Chapter Twenty-One

Annabel

I’m not much for tearing other women down. Let me say that first, before you get the wrong idea.

Now let me say that I am never going to be interested in seeing Kinsey.

Bethany? She’s like a blonde princess. The cool kind. The kind who will laugh with you for forty-five minutes before the man you’re pretending not to be involved with shows up and whisks you away. The kind who doesn’t look down her nose at you, even though she’s literally standing on a pedestal.

Kinsey’s a bitch.

She bitchily purses her lips and looks down her nose at me, judgment radiating from her too-perfect face, and then snaps her eyes back to Beau. “You’re not meeting with West?”

“No,” he says bluntly. “I’m actually on my way out.”

Kinsey cocks her head to the side. “That’s strange. You never miss a meeting.” Then her expression morphs into as fake an uh-oh as I’ve ever seen. “Oh my goodness, silly me. I wasn’t supposed to say a thing about this little event to you.” She smiles, tight-lipped, her eyes glittering like a cat about to pounce.

“No harm, no foul,” Beau says, squeezing my hand. “If you’ll excuse us—”

Kinsey pretends to be surprised that she’s blocking our path at all. “Oh, of course, of course.”

Beau doesn’t let go of my hand as he walks beside me down the steps. I get a full-body chill when I pass Kinsey. She could be a ghost or an evil spirit. It would make sense.

Beau’s driver pulls open the back door for us, and as I slide in, I hear Kinsey call out to Beau. “But we’ll be seeing you at dinner?”

He hesitates at the door. One more step, and he’ll be inside the car. Ignore her, I think at him with all my might. Ignore her. I can see from here how he’s struggling, his hands tensed into fists. But Beau Bennett is the last person on earth to tell anyone to bugger off or whatever you say when you’re from England. When he finally speaks, it’s far more diplomatic than I could ever have been. “Change of plans. Another time, Kinsey.”

Then he steps inside and lets Winston close the door behind him.

I can’t help myself. I crane my neck forward to see Kinsey. She’s standing on the steps, her mouth slightly open, gaping at the car.

Winston slides into the front seat, checks the mirrors, and shifts the car into Drive.

“Let’s get out of here,” Beau says and takes my hand in his.

*****

I work to tone down the giddy laughter still caught in my chest, and it takes two blocks before I can speak. “Beau.”

“Annabel.”

I pretend to survey the vendors and their carts on the sidewalk. “Tell me about you and Kinsey. I feel like we’re at that point now, because that was weird.”

He groans, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Start at the beginning?”

I scoot over a couple of inches, and he wraps his arm around my shoulders. It feels so good that I wish we could drive around forever. How much money does need in order to drive around forever? For the first time in my life, I’m considering a career that will end with me having exactly that much money. I don’t allow myself to think of the fact that Beau probably already has that much money. Not much, anyway.

“I met her when I first started going to Overton,” he says. I try to detect why he sounds wistful. If it’s because Kinsey used to be nice, then—“She was always . . . she’s always been the same.”

Good. “What happened?”

He sighs. “There were five of us who hit it off quickly. We lived in the same dorm—Hawthorne House. Within the first few months, we started spending time with a group of five girls who lived across campus. Theirs was called Heather House. God, it sounds so stupid when I say it out loud.”

“It sounds like a fantasy.”

“A fantasy?”

“I would have killed to go to four years of school in the same place. Ever,” I admit.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t look down on it.” There’s a pause. “It’s one of those things that doesn’t make any sense once you’re on the outside looking in.”

“Why is she showing up at the Pearl?”

“She . . . always liked me,” he admits. There it is.

“Did you date?”

Might as well come right out with it.

“Very briefly,” he says, glancing over. “It didn’t work out, but she never left our group. When we graduated, there were seven of us who had stuck together through college. Kinsey was one of the women. A girl named Laura was the other. Is the other, I should say. It sounds so morbid to use the past tense.”

“Is this Laura going to show up here, too?” Do I sound jealous? I hope I don’t sound jealous. I’m the one tucked next to him in the back seat, after all. Still . . . if this goes south, they’re the ones who will be there to pick up the pieces. I’ll be long gone.

“I have no idea.” He makes a weary sound. “West is up to something with the show. Opening night is in two weeks.”

“Up to something like what?” I’m dying to know. I don’t have friends who do this kind of thing. “Like . . . a reunion? That’s what he said the other day.”

“A reunion, yes. But as for the scale, I have no idea.”

“But you passed up dinner plans.”

Beau puts his fingers under my jaw and turns my face toward his. “I did. I agreed to it before I got called away on that business trip. Now there are more important things to do.” He bends and presses his lips against mine, and it’s a sheer, deep pleasure that runs all the way down my spine. I lose track of how long he’s kissing me. I’m lost in the sensation of his hands against my spine, running down over my waist, my hips, to the front of my jeans, hooking a finger inside . . .

When I resurface, I’m panting.

“We’re here,” he whispers.

I whip my head around to look out the window. It’s a restaurant, not the entrance to the kind of upscale building I’ve always imagined him to live in. “Dinner?” It comes out as a plea.

“Dinner,” he says firmly.

I take one deep breath to fortify myself, then follow him out of the car, the heat between my legs impossible to ignore.