Take Me with You (Take Me #2)(24)
Author: K.A. Linde

I had finally confessed about kissing Henry. I’d thought everything was out in the open, but he’d been holding back.

What did all of this say about us? Were we too fucked up to have a realistic relationship? Was I blinded by the fact that I loved him?

I felt deluded by how desperately I wanted to be with him. It shouldn’t be this hard. It shouldn’t hurt this bad. It shouldn’t feel as if he had just punched me in the gut when I could see in his face that all he’d wanted to do was hold me close.

My world had always been ruled by logic, but Grant had pushed all logic aside. In its place had grown this inexplicable fear.

Fear of losing him.

Fear of losing myself.

Fear of it all crashing down.

Fear of it not being worth it.

I was so mad at him—for everything. But I was equally mad at myself.

I slammed my finger on the elevator button and ignored the hulking presence behind me. I hadn’t even fought Henry about the cab on the way back to the hotel. Grant hadn’t tried to stop me or come after me, so what would it matter if someone else got me back to my hotel?

We stepped into the elevator, and I pressed the button for the top floor. My father had gotten me a suite, and all I could think about was tumbling headfirst into the king-sized bed and burying my heartache under a mound of pillows.

The elevator opened up onto my floor, and I found my suite number. Sliding the key card into the door, I turned the handle, flipped on the lights, and walked into the room. Henry followed right behind me inside my suite.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

He gave me this little smile, and I had no idea what it meant, but I was sure I wasn’t going to like it. Then, he pushed past me, heading further into the hotel room and going straight toward the phone.

“Henry?”

He held the phone to his ear. “Calling for a bottle of champagne—unless you’d like something stronger?”

My mouth dropped open. “No. I don’t want anything. I want you to leave, so I can go to sleep.”

“You can’t sleep in your condition,” he said matter-of-factly, entirely ignoring the rest of my statement. “You need to wind down and relax.” He dialed the number for room service. “Yes, would you send up your best bottle of champagne and a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue?”

“Scotch and champagne?” I asked indignantly. This was not what I needed when I was pissed about Grant.

“We are celebrating, aren’t we?”

As if that was the reason he wanted me to drink.

“No. I don’t feel like celebrating.”

He sat down on the plush black leather couch in the living room and crossed his leg at the ankle. He ran one hand back through his messy dark blond hair before responding, “Then, we’ll just drink. You can close the door. Room service will knock.”

I turned away from him as I wavered with indecision. I was mad and frustrated, but my anger wasn’t directed at Henry.

I was mad at Grant. Henry was collateral damage in all of this. He was a reminder of the lengths my family would go to keep me on the straight and narrow. Even though Grant and I were…complicated, I still had no intention of making things worse by hooking up with Henry. The thought alone made my stomach turn.

With Grant…I always knew that, one day, he would get signed. ContraBand was on the rise. It made sense to me that they would try to secure a recording contract. None of this had come out of left field for me. I just hadn’t anticipated that he would sneak around behind my back about an offer.

My eyes found Henry’s blue ones once more.

Oh, right.

Henry had been my secret, one that completely fit into my perfect life where I never had to keep secrets.

While Grant was very talented and was going to be very successful, it would be doing something my parents would never approve of.

The whole thing gave me a headache. Sleep was sounding more and more inviting.

“Aribel,” Henry said softly, “it’s just a drink.”

I sighed. “Fine. One drink.”

I shrugged out of my coat and threw it on the back of the couch.

A couple of minutes later, room service arrived with the drinks. The guy popped the top off the bottle for us, poured two glasses, and then left after Henry handed him a crisp twenty-dollar bill. I took a sip of my drink and tried to let the bubbles soothe my temper, but it really wasn’t doing that great of a job. Anyway, I didn’t even want to be drinking. I wanted to be sleeping away the anger, so in the morning, I could think clearly about what to do.

Henry downed his glass of scotch before I’d even gotten through half of my first glass of champagne. He reached for his champagne and finished that, too.

Classical music came through the surround-sound system, and my head popped up in surprise.

Henry smiled down at me and held his hand out. “Dance?” he offered.

“No, thank you.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, taking my hand that I hadn’t offered and pulling me off the sofa.

He twirled me in place as if he’d had years of formal ballroom training, which I supposed he probably had. Then, he tugged me against him, all to the time of the music.

I squirmed and tried to pull away. “Really, I don’t feel like dancing. Just stop.”

“But you’re so good at it.” His head dipped down into the crook of my neck and nuzzled the soft skin.

“Henry!” I cried. “Stop it.”

I tried to get away from him, but he had me locked in a tight embrace. His right arm wrapped around my back, and his left hand clasped mine in a death grip. His right hand traveled to my ass, and he pulled back to look at me with a dirty gleam in his eye.

“Come on, Princess.”

“Get away from me.” I wrenched out of his embrace. I couldn’t believe he had used Grant’s nickname. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I was just helping you relax.” He gave me the sweetest smile he could muster up, and still, it didn’t hide the snake.

“I think our definitions of relaxing are different.”

“You’re in a bad place right now. You need someone to be here for you. I want to be that person, Aribel. That idiot can’t take care of you. He can’t even seem to appreciate what’s right in front of his face. Just let me stay the night.”

I rolled my eyes. What a crock of shit.

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me—least of all you. So, you can turn around right now and get out of my hotel room. I might be angry, but I’m not an idiot.”