Power (The Keatyn Chronicles Book 9) (18 page)

“She does have strong opinions, that’s for sure,” Kym agrees.

After about twenty minutes, I’m getting worried that Kym didn’t bring anything Gracie likes. But then the door opens and Gracie bounds out in a skintight embossed black halter dress with a plunging neckline.
 

“What do you think?” she asks, spinning around for us.
 

“Uh,” both Dallas and Riley say. I think they are shocked to see that she has boobs. And her cleavage is fully on display in this dress.

“Love it,” Knox says. “Is that for the after party?”

“It is,” Kym says. A Cavalli mini dress with the Fendi Chunky Mixed-Media Hole Punch Sandal. We didn’t do any jewelry because the dress says it all.”

“What’s the dress supposed to say?” Riley asks. “Because it looks really sexy.
Too
sexy.”

Gracie starts jumping up and down and hugging Kym. “Yay! You made me look sexy.
Too sexy
! It’s perfect! Come on, let’s show them the dress for the dance,” she says, dragging Kym back into the bedroom.
 

“What just happened?” Riley asks.

“You played into her hand,” Knox says, setting his drink down. “She likes Baylor. She wants to look hot for him.”

“She does,” I agree.
 

“She’s not supposed to look hot. She’s like twelve!” Riley says.

“Fifteen!” Gracie yells from the bedroom.
 

“Fourteen!” I yell back, teasing her. “But Knox is right. She likes him.”

Dallas lowers his voice. “Did you find out what happened with Brady?”

“He slept with her best friend after he told her they should lose their virginity to each other.”

“Oh, I’m gonna kill that little bastard,” Riley says. “What a fucking douche.”

“Like you never told a girl anything she wanted to hear to get her into bed,” Dallas says to Riley.

“I know
I’ll
tell them anything,” Brax says, walking out into the room wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.
 

“Speaking of grown up,” I say to him, because last time I saw him in a swimsuit, he did not look like that.
 

He poses, almost losing the towel but grabbing it at the last second. “I was working out with Dawson before he ditched me for California. Put on a few pounds.” He looks down at himself, satisfied. “And a few muscles. Wanna lick my abs?”

“Can we do body shots off them like in the movie?” Gracie asks, coming back out in another dress. I see now why she tried on the other one first. It makes this pale pastel one look demure in comparison, but it’s really not.
 

“Pale peach Herve Leger bandage dress with rose gold hardware. Adds a bit of an industrial element to the lingerie style,” Kym says. “And walk, Gracie, so they can see the hem. I love how it flutters with the two-tone fringe. I’ve paired it with black wavy suede cutout booties by Sophia Webster.”

Gracie stands in front of me. Her hair has grown out to almost a bob, but she’s wearing long extensions tonight and looks even more grown up than usual.
 

I stand up and hug her. “You look beautiful, Gracie. It’s the perfect dress.”

“Your body is rocking, little Miss Gracie,” Braxton says. “Baylor’s jaw will drop to the floor when he sees you.”

“Do you think so?” Gracie says, clasping her hands together and spinning in a circle. “I can’t wait!”

“Keatyn, I’m going to touch up Gracie’s makeup. Why don’t you come try a few things on?” Kym suggests. “And boys, I shouldn’t have to say it, but get ready.”

“I’m almost ready!” Braxton yells. “That means I get to do a shot.”

I point my finger at the rest of them, sprawled across the couches and worn out from golf and drinking all afternoon. “You better do as she says.”

I’m dressed and ready before the boys are, so I join Braxton back out in the living room. He looks very handsome and so different from how he used to.
 

“You look like a man,” I tell him.
 

“I’m serious about a job. I know you think I just want to come out there and just fuck around, but I don’t. I’ve already gotten two promotions where I’m at.”

“You need to talk to your brother. I think he might have some ideas.”

“Awesome.”

“So, what happened with you and Embry? You were together for what—five, six years?”

“Since our senior year of high school. Made it through college together. I had even bought a ring.”

“You did?!”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s what was expected of us. We’d graduated college and everyone was asking when we were getting married. It seemed like the next step. But I’d had the ring for two months when she said she was going to Seattle without me. Every time I thought about proposing, something stopped me. So I think it was meant to be. Overall, she wants different things out of life than I do. She’s so serious. Everyone always said that it was good we were opposites. I know opposites attract, but you still need to have the same basic core values, the same goals in life. She didn’t know if she wanted to have kids. I don’t want them right now, but I definitely want them. Family is important to me, even more so after what happened with Whitney. I spend a lot of time with my nieces. I’m totally their favorite uncle. Speaking of that, you didn’t do a shot last night. You knocked up?”

I bite my lip, trying not to smile.

“Ha! Knew it!” he says. “Congratulations.” He goes and pours two shots. “And to prove just how happy I am for you, I’ll drink a couple shots in your honor.”

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11TH

Eastbrooke Academy - Connecticut

KEATYN

“You look sad,” Riley says as he sits down next to me.

“I’m watching my baby sister dance with a boy. She looks so pretty and grown up tonight. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that I used to rock her to sleep.”

