Hot Water (22 page)

“Wow. Listen to yourself, man.” He stares at me like I’m infected, and I know why. I sound pathetic. I sound like a pussy. I guess my dad had me pegged right, all along. Finally, he says, “Yeah, I get it. She’s hot, she’s young, she’s great medication for whatever mid-life crisis you’re going through right now. But you’re Caden Fucking Williams. You might be able to toy around, but you can’t get serious about a thing like her. You’ll self-destruct. Andrea--”

 “When I ended it with Andrea, we didn’t even care. We just separated. She didn’t even put up a fight. Because she knows it, too. My life is one big lie. Andrea was the girl for who I was pretending to be. She’s Cam’s dream girl. She’s not mine.”

“So what? You think you can just go back to the existence you had before you started filling Cam’s shoes? Your father will love that.”

I rub my face. “I know. But no . . . I don’t want that. I want . . .” Her. I want her. And that isn’t possible.

“What you need to do is call Andrea up and tell her you made a mistake. Then call a board meeting and reassure them that you’re not the old Caden Williams who ten years ago used to show up to the office drunk and covered in lipstick.”

“I’m not that person.”

“Then tell them that,” he counters. “Because man, I’ve got to tell you. You are starting to look an awful lot like him.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cicily

I spend the rest of the week just going through the motions.

There’s a small, faint hope within me that Jacinta is right. That Caden just needs time. And that any moment, he’ll call me into his office and apologize profusely, then pull me into his arms for a kiss. I nearly go mad, thinking about that kiss, wanting his lips on mine. But the longer the week drags on, the more impossible it seems.

I don’t see Caden much. If he sees me, he does what he said he would—he turns in the other direction and disappears. Once, I catch sight of him at the end of the hallway, but he keeps moving, averting my eyes.

On Friday, the last day of my internship, we all receive envelopes on our keyboards. It’s a thousand-dollar bonus check, signed by Bernard Williams himself. Joely hugs each one of us. “I’m going to miss you guys,” she sniffs, her eyes tearing up. “Letting my little chicks fly out of the nest. To their real,
paying
jobs.”

She beams at us like a proud mama.

“God! If I have to go through this every year I’m going to be a wreck.”

“We’re not moving to Mars, Joely,” Violet points out. “Charlotte and I will be right in the city. We can still have lunch.”

“We’d better,” she says. Then she hugs Jacinta and Dax. “You guys better email from wherever you end up.”

“We will,” Dax says.

Then Joely turns to me. “You’re coming back next year?”

I shake my head, looking at Jacinta. This week has been completely uncomfortable, and while I doubt I’ll be able to surf all next summer, I’m sure my mother wouldn’t mind if I got my own internship, somewhere else. “I think corporate life is probably not for me.”

Joely pouts. “Well. You’ve been great. You’re always welcome here.”

Am I
? I suppose it depends on who you ask.

I check my schedule, and wouldn’t you know it? The first thing I have to do is deliver coffee to the conference room for something called the Adams meeting. The Adamses are important clients, and I know Caden personally oversees their investments. I’ve done coffee service dozens of times in the past eight weeks, so I’ve gotten very proficient and no longer have the fear of spilling it on anyone’s crotch. But I haven’t done it in the past week, not since Caden found out my age. My knees buckle. I do not want to be in the same room as him.

I think about asking to trade with one of the other interns, but then I swallow my fear and reach for the cart. I can do this.

I wheel the cart to the main conference room and push open the heavy door. The room is clear this time, which is just my luck—no cigar smoke to shield me from him. The room is less crowded than my first day—now, there are only five or six men around the table. I hear Caden’s authoritative voice immediately, even before I see him. It sends a pang of desire through my body, making me almost forget to hold the door so it doesn’t slam shut with a resounding bang. I catch it in the last second and then quickly make my way to the buffet table.

Just get it, give them coffee, and get out
becomes my mantra. I start chanting to myself as I move around the table and dole out the china teacups to each of the men. I keep my head down, concentrating only on the task at hand. I pour the coffee perfectly, set the creamer and sugar out, and uncover the breakfast sandwiches, then quickly make my way toward the door.

“Miss Chase.”

