The Reality of You (15 page)

“Correct,” I agreed,
sitting down. “You can never, ever, go wrong with bacon.”

He reached for his
fork. “From scratch?”

I wrinkled my nose.
“Um, no. The awesome box kind with the gooey cheese in the can.”

“Of course,” he
said, his fork wavering over the mound of noodles on his plate.

“It won’t kill you.”

His smile was weak before
taking a bite.

“Better than the
dip, huh?” I asked.

Finished chewing, he
once again said, “Not bad.”

I shook my head and
dug my own fork in the heap on my plate.

We settled into a
light conversation. I asked him about his business. He described how he and a
friend from college had decided that they would rather start their own company
than join the job market. They didn’t want to work for market shares. They
wanted to work for a company that did well but was more interested in producing
a top-of-the-line product rather than the bottom line. He then asked about
soccer. I told him a bit about playing at the college level.

It was nice getting
to know him a little prior to jumping in bed with him.
That
was the point of this. I’d never imagined getting to know him
other than physically, but talking with him proved interesting,
and
he seemed interested in me. Who
would have thought?

However, listening
to him and watching him—the way his eyes watched me, the strand of hair over
his brow, the tilt of his square chin as he contemplated something—encouraged
my desire for him. The last seven months had simply been gawk play. This was
the real deal, and yes, Fangirl screamed and grasped her cheeks throughout the
cheesy goodness.

Reese didn’t even
lift his brow when I set down the ice cream covered with Rice Krispies Treat
crumbles, chocolate sauce, and a squirt of whipped cream. His brow did rise at
Kara’s stomping down the hallway into the bathroom followed by loud sounds of
hurling.

I turned up the
speaker on the iPod dock.

Kara’s hurling grew
louder.

Reese set down his
spoon on the edge of his plate. “It’s getting late.”

I glanced at the
clock, which read quarter to nine.

He cleared his
throat. “I have an early morning.”

More loud hurling echoed
from the bathroom.

Kara had better be
sick or I was going to murder her shoes. For real.

I forced a smile.
“I’m not surprised by your commitment.”

“I’m surprised by
your roommate’s,” he said wryly.

I let out a groan.
“I’m really, really sorry about tonight.”

His gaze turned so
contemplative that I imagined a hamster running a wheel in his brain. Finally,
he asked, “Make it up to me this weekend?”

“Sure, I’d love to,”
I said calmly, while Fangirl screamed inside.
Yes! Score! Another date.

He cleared his
throat. “Would North Haven be far enough away from your roommate?”

It took me a few
seconds, and Fangirl several internal screams, for me to digest his question. I
was fairly certain that North Haven was in the Hamptons. “I…ah…think so.”

He watched me while
more thoughts seem to shift across his gaze until he asked, “Would you like to
go for the weekend?”

Fuck yes!
Score!
Score! Score!

“I’d love to,” I
said in such a calm tone that I’d surprised myself, considering that Fangirl
was on the verge of fainting.

He appeared pleased
until another round of hurling sounded. Grimacing, he stood. “We can cement the
particulars later.”

I stood too.
“Without vomit raising her ugly head?”

He chuckled.
“Exactly.”

We both went to the
door.

A rather loud hurl resonated
over the music.

Looking down at me,
his grimace grew.

I reached for the
door handle. “I think we’ll have to start with goodbye again.”

His eyes roamed over
my face until I had to be blushing a non-pretty pink.

“Thank you
for…dinner,” he said before brushing his lips along my pink cheek.

Then he was gone.

I shut the door in a
dreamy state.

An entire weekend.

In the Hamptons.

I danced like an
idiot over to the table. My imagination kicked into overdrive as I picked up
our mostly uneaten desserts from the table and shimmied into the tiny kitchen.

Reese was leisurely
tugging off my silky robe in front of a window that looked over an angry ocean
when Kara came out of the bathroom.

“Is he gone?” she
asked.

“Feeling better?” I asked,
opening the dishwasher.

 
“Yeah. Yum, bacon and mac,” she said from
behind me.

I turned around to
watch her picking at the pan on the stove, and my brain exploded.

“What?” She looked
at me innocently. “I haven’t had any carbs all day.”

Her questioning
expression changed under the fury of my stare.

