Grace: I thought so. Now get your ass over here!
I growl out a slew of curses under my breath, still seriously contemplating fleeing for the sake of my sanity, when I catch sight of a short, curvy redhead in a tight, backless black dress, higher than high heels, and fuck-me red lips that match her hair walking up to Christa. She’s as late as I am, and before I know what I’m doing, a smile cracks clear across my face.
I know her instantly.
Even if it’s been ten years since I’ve seen her. A guy never forgets the girl who gave him his first boner. A first ever boner in class, I might add. We were twelve and she bent over to retrieve her fallen pencil when a flash of her training bra caught my eye. Instant erection.
I was pretty smitten after that moment as you might imagine.
“Amelia,” Christa greets her, her face now lacking any of the warmth it had when she was talking to me. “I had no idea you were coming.”
What the fuck? You’d think in the ten years since we graduated from our annoyingly prestigious prep school that the rich girls would get over the self-created, mean-girl bullshit they had with the scholarship kids.
Amelia turns redder than her hair, and she takes a small step back before straightening her frame and squaring her shoulders. “Well, I’m here. Graduated same year as you. I even received the invitation in the mail. Must have been an error on your part,” she finishes sarcastically.
“Uh huh. It’s a hundred-dollars entrance fee,” Christa snaps, taking far too much pleasure in announcing that sum as she purses her lips off to the side, giving Amelia a nasty-girl slow once over.
“A hundred dollars?” Amelia asks, though it comes out in a deflated breathy whisper.
“Yup. Sorry,” Christa sneers with a sorry-not-sorry saccharine sweet voice. “No exceptions. Not even for the kids who were on scholarship.”
And that’s it. Before Christa can say anything else that will make me want to throttle her, I walk over to Amelia, wrapping my hand around her waist. “Sweetheart,” I exclaim. “You made it. I was starting to get worried.”
Amelia jolts in my arms, her breath catching high in her throat as she twists to face me. Then she looks up and up a bit more because she’s about a foot shorter than I am even in her heels. Suddenly, two sparkling gray eyes blink rapidly at me, and my heart starts to pound in time with the flutter of her lashes, my mouth dry like I’ve been eating sand all night.
“I’m sorry,” she says confused, her parted lips hanging just a bit too open for us to be selling this. “I think you must—”
I lean in, my nose brushing against her silky red hair that smells like honeysuckle or something sweet and breathe into her ear, “Just go with it.”
She swallows audibly as I pull back, staring into her eyes and wondering how a color like that is even possible when she smiles and robs me of my breath. Whoa. That’s unexpected.
“I didn’t mean to worry you…” She trips up, biting into her lip like she’s searching for a suitable term of endearment. Or maybe my name? I guess it is possible she has no idea who I am. We didn’t exactly run in the same circles, and I just came up to her and wrapped my arm around her. “Oli,” she finishes with, and I blow out the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.
“It’s fine. I just didn’t want to go in without the most beautiful woman in the world on my arm.”
Amelia gives me that stunning smile again, this time with a blush staining her cheeks, and I marvel at how it makes her eyes glow to a smoky charcoal. Goddamn, she’s fucking sexy.
“Wait,” Christa interrupts. “You’re with her?” She points at Amelia.
“I sure am,” I declare without removing my eyes from Amelia’s because those eyes, man. They’re just too pretty not to stare at. “I’m a lucky bastard, right?”
“You’re with him?” She turns that finger on me.
“So it seems,” Amelia replies, her tone a bit bewildered, though there is a hint of amusement in there, too.
“But. You’re. You. No. You’re Oliver Fritz,” Christa sputters incredulously. “And she’s Amelia—” Her words cut off when I throw her my most menacing glare, already knowing the exact nasty nickname she’s about to throw out. Why certain women feel the need to degrade and belittle other women, I’ll never understand.
I slip two one-hundred-dollar bills from my wallet and toss them at Christa. “Have a good night,” I say instead of what I’m really thinking. My fingers intertwine with Amelia’s, and then I’m dragging her past Christa, down the long corridor with the paisley rug and gold walls toward the ballroom.
I guess I’m going into my high school reunion after all.
The second we’re out of sight of Christa, Amelia yanks her hand from mine, stopping in the middle of the hall and turning to stare up at me. “You remember me?” she asks, and then shakes her head like that’s not what she meant to say.
“Amelia Atkins. You were in most of my classes from the time we were in sixth grade or so on.”
“Right. What I meant to say is, thank you for stepping in back there, but it really wasn’t necessary.”
“Maybe not. I’m sure you can handle yourself with women like Christa. But it felt wrong to stand there and watch that go down, doing nothing. I can’t stand women who feel the need to hurt others just to make themselves look and feel better.”
She folds her arms over her chest, giving me a raised eyebrow. “And yet you dated a woman who did exactly that all through high school.”
Touché. A bark of a laugh slips past my lungs. “Can’t argue with that. Hell, I dated that same vicious woman through college too. Adolescent mistake. What can I say?”
Still, at the mention of that particular woman, an old flair hits me straight in the chest. My fingers find my pocket, toying with the large diamond solitaire set in a diamond and platinum band I stuck in there tonight. It’s the ring. The one I nearly gave to said woman who was screwing around on me with my friend, Rob. A lesson in betrayal I’ve never forgotten. It’s why on certain occasions I carry it with me.
A reminder to never get too close again.
“Sorry,” Amelia says, withering before my eyes. “That was insanely rude of me. I don’t even know why I said that. Christa got my hackles all fired up, and I just took them out on you instead of her like I should have. Damn, some women seriously suck, right?” I can’t stop my chuckle though I think she was being serious. She stares down at the rug, shifting her stance until she’s leaning back against the wall opposite the closed doors where the reunion is taking place. “Look, I wish you hadn’t paid for me. Money and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment. It’s going to take me a while to pay you back. But I will pay you back. I just don’t have that kind of—”
My fingers latch onto her chin, tilting her head back up until our eyes meet. “I don’t care about the money. And I don’t want you to pay me back.” She opens her mouth as if to argue with me, and I shake my head, cutting her off again. “I mean it.”
She huffs out a breath. “Well, thank you. That’s very generous. But if this is how my night is already starting off, I’m thinking maybe I should just go. Hell, I shouldn’t even have come here in the first place. I don’t know what I was thinking. My sister talked me into it, and I thought…” She shakes her head. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”