I nearly jump. I whirl around, clumsily banging my hip into the cart.

Caden holds up a finger to the men and quickly comes to my side. My heart is in my throat. Is he . . . interrupting a meeting with important clients to talk to me? He holds the door open so I can pull the cart out. “When do you start school?” he asks quietly.

“Tuesday. Today’s my last day,” I whisper, nearly tripping over my words.

“Well. Good luck in your studies,” he says, every bit the professional as he adjusts the button on his jacket. I think that’s it, that’s the end of the story between Caden and me, if ever one existed, when he says, “Surfing this weekend?”

I take in a breath. I nod.

He doesn’t smile. I don’t think I’ve seen that beautiful smile of his since before . . . well, before things changed. Standing there, I long for that smile. Just once more. Once more, and I will go to school and try to get over him.

But it doesn’t happen. Stiffly, he turns back to the group of men who are awaiting his return. “Thank you for all you’ve done for us, Miss Chase,” he mumbles.

I push the cart out and close the door. And when I’m out in the hallway, I don’t cry. Professional people don’t do that.

But oh, how I want to.

#

When I get to the shore Friday night, my dad is nowhere in sight. Probably drinking at one of his many favorite watering holes. I’m glad I don’t have to see him, because I’ve never been able to hide my emotions from him, and this time, I’m teetering dangerously on the edge of becoming a sobbing mess. I dump my things in my bedroom, crawl under my covers, and call Bow.

“Where have you been?” she shrieks, since I haven’t had the energy to return her last five phone calls. I’ve just wanted to retreat into a shell, forever, and forget about the past summer.

“I’m . . . I’m . . .” I start, but I don’t know how to finish.
Fine
is a lie.
Devastated
is more like it, and yet it seems so pitiful to admit out loud, considering this is what I knew would happen. I knew the truth would never be okay with him, so why hadn’t I prepared myself? Why hadn’t I insulated myself for the coming storm? “Caden found out my age.”

She lets out a noise, and I know her mouth is wide-open on the other end of the line. “What happened?”

“He saw my birthday cake, with nineteen candles,” I mutter, not really wanting to relive it. “That was a week ago. He hates me.”

She sighs. “I’m sorry, Hon. You want to go out? Find some hot guys to make it all better?”

I swallow, repulsed at the suggestion. That’s what got me into this situation to begin with. And no amount of drinking will help me forget the way he looked at me, that disappointment in his face. “I’m in love with him,” I whisper. “And I think . . . I think he could have loved me, too.”

Bow is silent for a moment. I know that she probably thinks I’m nuts, that no guy that perfect could be interested in a stupid teenager like me. But she doesn’t say it. She says, “Oh, honey. You need a change of scenery. Good thing college starts soon. It’ll be good. You’ll see.”

Suddenly I remember something. “Oh, my God. You’re leaving for school . . . tomorrow?”

She laughs. “Yep. California, here I come. So I thought we could have one last night of fun . . .”

I groan.

“Okay, if you don’t want to,” she sings, giving me the guilt trip.

It’s not that I don’t want to be with Bow, my oldest and dearest friend. It’s just that the thought of being out with her, surrounded by a bunch of people having fun, would make me even more miserable. If that’s even possible.

When I don’t answer immediately, she finally offers, “I’ll be home for Thanksgiving.”

I smile. “It’s a date. I am marking my calendar now.”

 “You’d better,” she says. “Take care of yourself. With any luck, by the time Turkey Day rolls around, you’ll be going on and on about how head-over-heels you are with your new college boyfriend.”

“Yeah,” I say, hoping she’s right. But I don’t know how I’ll get there, when all I keep doing is replaying memories of Caden in my head, wondering if there was anything I could have done to have kept him with me, now.

Caden

Saturday morning, I wake with another hangover and an empty hundred-dollar bottle of scotch that I can’t remember drinking lying next to me. I stumble into the kitchen to make myself breakfast but stare into the refrigerator at shelves of spoiled food. I haven’t had an appetite in a long time.

I have appetite for only one thing, and it’s something I can’t have. Something I’ll never even fucking see again.

I check my phone and see a half-dozen messages from Toni, my father’s assistant. He wants to see me. Today. Fuck.