“Fine. I’m not
sick.” She shrugged and turned toward the fridge. “I couldn’t let you go
through with it. I—” She paused, staring at the dirty dishes inside. “What
the—”

“So you pretended to
be sick?” I demanded.

Rolling her eyes,
she shut the fridge. “You didn’t give me a choice.”

I marched past her.
After the argument at Jules’s house and arguing all weekend, I was done arguing
with her.

“It’s for the best.
Trust me!” she yelled as I entered her room. “He’ll just use you! You’ll
eventually be thanking me!”

She kept yelling
stupid crap about trust and Reese being a user douche. I combed through her
closest, specifically her shoe racks. My hand swiped over stacked boxes. What
was that stupid brand that made her and Jules nutcases? Jackie Chan? No. Suzie
Kay? I didn’t think that was it either. I spotted a label inside a pump covered
in crystals. Ah, Jimmie Choo.

Still in the
kitchen, she held a loaded spoon halfway to her mouth. It landed with a clang
as I stomped past her. Her eyes turned wide at the shoes in my hand.

“Naomi? What are you
doing?”

I opened the window
to the left of the TV, and with one toss, the sparkly high heels landed in the
middle of the street.

Kara stood frozen in
the middle of the living room. Horror etched her face.

I smiled evilly.
“Maybe, as stated before,
I’m
using
him. And maybe you can get to your shoes before a car comes by.”

Chapter 17

The
train started slowing down, causing a strange mix of anticipation and fear to bubble
within me as I tucked my romance book in my bag. After several texts back and
forth and two short phone calls, Reese and I had solidified our weekend plans.
Since he was going to be in the Hamptons for business already—something with a
local wine vineyard—and though he offered to come back and pick me up, I’d been
adamant about taking the train. But now that I’d nearly reached my destination,
the reality of the next few days hit me.

I was spending the
weekend with Reese. The entire weekend that included nights—alone. The
implications were enormous, the tension thick inside my head. I wanted to have
a good time.
Scratch that
. I wanted
to have a great time. But I needed to keep my wits about me. Reese and I were
just spending the weekend together. A hot, lusty weekend. Nothing more. And
besides that, this whole thing had started with Kara’s deceitful idea. Not the
best way to start even three weeks of dating.

The train came to a
full stop.

Taking a deep,
fortifying breath, I dried my suddenly moist palms on my jeans and tugged a
light jacket over my sweater.

Weak-willed heart
deactivated.

I would not fall for
Reese. I would be as callous as every boy and man who’d dumped me. Internally
callous. As callous as the side of my little toe at the end of a soccer season.
Callous. Callous. Callous. That would be my mantra for the weekend. Stepping
off the train, I kept the mantra in my
head.

Reese was nowhere to
be seen. I strolled by the train depot twice amid people departing, thinking he
must be late. My third stroll produced an older gray-haired man wearing what
appeared to be a chauffeur hat. He stepped near me.

“Miss Porter?” he
asked.

Nodding, I tried to
place him from my one
real
ride in the
limo, but I’d been so nervous that I hadn’t paid much attention to the driver.

“Good evening. Mr.
Jordon sends his apologies. His meeting ran later than expected.” He reached
for my rolling bag.

Reese had been
adamant about picking me up, but if anyone should know how important his
business was to him, it would be me. A sinking, let-down feeling floated
through my stomach that echoed that I wasn’t important enough for Reese to call
a business meeting short.

“Um, thank you, Mr.
…” I said, wishing I didn’t feel rejected by Reese’s not coming. The feeling
didn’t bode well for my callous plan.
 

“Paul,” he said
politely, mostly likely trying to appease my appearance of disappointment. “I
go by Paul, and the car is over here,” he said, gesturing toward the parking
lot.

 
During the ride, Paul left the window down
between the front and the back of the limo. I nervously made small talk by
commenting on the scenery that went from quaint shops to a slice of the gray
coast in the dusk to woods with budding trees, but inside, my nerves began to
go crazy. Reese’s not picking me up somehow brought all my reservations to
light. That I’d agreed to this entire thing felt insane.

I was in a limo in
the Hamptons, going to meet a gorgeous man who dated models, even a famous
ballerina for fuck’s sakes. That ballerina chick must have been a graceful,
wild pretzel in bed—assuming they’d made it there, and I was assuming—and I
hadn’t been near a live penis in years. I’d probably faint from a rush of
adrenaline the second he shucked off his boxers or whatever the hell he wore.
I’d be a limp, non-responsive, non-wild, non-pretzel lying at his feet. Or
maybe I’d at least tremble in residual shocks while lying on the floor and
looking like a psychotic Southern belle.

