“Make sure you stab that heart with an arrow until it bleeds,” Chloe muttered, scowling at the door as if Kenneth might pop back through it at any moment. “That was Kenneth Chamberlin.”
“No! Way!” Henry sat bolt upright. “That was the man whose calls you’ve been dodging for the past two weeks? What is wrong with you?”
He peered at her with concern. She was checking her pulse. “No, really, what’s wrong with you?” he asked.
“I’m just checking to see if I’m currently experiencing a myocardial infarction.” At his raised eyebrow, she added grudgingly, “Heart attack. I do seem to be suffering from excessive perspiration, shortness of breath and an elevated pulse rate, and other odd and unexpected symptoms, but since I’m not experiencing left-sided chest pain, I believe I’ll hold off on a trip to the emergency room for the moment. Do stand by, though.”
“I have no choice, I’m scheduled for two more hours here. What odd symptoms?”
She didn’t like the way Henry was scrutinizing her, and she had no intention of sharing. There was something about meeting Kenneth Chamberlin in the flesh…she pressed her legs together very, very hard and tried to banish the lurid fantasies that were suddenly flashing through her mind. Pictures of Kenneth naked, limbs tangled carelessly around hers, feeding her chocolate as she sucked at his fingers…
This despite the fact that she’d loathed the Chamberlin family from afar for her entire life for their nefarious deeds.
Of course, he was handsome, but that was no reason for such an extreme physical reaction on her part. She’d been around handsome men before. She’d even had relationships with a couple of them – and her body had never, ever lit up like a Las Vegas slot machine which just hit the jackpot.
She could see Henry was still staring at her intently, waiting for an answer.
“Henry, my family has had one guiding belief, for the past three generations,” she said, changing the subject. “It has been passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me. It’s a motto that we live by.”
“And what motto is that?”
“Never trust a Chamberlin.” And she turned back to her towering stack of final exams.
* * * * *
“So, how did it go, old sport?” Kenneth’s father Maxwell asked.
Kenneth settled into the heated leather seat in his limousine and glared at the cell phone. “Old sport? Is that what they called each other back in your prep school days, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth?”
“Ahh, a childishly snappish response. So she kicked you to the curb.” His father’s voice was unbearably smug.
“She most certainly did not,” Kenneth said, indignantly. He was just glad that he hadn’t taken his father up on his offer to accompany him to the University of Upstate New York. Having his father gloat in person would have made the day even more aggravating. “In fact, I’ll have you know that she and I are going to the university’s annual fundraising ball tonight.”
“She agreed to be your date?” His father’s voice was incredulous.
Kenneth scowled. His father, unfortunately, could read him like a book. And there was no point in lying to the man; he could smell a lie through the phone, all the way from his home in the cool, foggy climes of Northern California. It was uncanny, really. “She will be at the ball. I will be at the ball.”
“So, she is going to the ball and you’ll be there, too. I imagine wedding bells can’t be far off.” Amusement laced his father’s slow drawl. “And by the way, is now a good time to say I told you so?”
“Not particularly,” Kenneth said through gritted teeth. “And why were you so sure that she’d want nothing to do with me?” Kenneth had refused to believe his father when he told him that. A woman who’d want nothing to do with Kenneth Chamberlin? That had never happened before. It was as incomprehensible as finding out the moon was made of green cheese. It defied the laws of nature.
“I tried to warn you, our family has had a bit of history with her family.”
Yes, his father had tried to warn him before he headed off to New York. He’d told him that there was no point in approaching Chloe Novak, or her mother Hilary, and most especially, definitely, positively,, not her grandmother. Assuming that Kenneth could even find her grandmother, a notorious recluse. They would not answer his questions, they would not help him in any way, they would welcome him like the Ebola virus, only with less enthusiasm, and possibly gunfire.
Kenneth had completely brushed him off. Since when did a thirty- year-old man take advice from his own father? Especially when his father was telling him something utterly ridiculous, like “That woman will have nothing to do with you.”