s Reach table, and now everyone was giving him strange looks, as if they knew something that he didn’t.
What the hell? The Wexler Prize was about to be presented, and Jenna was nowhere to be found. Screw this stupid ceremony. He was about to march up on the stage, grab the mic and tell everyone to leave what they were doing and start looking for Jenna when an excited murmur swept over the place.
There. It was her. A flash of light from the brighter corridor outside had spilled into the candlelit ballroom, lighting her up from behind. She’d let her hair down. It was a halo, rimmed with light from the door behind her like a cloud with the sun behind it. She looked wild and gorgeous and sexy. A celestial sky-being. The queen of the night. So damn hot.
Thank God she was okay. Now he could breathe.
She grabbed Vann by the arm, whispered something to him, pressing something into his hand. The murmuring of the crowd got louder.
“...Wexler Prize for Excellence in Biomedical Engineering is awarded to...the Arm’s Reach Foundation!”
Drew pushed his way through the ballroom toward her, but Jenna didn’t see him. On her trajectory, he wouldn’t be able to intercept her before she got up to the dais.
Now she was up on stage with her team. She looked amazing. Her color was high and her eyes sparkled as she scanned the crowd.
The MC carried on with his presentation as Drew forced his way closer to the dais.
“...watch a video tribute to their passion and dedication that the talented Ava Maddox has prepared for us! Ladies and gentlemen...enjoy!”
The lights on the podium dimmed and the screen lit up, but it wasn’t the montage of highlights that Ava had compiled from her video series that started to play.
It was a series of photos of him from Arnold Sobel’s party. What the hell...?
There were gasps all around him. Drew fought the sinking feeling. Cold sweat broke out on his back. He suddenly had the stench of perfume in his nose. The pain of his throbbing head. He looked up at Jenna on the dais.
She wasn’t even looking at the photos on the screen behind her. She was looking straight at him. There was no anger or blame or even surprise in her eyes, just a piercing urgency, as if she wanted him to do something, understand something.
He had no idea what, but he was horrified. Whoever was trying to mess with him had chosen the most public moment possible, and was humiliating Jenna in the process. This was her big night to be celebrated for all of her accomplishments, and somehow, Drew had managed to burn it to the ground.
Uncle Malcolm was yelling at him, of course, but Drew couldn’t bring himself to listen. He just stared up at the woman he loved, feeling it all slip away.
Uncle Malcolm’s words started sinking in. “...turn that thing off, for the love of God! Turn it off!”
“I’m trying to, sir, but I don’t know—”
There was a crash, followed by shrieking. Drew looked around. Uncle Malcolm had hurled the laptop down onto the marble tiles. Glass from the screen and letters from the keyboard were scattered all around.
“I’ve had enough!” his uncle roared. “No more!”
There was another flash of light from the back of the room, and another woman ran into the room, tottering on her high heels. She threw herself at Drew.
“You got me pregnant!” she shrieked.
She was close enough now for him to recognize her. It was the blond woman who had been pictured with him in the tabloid photos, and the ones he’d just seen. The same puffy lips, the same black-rimmed blue eyes, the same streams of mascara running down both her cheeks.
It was the perfume-squirting girl from Arnold Sobel’s party.
Pandemonium. Everyone in the room was talking or yelling. Uncle Malcolm could be heard howling above them all. Jenna tried to catch Drew’s eye, but now Tina was pounding her fists on Drew’s chest. Drew caught her hands and immobilized them, leaning close to speak to her urgently. Whatever he said made her face crumple, and she started to ugly-cry, her mascara cascading down even faster.
“Get out!” Malcolm yelled. “Get this creature out of my sight! And you!” He rounded on Drew, pounding his cane on the floor, his face a dangerously dark red. “You think you can make a fool of me again? I am through with you! You are done!”
Drew didn’t even respond to his uncle. He just turned his back, looking up at Jenna with a question in his eyes. She could tell that he thought he already knew the answer.
Jenna pulled the mic from the MC’S hand. The man was too startled to yank it back. “It’s not his child, Malcolm,” Jenna said into the mic. “She was paid to say that.”
Malcolm swung around, eyes bulging. “Of course you would cover for him!” he sputtered. “You’re in love with him, God help you.”
