Chapter Twenty-One
Taylor
I’d been floating around campus ever since Chase told me he loved me. Ever since that night a week ago, and all those things that had happened since to solidify his claim in my mind, I was on cloud nine. No, I was higher than cloud nine. If there was a cloud ten, I was its sole occupant, and I had no intention of ever coming back down. It was happy up here. Up here, I had Chase Maxwell, and I didn’t care about his father’s threats.
On cloud ten, life was great.
After a lot of thought last night as Chase slept peacefully next to me after making me scream his name several times, I came to a decision. I was going to tell him about his father’s threats and ask him to help me strategically plan a way around them. If I explained to him the direness of the situation, he wouldn’t fly off the handle, and together we could come up with a smart way to defeat his father and his evil threats. Love would win.
Love always won.
God. I still couldn’t believe he loved me.
All day, he kept looking at me during class and smiling, and my slightly cynical self had smiled back each and every time. I couldn’t help it. I was just so happy.
Logically, I knew we had a battle in front of us. His father would never, ever approve of me, and we had to find a way to be together that wouldn’t end up with my parents jobless and homeless, but one way or another, we could make it work.
We could figure it out.
If we had to hide our relationship until we were both out of school and in good jobs, then so be it. Maybe my parents could come live with us, or we could get them a little apartment somewhere in the suburbs where the only people they had to take care of was themselves. Whatever we decided, it would work because we would work as a team.
Still smiling, I headed for my dorm. Chase was running back to his to shower, since I’d hogged his private shower this morning, and then we were meeting up with Bryce and Anna for lunch and a cram session. Afterward, I’d finally come clean and tell him everything he needed to know, and we would have a cram session of our own.
“Taylor?” a girl called out from behind me.
I turned around, half recognizing the voice but not sure why. “Oh, hey, Amanda.” She stood there looking beautifully perfect like usual. She wore a white shirt, tight jeans, and a pair of heels that probably cost more than my parents’ hypothetical future rent.
She came up to me, tucking her long hair behind her ear. “Where are you rushing off to?”
“I have to grab my books and then meet Chase for a study session.” I adjusted my bag on my shoulder, smiling at the other woman. “I never thanked you for that invite to your party. It was…fun. Up to a point, anyway.”
She smiled, her perfectly painted lips parting to show off her impossibly white teeth. “Those guys are jerks. Where are you and Chase studying?”
“At Minella’s with Bryce and Anna.” I hesitated. “Why, did you want to join in?”
“No, no, that’s okay,” she said.
I relaxed a little. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her. I did, but there was something about the idea of waving a more suitable version of myself in front of my man’s eyes that seemed like a bad idea.
“I’m sure you need as much quiet as you can get to keep your grades up so you don’t lose the big financial aid package you probably have.”
I stiffened. “Wh-What?”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, honestly.” She looked a little flustered, but I wasn’t buying it. It looked too…too…practiced. “Chase told me about your parents is all.”
“What about them?” I asked slowly, my heart pounding.
“Well, you know… That they’re servants that work for his family.” She waved a hand like it meant nothing to her, while clearly it meant everything. “It must be hard, attending a university like this when your parents never got to go.”
I gripped the handle of my messenger bag tightly. “When did Chase tell you all of this?”
“When he gave me a ride home from the dentist last week.” She flung her hair over her shoulder. “He told you about that, right?”
No, he hadn’t.
I tried not to be bothered, but paired with the fact that he’d told her personal things about me that I hadn’t given him permission to say, it was kind of hard not to be. “Uh…”
Amanda smiled. “He also told me you lived in the same house as him, and that you two grew up together as friends, even though you lived in the servants’ quarters. That’s so cool.”
I swallowed. “Yeah. Cool.”
“I think it’s great, what you’re doing. Going to school to further yourself.” She patted me on the arm in what was probably supposed to be a kind gesture, but ended up feeling condescending. “It’s awesome.”
I wasn’t ashamed of where I came from, or of my parents. I wasn’t hiding who I was, or what my parents did for a living. I never would.
But at the same time…
It wasn’t Chase’s place to tell people.
It was my decision who knew where I came from and who didn’t, and it was up to me whether I wanted people like Amanda to know.
“Thanks,” I said through a forced smile. “Well, I better hurry up so I’m not late.”
“Yeah, sure,” she said, laughing. “Tell Chase I said hi.”
With a wave of her fingers, she was off.
I watched her go, frowning.
As she bounced off, my phone rang, and I dug it out of my bag. The second I saw who it was, I wished I hadn’t. I rejected Chase’s father’s call without a second thought, dropping the phone back in my bag and making my way to my room. I had to hurry if I was going to make it back to Chase with enough time to ask him what the hell he’d been thinking when he told Amanda my private life details.