After about twenty
minutes, Paul pulled in front of tall iron gates that slowly parted while we
waited. A harsh, jarring tune like the ones in thriller flicks rang through my
head as the gates opened. The music in my head spelled doom. He cruised past
the gates, and we drove along a single, wooded lane. Anxiety drummed in my
stomach.

I wanted to put my
head between my legs for air to get in my lungs. Instead, I made some dumb-ass
comment about the clearness of the dark sky. Oh fuck, I was in over my head,
out of my league, an amateur playing with the professionals, a—

The sprawling house
came into view.

Holy fucking ridiculousness.

What was
I
doing here?

As we drove nearer,
I seriously considered puking. The house appeared massive—like mansion massive.
Lighted windows—like forty—gleamed into the night. Chimneys—how many chimneys
did a house need?—rose into the darkness of the sky. Roofs—I noticed the
plural—sloped and peaked and rolled far and wide. There was even a turret on
one end of the house.

Had Reese brought
the ballerina to this wooden-like castle? Or that model who was on the cover of
Cosmo
?

Oh, hell. This was
several universes from my league.

Paul parked in front
of the massive castle-like structure, and in a quick flash, I imagined begging
him to take me back to the train depot. I’d say that I was sick or secretly
married or I’d admit that I worked for Reese’s company, even admitting that
Kara had set the whole Puerto Rico thing up.

I stared in horror
at the two-door entrance with stained-glass windows. I wasn’t sure what I’d
expected, but it sure as shit wasn’t something that J Lo would buy.

Once Paul opened the
door, I had to force myself from the limo. It felt like I was marching to my
doom. Inside, an impressive, massive, wooden, circular staircase with a domed,
stained-glass ceiling was the first sight.

“Very cottage-like,”
I muttered sarcastically, recalling Reese’s text description of his place in
the Hamptons and craning my neck to study the geometric pattern in the glass
above.

“Pardon me?” Paul asked.

Instantly blushing,
I shook my head. “Just talking to myself.”

Paul gestured to a
closed door on the side of the entrance. “Mr. Jordon is still busy. Would you
like a glass of wine while you wait?”

“Ah…sure,” I said,
feeling totally overwhelmed and let down that Reese continued to be entwined
with business. I resisted the urge to barrel into the room I assumed he used as
his office here and demand what the hell this house was about.

“This way then,”
Paul said, passing the massive staircase.

Grumbling internally
at my own stupidity—my schoolgirl crush had blinded me to the reality of
Reese’s wealth—I followed Paul down a long hallway and into a bright, white
kitchen with endless counters, two ovens in the wall, and an island about as
big as my entire kitchen.

Ridiculous.

This was a little
better than the outside or the entrance though, even though it was over the top
and huge too. I didn’t feel as out of place standing across from a
refrigerator, though I was guessing it was one of those absurd subzero things.

Paul set my bag
down, poured me a glass of wine from a bottle that had been waiting on the
granite counter, and handed me the glass. “There’s a fire through there,” he
said, gesturing to a room off the kitchen. “Mr. Jordon shouldn’t be much longer.”
He lifted my bag. “I’ll go put this in your room. Good evening, Ms. Porter.”

And with that, I was
alone.

I took a gulp of
wine then wandered into the next room. While a fire did roar from the massive stone
fireplace and a lit lamp sat on a table to the side of the couch, the room was
dark with brown leather furniture and dark, wooden walls. I imagined it was
supposed to feel homey, but everything screamed elegant. Overwhelmingly
elegant. I set the wine glass on the nearest table and dug my phone out of my
purse. After peeking in the kitchen and seeing it empty, I wandered into the
room past the one with the roaring fire.

In the dark, the
space appeared to be a sunroom, and I could almost make out the long yard
leading to the dim ocean beyond the glass, yet maybe the scene was my
imagination. My thumb hovered over Kara’s speed dial number as I stood in the
shadowy room. I knew she had to be angry with me, but I was seriously freaking
out here.

Giving in to my
freak-out, I pressed the number. Her phone rang and rang and rang. I was
betting she wouldn’t pick up until she answered with, “Are you kidding me! The
entire fucking weekend? And you leave me a note?”

