Billionaire With a Twist(23)

Martha went on. “After I got fired, Hunter looked me up. Said he’d always thought I seemed like a good employee and he wanted to hear my side of the story, and after he did, he gave me a job. Good pay, good benefits, he doesn’t get handsy, and he trusts me. Lets me handle things. And I do.”

“I’m sorry it’s been rough,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. My job experience didn’t look half so bad compared to hers.

Martha shook her head, rejecting my pity. “It’s in the past. And I’ve always been a present girl, myself.” We peeled into the parking lot of an outlet mall. Martha grinned wide. “And speaking of presents, let’s get you looking like something these boys can’t wait to unwrap…”

#

“Yo, babe, can I top you up?” A young man with more muscles than hand-eye coordination waved a bottle of vodka at me. I was honestly impressed that he was still on his feet.

“I’ll stick to punch, thanks,” I said, taking a sip from my half-full cup. Tonight’s research only involved alcohol at a remove, which was a good thing—I was not looking forward to repeating my last drunken experience with any of these immature dudebros. Or any of my drunken college experiences, come to that.

I winced at the blurry memory of several different parties; there was that time when I vomited green puke all over my closet on St. Patrick’s Day and woke up in the bathtub, that time I confessed my love to a stoner guitar player who stopped me in the middle to tell me he didn’t even know my name, that time I accidentally made out with a former professor and then started crying when he said he was married—

Yeah, no alcohol was definitely the way to go tonight.

I looked around, trying to observe drinkers in their natural habitat. What do twentysomething dudes want? Let’s see, there was a dreadlocked guy leaning into a blonde’s personal space, a clean-shaven polo player topping up a redhead’s drink, a sloppy drunk bearded hipster trying to hug a brunette and toppling onto the couch instead—

Okay, let me rephrase that: what do twentysomething dudes want besides sex?

I looked deeper. Dreadlocked guy had a shirt with Bob Marley and an inspiration quote on it. The polo player was plying the redhead not just with alcohol but with Maya Angelou quotes. And from the couch, the bearded hipster was protesting that he’d totally had the brunette’s back at that march last weekend when some scumball tried to make off with her purse.

Underneath the hormones and bravado, these were just kids. Kids who wanted to belong, and make a difference, but were afraid to go looking for something on their own.

But I could show them the way.

And just like that, I knew exactly what the new tagline for Knox needed to be.

I stood, eager to find Martha so that I could get back to my little guesthouse desk and start writing all of this down.

Unfortunately, as I stood, the surface of the Earth decided to take up waltzing.

Shit. The punch hadn’t been nonalcoholic after all.

I never should have trusted that douchewaffle trying to bring the seventies porn mustache back. That had been the most untrustworthy facial hair I had ever seen. You just knew his whole life was going to be a series of increasingly terrible decisions. And I thought it had tasted a bit off. Crap.

I wandered through the house, trying to keep my legs steady as the walls spun around like a teacup ride. My eyes refused to focus properly on the faces of the people I passed—they were doing all they could to keep track of up vs. down—and I couldn’t see Martha anywhere. Damn, whatever had been in that drink was strong.

I pulled up a cab number on my phone before remembering that it was for a company in D.C. Damn, I wished I could afford a smart phone! One Google search and it’d be problem solved. I eyed the iPhone in a rich frat guy’s hand, but didn’t approach him. Considering these guys’ track record with the punch, a request for a cab company number would probably get me the digits of a crack house.

Still…asking someone for help wasn’t a bad idea. I scrolled down to the number for the manor house. I hated to get one of the servants up out of bed, but they could fire up a computer and get me a cab number, and I’d get them something nice in thanks.

But it wasn’t one of the servants who answered.

“Hello?”

Hunter. I almost hung up.

“Hello?” he asked again. There was a pause—he must have been looking at the Caller ID. “Ally, where in the world are you? We’ve been worried sick.”

A silly grin spread itself out over my face before I realized what I was doing. Why should I care if he was worried about me? He was strictly off-limits.

But that grin wasn’t going away.

I leaned into the wall, my eyes sliding shut as I imagined leaning into his arms.

“Did you miss me?” I teased. Shit, was I slurring? I tried to focus, make my words come out crisp and clear. “There was a, a party. Martha. Martha party. At a frat.”

Hunter sighed, a mixture of exasperation and amusement. “Of course there was. I know exactly where you mean. I’m on my way.”

“No, I didn’t mean, I just wanted—”

But he had already hung up.

Well, I guessed that meant Prince Charming was on his way in his carriage, whether I liked it or not.

#

“Well, this is a new side of you,” Hunter said, eyeing me up and down. His voice was tight—almost…angry? “And here I was, thinking you were a pure professional.”