Leaving the door cracked, I emptied out the crap I didn’t need from my bag, then refilled it with what I did. Afterward, I stood there, taking a deep breath and wiping my hands on my jean-clad thighs. I couldn’t let Amanda get to me. Maybe I was reading into all the things she’d said, and she thought it was cool I was here. Maybe I was the one putting problems where there were none, like Chase had said last week.
While my past might not embarrass me, there was no denying that I was a little sensitive when it came to people judging me based on it. I liked who I was, who I’d been, and I hoped to like who I became after all this was over.
The question was…
Would I?
I walked over to the mirror, glancing at my reflection. Blue eyes. Long, wavy brownish-blond hair. Pale skin. Lips that were a little too plump.
Nothing new there.
Just me.
Was there a way out of this mess that didn’t include me losing the man I loved, or my parents losing their jobs? Was there a way to win, and keep all the prizes?
If there was, Chase would know it.
I had to trust that together, we could make this happen.
My phone rang again, so I walked over to it, half expecting it to be Chase asking me where the heck I was. Instead, it was his father.
Again.
If he was calling me back already, he would keep calling until I answered. I knew that from experience. Might as well answer now so we could focus on the study session without the constant buzzing of my phone. “Hello?”
“Taylor.”
He said nothing else. Typical Mr. Maxwell. “Yes, it’s me.”
“How’s Chase doing?” he asked, his voice gruff.
“Good. We’re about to study for our midterms.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and walked to my window, looking down at all the people rushing from one place to another. I spotted Bryce walking with headphones in, his phone in his hand as he texted. If he was already on his way, then I was late, since he was never on time for anything. “I have to hurry there, actually. Can we talk later—?”
“I don’t like you hanging around him so much,” he said, his voice hardening. “If he’s always with you, he won’t be looking for a suitable girlfriend.”
I gripped the phone tight, rolling my eyes. “Who says he’s looking for a girlfriend at all?”
“Me and you.” He cleared his throat. “Your job, after all, was to put his life back together.”
“My job was to make sure he got good grades. I’m doing that.” I closed my eyes for a second. “My job was not, however, to find him a girlfriend.”
“It is now.”
“Mr. Maxwell—”
“Hear me out.” He paused. “I spoke to his ex, Amanda, and she is on board with getting back together with him, despite his troubled past. Turns out she never stopped carrying a torch for him. They even spent some time together last—”
“No,” I immediately said, not wanting to hear the rest.
“Excuse me?” he said slowly.
“I said no.” I ground my teeth together. “I will not, under any circumstances, pimp out your son for you—not for Amanda, or anyone else.”
“Amanda told me the only thing holding Chase back from her is his belief that you two are an item.”
“Sir, I told you, we are not together. It’s just pretend on my part.”
“So you said.” He paused again, and that silence was more deafening than any shouting could have been. “But she seems to think it’s real.”
I swallowed. “It’s not.”
“Good. Because I’d hate to have to fire my longest-running employees before they are eligible to access their retirement funds.”
I closed my eyes, rage and helplessness taking over me. “I am not in a real relationship with your son,” I said slowly, painfully, every word slashing my heart open one more time. “I never was, and never will be. I’m just hanging out with him to make him pass his grades, to give him the level of intimacy he seems to require from me, and then I will move on, and so will he…with a girl like Amanda. Or Amanda herself.”
Silence, and then: “Break it off with him. Tell him you don’t want a commitment, and then Amanda can swoop in and give him that intimacy you think he needs.”
No. No. I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to him.
But how could I not?
Mr. Maxwell had a man on the inside now, something I had never expected or predicted, so any hope I had of finding a way around this was now long gone. If I lied and told him we broke it off, then Amanda would just run back to him and tell him we hadn’t. If I did break it off, I’d be losing the man I loved more than anything…
Besides my parents.
God, my parents.
If I didn’t do this, if I didn’t follow his orders and break Chase’s heart with lies, they would lose everything they worked so hard for. And it would be all my fault. “Sir, please, I don’t think he’s ready for me to break up with him yet. I need more time—”
“He’s ready.” He cleared his throat. “Break up with him before the end of the day, or your parents will need to look for new employment. I was very clear what I expected of you. You’ll follow my orders, or you’ll pay the price.”
With that, he hung up on me.
I stared out the window, tears blurring my eyes, until I heard it.
A slow clap from behind me that chilled me to my heart.
“Bravo, Taylor. Bra-vo,” Chase said, his tone colder than his father’s had been. “You really had me going there, thinking you loved me.”