I hadn’t told her
anything, just left a sticky tab on the fridge this morning for her to find.

“It seemed like a
good idea,” I said weakly, not sure if I was referring to the note, staying
with Reese for the weekend, or both.

A short pause of
silence followed as she took in my tone. “And now?”

“Why didn’t you tell
me he was
so
rich?”

“I told you lots of
things. I told you he came from old money, but you never listened, just
daydreamed about his stupid ass!”

I recalled her
sticking her laptop screen in my face several times and me pushing it away. “Old
money? Old money doesn’t necessarily mean Rockefeller crap, Kara!”

“Oh, in this case,
it does. We’re talking
billions
. The
man is mostly known for his inheritance. You’ve landed in rich-playboy-heir
bullshit land.”
 

My hand found the
nearest piece of furniture—the back of a chair—to help me stay upright. “Why
weren’t you clearer about him having a huge inheritance?”

“Are you seriously
freaking out that’s he’s rich? Does money suddenly impress you? And maybe you
should have learned more about this guy before running away for a weekend with
him.”

“You know money
doesn’t impress me,” I said tightly. “It’s just overwhelming, like culture
shock. A culture I know nothing about nor want to be a part of,” I admitted.

My parents were
middle class, very middle class. Kara’s parents had money, but they were down
to earth, which was why Kara and I had instantly gotten along, though she liked
Jimmie Chan—Chow? I could never recall the damn brand—shoes even in college.
And Reese’s kind of money—like yacht, Monte Carlo, Swiss-bank-account money—was
beyond my realm of understanding.

Kara let out a huff
of air. “You’re in the Hamptons. What the hell did you think?”

“I don’t know? That
he owned a nice cottage maybe on the beach. Definitely not a mansion. Come on.
He works in an up-and-coming firm. He’s not the CEO of some huge company.”

“He could be several
times over. He owns numerous companies, but he went his own route. That’s the
lone positive thing I have to say about him. I can rehash lots of negatives.
But come on, Naomi. Didn’t you ever wonder why the man got so much press?”

“You’re not
helping,” I said through clenched teeth.

“I
already
tried to help. Plus, I thought
this was a quick-fling sort of thing. Does it really matter if he’s loaded?”

“I guess not,” I
said sullenly.

“Or are you already
contemplating long term?”

“No,” I grumbled.
“I’m freaking out since I was clueless. I knew he had money. I was thinking
more like your parents’ or Jules’s type of money. Not ‘able to buy ten
Lamborghinis without denting his bank account’ kind of money.”

“It shouldn’t matter
for the short term.”

“I suppose it
doesn’t. I’m just in shock here.”

“Naomi, if you come
home in love, I’m going to kick your ass. But I’ve got to go. I’ve ignored my
lame-ass date long enough.”

“Okay, sorry. Have
fun.”

“Yeah, you too, and
try
to be more like me while you’re with
him,” she said in a hopeful tone then hung up.

Sighing, I tucked my
phone in my pocket. Though I could never be as blasé about men as her, Kara was
right. Reese didn’t really date. It didn’t matter that he was ridiculously
rich. It felt weird, but it wasn’t like he was boyfriend material. I had about
a week and a half left to enjoy myself and make sure he didn’t find out where I
worked. That was it.

One step into the
fire-lit room and I heard sounds coming from the kitchen. The fridge being
shut. Something being set on the counter. And the tinkle of ice. Oh no. Could
whoever was in there have heard me talking on the phone? Was it Reese? Even if
Paul had heard me bitching to Kara, I’d be mortified.

Since I couldn’t
hide all night, after grabbing my wine glass and taking a huge gulp, I forced
myself into the kitchen.

Reese glanced up
from pouring a glass of red wine at the counter. He appeared pleased. Really,
with his face beaming, he looked quite happy—something I’d never seen until
now.

“Well hello, Ms.
Porter.”

His stare was warm
and a bit mesmerizing. Dressed in old jeans and a fitted V-neck T-shirt, along
with his messy, tousled hair, he looked causal, almost college-aged. His eyes
never left me as he set down the wine bottle. I blinked. His stare was actually
a whole hell of a lot mesmerizing. Between it and my latest knowledge of him, I
stood on the edge of the room, tongue-tied.