For the first time in a long time, I left the Swan before my friends.
It’s been months—years, maybe—since I’ve taken a risk like that. Christian Pierce never bails. He’s the goddamn life of the party. He’s the last one to leave.
Not Friday night.
I had put down my glass—by then, I was getting by on water, that’s how terrible the pain in my head was becoming—and stood up, waving away my friends’ expressions of concern and shocked looks.
“Where you going, buddy?” Todd said, his voice too loud. His date cuddled up into his shoulder, and I knew that it wouldn’t be long before he found his way to one of the Swan’s hotel rooms to spend the rest of the night undressed with her. I wished for one moment that I had been able to leave with Quinn, take her back to my place and undress her, but that ship had sailed.
“Calling it a night,” I said with a devilish smile that suggested I’d be doing otherwise, just not at the Swan. Let them think I was going to another exclusive club, or some dive bar or a hotel room somewhere.
I gracefully acknowledged their drunken chorus of goodbyes, then tried to fade away into the crowd.
Melody followed.
For the most part, the throbbing music drowned her out, but I could hardly interject over her hissed accusations. “What the fuck, Chris?” I heard as I passed between two tables on the way to the back exit. “Who the hell was that—?”
“I’m headed home, Melody,” I said loudly, my own voice ringing in my ears. “Do you want me to call a car for you?”
Her face turned an even darker shade of red at the suggestion that we wouldn’t be riding home together. “Fuck you,” she spat, her eyes narrowed, then whirled around and stalked off toward the restrooms.
I thought I was home free then, but Melody changed her mind. I was nearly to the curb when she burst out of the back exit of the Swan.
“You’re a fucking man slut,” she shouted, the slur in her words more obvious in the crystal silence of the side street. “Why the fuck did you bring me here?”
Too late, I noticed the paparazzi lurking ten feet away down the sidewalk. They make the rounds by the Swan in case anything sensational happens. Friday was their lucky night.
Melody was still trailing after me, stomping comically in a pair of stiletto heels that didn’t deserve the punishment. “You’re such a sick bastard!” she screamed.
I held both hands up, shaking my head. “Mel, you’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” she shouted, and the paparazzi came toward us then, cameras flashing, shutters clicking.
Louis pulled the Town Car up to the curve and I dove in to the back seat, quickly shutting the door behind me, but not before they got a nice shot of Melody swinging her purse at me, her face contorted in rage.
I’m forcing myself not to roll my eyes at the memory when I breeze past my father’s secretary and pull open the doors to his office, striding in with my back straight and my chin up. He’s not a man who bestows pity points, so it’s best to act as though I’ve done nothing wrong.
He looks up from his leather-bound business diary, an artifact from the ancient days of his youth, I assume, and cocks one eyebrow at me. “Interesting night you had on Friday, son.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
The corners of his mouth turn up just slightly, and he lets out a half-hearted sigh. “I can’t say I haven’t been in that position once or twice.” He closes the diary and looks back up at me. “I’m not going to tell you how to spend your free time, Christian, but we need to make some changes when it comes to Pierce Industries.”
“What kinds of changes?” I drop into a seat across from him, doing my best to look comfortable, doing my best to look like my heart isn’t hammering against my rib cage.
“You have earned quite the reputation around the city as a man who enjoys the finer things in life. Food. Women. Drinks.” Now he’s openly smiling at me, and I smile back, even though it feels fucking unnatural. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ll always be waiting for that shoe to drop. “When it comes to your responsibilities here, we need to project an aura of…” His voice trails off as he searches for the appropriate word. “Respectability.”
“I see.”
“So I’ve hired a new PR firm to help you brush up on your image. It doesn’t mean you have to stop frequenting your club. Just work with them on creating some other opportunities to be photographed under other circumstances.”
“Not a problem,” I say with a smile, and my father nods.
I get up from my seat, torn in two. On the one hand, I’m relieved—my father actually approves of my choices and realizes that the thing with the paparazzi wasn’t entirely my fault. On the other hand, I’m sick at heart. Because if I had been anyone else…
“I’ve scheduled their first meeting with you just before lunch, at their offices,” my father says as I turn to leave. “Have your driver take you over.”