In the past few years I’ve gotten good at jumping when my dad says jump. He messages, I move.

I know what this is about.

I message back:
Be there in an hour
.

Toni comes back only a second later.
He’s on his way to see you
.

Oh, hell. I look around the apartment. When Andrea lived here, despite overtaking it with all of her furnishings and clothes, the place was spotless. Now, it’s a sty. Her things are gone but the gifts are still everywhere, since I haven’t thought about them. There are dishes in the sink and there’s shit on all the counters and my bed and bathroom are strewn with clothing and towels. I thought we’d had a maid, but now I’m realizing that I don’t know shit. Andrea handled all that.

I throw on the faucet so I can make a half-hearted effort to clean up, when the elevator door dings. He’s already here. I look down. I’m naked. Shit.

He never travels anywhere alone, so as I’m stalking past the hallway, I see his entourage—his assistant Toni, a nurse, his attorney Vally, some other men I don’t know—all filing into foyer, all impeccably dressed. Toni is turning my way so I am sure she catches a glimpse of my bare ass as I rush to my room and throw on my boxer briefs. I check my reflection in the wall of mirrors on the way out and it confirms that I look like I feel—like shit. My hair is everywhere and my eyes are bloodshot.

Smoothing down my hair, I step into the foyer. “Hi, Dad. I just woke up.”

He harrumphs as the nurse wheels him inside. “It’s noon.”

“I know, I . . . had a late night.”

He stares at me. Bernard Williams, as weak as he is now, can still cause buildings to crumble with that one fucking look. I’ve been on the receiving end of it so many times, and it still makes me feel like a ten-year old. He’s the only person in my life who can do that to me. “I know very well what you were doing. I can smell you from across the room.”

“Yeah, okay,” I admit.

My dad has never been one to mince words, so his next question doesn’t surprise me. “Let’s talk about this little girl you’re fucking.”

 I swallow. In the moment that follows, the nurse stops fumbling through her bag, Toni stops playing with her phone, and the bodyguard clears his throat . They all study me in absolute silence, afraid to miss a word of my explanation. “She’s not a little girl,” I say.

“You admit you’re fucking her?”

“I didn’t admit to that,” I say.

He shakes his head. “But come on, Caden. There are few girls that fit her description that you wouldn’t fuck.”

“No. I understand.”

“I know you, Caden. I know who you are. Your beginnings were rather questionable. I bailed you out a thousand times from the trouble you got yourself into, in college, and as a young man. But in the past few years, you’ve turned yourself around. You’ve worked hard to be fit to assume the role as head of Williams & Williams, to be fit to be someone a fine woman like Andrea Finch would call her husband. Despite the initial doubts many had about you, you’ve won them all over. It wasn’t easy, but only a couple months ago a few of the more senior members were talking about how remarkable the change in you has been. I remember it because, for once, I didn’t feel ashamed that you were my son. I felt proud to be related to you. I felt that if I ever did decide to retire, our company would be in good hands.”

He felt . . .
proud of me
? My throat tightens. “You did?”

“But not now. I can tell you right now, due to your most recent exploits, I’d sooner allow a little girl run this company!” he says, spittle flying from his mouth. His body stiffens and he nearly stands up in his wheelchair, he’s so wound up. “Do you understand that, you massive fuck-up?”

I look away and nod. “I do.”

He crosses his arms in front of himself. “So what are you going to do?”

“I’ll get my head back in it,” I say. “It’s not the girl. She has nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, she has a lot to do with it,” he growls. “The board will not allow the company to be run by a pedophile. Our clients would pull out by the dozens. So you need to promise me right now that you will never see that little slut again.”

“She’s not a slut.”

His face is red. He moves the wheelchair forward, and propels himself to the edge of the seat to be as close as he can to my face. “You. Promise. Me!”

“I . . . “ I know what I have to say. But whenever I think of it, of keeping that promise, I think of her. And I think of all the days and nights of my life, stretching out into complete madness. The only thing that makes sense, the only thing that will make and keep me sane so that I can focus on getting my life together . . . is her. And I know that if I don’t have her, everything else I attempt will fail. “I can’t.”