“My parents always say they blinked and we were all in college. I think you’re doing the right thing, taking time off after you have the baby. And I think we should take the offer to sell off Captive.”

“I don’t know if I could ever sell it, Riley. It’s our baby.”

“Yeah, and we blinked and now we’re going to send it off to college. Dallas thinks we should take the offer too.”

“I know he does and I don’t want to downplay his role, but he hasn’t invested in it the same way you and I have.”

“We’ve invested in it with our lives. Don’t you think it’s time we get them back?”

“You know I want to slow down. It just sounds too perfect to be true.”

He leans back and holds his arms out. “You know what they say about me. I’m the king of romance. It only makes sense that Captive Films gets a happily ever after ending too.”

I smile at him.

“You look beautiful tonight, by the way. You really are glowing.”

“This dress is a good color on me.”

“It’s more than that and you know it. You’re happy. You’re pregnant and marrying your true love in a week. It shows in your face. Except in the morning when Tyler brings you coffee.”

“The other morning when I was getting my ass handed to me by the board, he brought me coffee. I lost it and yelled that I never wanted coffee again.”

“What did he do?”

“Brought me back lemon tea and told me it helped his sister with her morning sickness. I hadn’t told him. He just knew. I know you pay him well, but if we do this, I want to give him a really big bonus.”

“Hopefully not so big that he won’t want to keep working for the new and improved Captive,” Riley says. “We need him.”

“I know. And I want employment contracts for all of the employees. Something that states if they don’t keep their jobs for at least two years, they get some sort of buyout.”

“I think Dallas can negotiate that.”

“Are you sure it will make you happy, Riley? You love your job. Love doing deals. We won’t have that anymore.”

“Deals are fun, but they aren’t my passion. You know that.”

“I didn’t know if your passion has changed. You’re a really good executive.”

“If we do this smaller company, I want Dawson to take over as CEO. I’ll help, but I want to produce again—”

He stops mid-sentence and stares into space.
 

“Earth to Riley.”

“I think I know when it happened.”

“What happened?”

“It was about three weeks before graduation. We were sitting here, just like this, at our year-end athletics banquet. Ariela went home that weekend and missed both it and our soccer game the next day.”

“I remember the game. You kicked the winning goal, sending us to the playoffs.”

“When I was at the banquet, she texted me. Just a sad face. When she got back, she cried about missing the banquet.”

“You won a lot of awards.”

“And she cried when she heard I kicked the winning goal and she missed it,” I say.

“It wasn’t the first or the last time you kicked a winning goal.”

“I know, that’s why it was weird. I think it was more. I think that’s when her parents must have told her whatever they did to convince her, or force her, to go to Princeton. It was her dad’s dream. She studied like crazy to get good grades because of it. But what I don’t get is why she would marry freaking Collin.”
 

“Because he was there, probably. He liked her. Her parents liked him. It was the probably the path of least resistance.”

“Sounds caveman of me, but all I can think about is that she slept with him.”

“I think you two just dealt with it differently, Riley. You never let anyone in. She pretended to let someone in but didn’t. It’s hard to replace a once-in-a-lifetime love.”

“Honest to God—no bullshit—do you think we could work now? After all this time? I’m such a different person than I was back then.”

“I wish I could answer that. I think only you and Ariela can decide. When you slept with her, you said it was different. Did you sleep with anyone in Vegas?”

“More like many someone’s,” Dallas says, laughing and setting another drink in front of Riley.
 

“Actually, I didn’t,” he says.

“What do you mean?” Dallas asks. “Knox said you had two hookers in the bedroom, maybe three.”

“We hooked up but I didn’t have sex. I tried. I couldn’t.” He buries his face in his hand.

“What aren’t you telling us?” I ask, touching his arm.

He points down at his pants. “
It
wasn’t cooperating. I got pissed. Told the hooker it was her fault and I wasn’t going to pay her. I think that’s when she stole my wallet and ran out.”

“Which then started the naked party parade.”

“Yeah.”

“You were probably just too drunk to maintain an erection, dude. It happens,” Dallas says, slapping Riley on the back and then walking off to talk to someone else.

“But you know differently, don’t you, Riley?” I ask.

“Yeah, I know it was because of her.”

Vanessa’s Estate - Holmby Hills

DAWSON

I’m nervous as I pull up to Vanessa’s home in the Range Rover that showed up in my garage a few days ago, complete with a booster seat for Harlow. I’ve been so busy at work that I hadn’t even realized that I couldn’t fit the girls and their bags into the Ferrari. Thank goodness I mentioned they were coming to Tyler. He literally thinks of everything.
 

“This house looks like a castle,” Harlow says, echoing my thoughts. “Is Vanessa a princess?”

“You’ll have to ask her that,” I say absent-mindedly. I knew Vanessa’s ex-husband was wealthy, but I didn’t expect this. My heart drops into my stomach, knowing I could never give her anything that compares to this. Even with what I’m earning now, I probably couldn’t even qualify for a mortgage, not with a foreclosure on my credit history.
 

I remember the day so vividly. The girls crying and saying they didn’t want to leave their house.
What if Mommy comes back and we aren’t here?
Living with my parents was what we all needed though.