I know she doesn’t want to go. I know I promised her I’d never let her feel the way I am undeniably asking her to feel again when she walks into that room and people talk, whisper, try and screw this up between us.
After a moment, her face softens and she looks back into my eyes. “Okay,” she whispers.
“Okay?” I question, needing to hear her say it again.
“You’re right,” she smiles. “Fuck 'em!”
“That’s my girl!” I shout. She laughs and wraps her legs around me tighter.
“But Hunter,” she seductively says. “If it’s worse than we both imagine, I’m going to make you pay for it.”
She grinds her center down against my pelvis. I close my eyes, enjoying the delicious way her body fits against mine. “By all means,” I growl, as I pull her closer, and my lips hover above hers. “I’ll gladly do the time, Angel. As long as you’re the one dishing out the punishment.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hunter
Rochelle insisted on meeting me at my apartment. If I was a smarter man, I would question her choice and why I have never even seen the inside of her place. But being that I’m not, I pace back and forth in my tiny apartment waiting for her to arrive, and focus instead on the fact she agreed to come with me to a place I know she would rather die before ever setting foot in.
I wish like hell she had taken me up on my offer to buy her a phone. At least then I could have gotten a hold of her and calmed my nerves. The ones telling me she won’t show and I’ll have to go tonight alone.
My nerves are fucked, and if she doesn’t get here soon I’m going to wear a hole in the damn carpet. Looking out the window for any sign of her, I check the clock for the millionth time. I’ve been rotating the same two actions for close to an hour now. If she doesn’t hurry, I’ll have to leave without her.
After our fun little pitching practice, that ended back at my place with her spread out underneath me, begging and pleading with me to make love to her, which I did, twice, she escaped home to get ready and said she would meet me back here by seven. Glancing one more time at the clock, I notice it’s now 7:35 and something inside begins to not feel right. Something feels off, like maybe she has changed her mind and won’t show.
With a heavy sigh, I plop down on the sofa and stare blankly across the room. If she wanted to make me an even bigger wreck before embarking on the fiasco that is sure to follow once this night gets underway, then she has totally succeeded. I run my hands over the fabric of the pillow next to me before anxiety gets the better of me and I pick it up and huck it across the room.
“Easy, Hunt!” I assure myself. “She’ll show. She’s gotta show.”
Even if her secrets keep her from wanting to get to know the other half of my life.
Although it may look like I’ve lived a privileged existence, growing up, before Edward and Sylvia, my life was far from easy. Ed is the President of Fox. My dad was Vice President before his accident.
After they took me in, Edward’s daughter, a girl my same age, and I were shuffled in and out of private school and escorted back and forth from extra-curricular activities daily. Idle hands, and all that bullshit. Edward always told us, “if you didn’t work hard, you didn’t deserve to play hard.”
Then again, I don’t think I have ever seen that man play a day in his damn life.
We attended the most luxurious parties and shook hands with the wealthy, rich and famous regularly. If we wanted something, we got it. Simple as that. If we desired to meet someone, invite them over and get to know them a little better, arrangements were made.
It was all too easy.
Hollywood and the people in it quickly became the most transparent thing in my life as I learned how to work the system. Drop the right names. Get what I wanted when I wanted and not even lose sleep over the idea of anyone ever saying no to me.
But it all came with a price. A big one. One still standing in the way of ever having a halfway decent relationship with the “Old Man,” Edward Cunningham.
I’m expected to follow in the Alexander footsteps, and eventually the Cunningham’s, because Edward never did have a son.
A price that when I wised up to it, I have been running from ever since. I lost myself in the game. It was the one thing that gave me heart. A reason to live. Until her.
Thinking back, there was always less pressure on Victoria, Edward’s daughter. After all, Edward believed a man should take over when he finally agreed to step down. Sure, Edward had a bunch of people underneath him frantically trying to prove their worth in the hopes that one day they might win his approval. But he’d made up his mind that no one else would do, except someone he had groomed since day one. Someone who was too young to know any better. Someone he couldn’t help but trust to take over because they’d do things the way they have always been done. The way he and my father did them. Someone who would make sure that business keeps being conducted the way he sees fit after he finally descends from his Hollywood throne.
That person was me. That is, up until a few years back when I decided I had enough of Hollywood, the fake limelight, and all the phonies in it. No matter how hard Edward tried to raise me as his own, groom me and make me into something I am not, I can’t give him what he wants. Even if Edward was dead set on making sure I followed through in my father’s memory, I can’t. Taking a position as starting catcher for the LBS Dirtbags, I made myself a vow to follow my own damn footsteps, even if the man who helped raise me didn’t approve.
I’ve never regretted the decision I made, although I won’t lie and say it has made gatherings easy since I decided to split and follow my own path. The only thing that puts a wrench in it all, that makes me actually feel any kind of remorse, is when I see how hard his daughter works to earn her father’s approval. She has wanted to take over and lead Fox in a new direction more than I could ever pretend to. But Edward continues to shun her, his own flesh and blood, thinking one day I might change my mind. Maybe even run off with Tiffany and assume the position he so evidently polished me for since my youth.
Fat chance in hell of that ever happening. Hopefully, showing up with Rochelle tonight will give him the hint since I have never bothered to bring a girl home before. Truth is, I’ve never been tempted before with anyone to let them this close to my life. Then again, I have never trusted anyone like I do my Angel.
A knock sounds at my door, and I quickly jump to my feet. With my heart racing like a dumb idiot, I pull open the door and breathe out a sigh of relief. Wearing a light blue sundress, hair beautifully curled and cascading around her angelic face, she stands on the other side nervous as she shifts her weight on her feet.
