The Score (Off-Campus #3)(77)

She sighs. “You live in the penthouse of the Heyward Plaza Hotel?”

“Yup.” I drop the towel on the polished hardwood. “Hey, what do you think—will that make your dad hate me less, or hate me more?”

Her laughter tickles my ear. “Oh shut up. He doesn’t hate you.”

Yeah right. She’d be singing a different tune if she’d heard the shit he said to me in the living room last night.

I don’t trust you to take care of my daughter.

Fuck. MS or not, the old man is still delivering blows that sting days later.

I shove the angering exchange out of my mind and say, “I’ll see you soon.” Then I wander around my room collecting random items of clothing.

The cleaning staff already tidied up the place this morning—they show up twice a week like clockwork, whether or not anyone is staying at the penthouse—but I have a mystifying habit of accumulating a mess even if I’ve been somewhere for only a couple hours. Our housekeeper Vera calls me the Accidental Slob.

Twenty minutes later, after the front desk buzzes to let me know my visitor has arrived, I head for the elevator that opens directly onto the living room.

Only my prep school friends have visited me here before, and since their homes are equally…luxurious…none of them had ever batted an eye when they came over.

Allie bats an eye.

The second she emerges from the elevator, her jaw is on the marble floor and her eyebrows are higher than the fifteen-foot ceiling.

“Sweet mother of Moses,” she breathes. Her awed gaze travels around the parlor, living room and north-facing terrace, before returning to me. “Okay. I demand a tour.”

I offer a self-deprecating laugh. “It’ll be a long tour,” I warn her.

“I don’t care if it takes five hours. I want to see every inch of this palace, your majesty.”

As I show her around the penthouse, I find myself viewing it through her eyes. Every room we enter makes her gawk and gasp and curse in amazement—the walnut-paneled library, the modern chef’s kitchen, the gym, the wine cellar…okay, I guess this place is a wee bit over the top.

“Where are the bedrooms?” She looks confused when we wind up back in the living room and stop near the hand-carved mantelpiece of the massive fireplace.

“Oh, that was just the first floor,” I say sheepishly.

“This place has two floors?”

I mumble, “Three.”

“Three floors?” She stares at me as if I just stepped off an alien spaceship. “I think I want to punch you right now.”

“I think I want to punch myself.” I don’t like this unwelcome pang of self-consciousness. Or rather, I don’t like feeling like I’m the most overindulged prick on the planet.

Allie’s father’s voice suddenly buzzes through my mind. Disparaging and cold, mocking me about how I know nothing about “real world problems.”

Damn it. Why am I letting that man get under my skin? So what if I grew up with money? I still know the meaning of struggle and hardship and…f*ck, who am I kidding? The Life of Dean is pretty sweet. It always has been. But I can still empathize with people who’ve been less fortunate than I am. I can still “step up and be there” when someone f*cking needs me.

We climb the sweeping marble staircase and she stops to admire one of my mom’s favorite abstract paintings. For all the pomp and circumstance of this place, my parents didn’t go overboard with the décor. The penthouse has a clean, modern design, and most of the art on the walls is by no means expensive. Mom is all about supporting local artists.

“Is your room on the second floor?” Allie asks.

I shake my head. “Master bedroom is down there.” I point to the left. “Guest rooms are there.” I point to the right. “You want to see any of those or can we skip this floor?”

“We can skip it.” She’s already bounding up the stairs again.

I lead her into my bedroom. She admires every inch of the enormous room, from the custom-made oak bed to the built-in bookshelves to the wall of gleaming windows.

“No curtains?” She sounds a bit dazed.

“Automatic shades,” I admit. “Remote-control operated.”

“Wow.” As she wanders around exploring, the sunlight flooding the room catches in her golden hair, which is loose around her shoulders. She studies the endless rows of titles on the bookshelf, then whirls toward me. “Okay. Admit it.”

“Admit what?”

She points an accusing finger at me. “You’re smart.”

I snort loudly. “Of course I’m smart.”

“You sure as hell don’t act like it.” Allie crosses her arms over the front of her loose striped sweater. “In fact, I feel like you go out of your way to make everyone believe you’re a dummy. With your ‘baby dolls’ and foul language and the way you throw ‘ain’t’ into a sentence every so often.”

I flash her a grin. “Nope, that’s just how I f*cking talk, baby doll. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

Her eyes dance with amusement. “Uh-huh. So how come you never talk about law school?”

“What’s there to talk about? I’m not in law school yet.” I sit on the edge of the bed that I hastily made right before she got here.