Elite (Empire High, #2)(55)

I went over to my closet, pushed past the green dress I’d described to Isabella, and grabbed my mother’s dress. I’m a Sanders. If my mom had lived longer, she would have warned me about the kind of boys that went to Empire High. She’d have made sure I didn’t make her same mistakes. Matthew Caldwell was a mistake in all capital letters. I needed to be with someone like me. Someone who wanted to pick up glass when it shattered. Someone that knew what it was like to not be elite.

I held my mother’s dress in my hands as I retraced my steps past the locked room and down the stairs. Miller had shown me where the staff resided. Left, right. Left, left. This door wasn’t locked. I made my way down the second set of stairs and through the empty hallway.

There were nameplates outside each door I passed, but I didn’t recognize any of the names. The only two people I knew besides Miller were Tiffany and the chef Barbara, but I didn’t know their last names. And the nameplates were all last names. I passed door after door. So many people I hadn’t even met yet. And then finally, at the end of the hall, much like my room, was a nameplate that read Miller.

I knocked before I could chicken out. I didn’t know what I was doing down here. This was probably a mistake, but my feet stood firmly rooted in place. I needed a friendly face right now. I needed him.

Miller answered the door. He was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and no shirt. I wasn’t sure which was sexier. The outline the gray sweatpants gave the muscles in his legs or the exposed muscles of his very defined six-pack. I swallowed hard and my throat made a weird squeaking noise.

“You shouldn’t be down here,” he said.

I held up my mom’s dress. “I need to hide this from Isabella. Can I keep it down here with you?” I knew that Isabella was up to something devious. But I didn’t know what. And I’d be devastated if my mother’s dress got caught in the crossfire.

He leaned out of the doorway, looked both ways, and then grabbed my hand to pull me inside.

The room felt small as soon as I entered it. Or maybe it was just because Miller was so massive.

His hand fell from mine. He grabbed my dress and hung it in his closet amongst a sea of crisply pressed suits. He cleared his throat. “Was there anything else?”

I just want to be with someone like me. Even if only for a minute. I shook my head, but I didn’t move to leave.

“You’re going to get me fired.” He didn’t sound mad.

“You’d be fired if someone found me down here?”

“I’d be fired for a lot of things when it came to you. Letting you get high. Letting you go to the Alcaraz’s. But this? Yeah, this is probably the worst.”

“Why? I’m just standing here.”

I watched as his Adam’s apple slowly rose and fell.

Was he thinking it too? That he wanted to do more than stand? My eyes wandered to his bed behind him. It wasn’t made, and something about that felt so homey to me. I wanted to crawl under his sheets and never leave.

“You need to go,” he said.

“You’re the only one here that makes me feel like I’m not alone.”

“I can’t be that person for you.”

“Why?” I hated how small my voice sounded.

“Because I work for your father.”

“He’s not my father. A father is someone who’s there for you when you fall off your bike and skin your knee. A father is someone who hugs you when you’re crying. A father is someone that didn’t pay off your mother just to get rid of you. He isn’t my father. He’s a monster. No matter how hard he tries, he’ll always be a monster. Because that was how my mother remembered him. And I’ll never dishonor her memory.”

I didn’t even realize that he’d drawn closer to me. He reached out and ran his index finger and thumb down a loose strand of my hair. “It doesn’t matter how you think of him. He’s still going to take care of you. And I’ll never be able to. Not the way he can.”

“Are you talking about money? I don’t care about money…”

“You date guys like Felix Green and Matthew Caldwell.”

“I hate guys like Felix Green and Matthew Caldwell.”

“Hate and love are a fine line, kid.”

I wasn’t a kid. I was barely younger than him. “You were right, I shouldn’t have come down here.” I stepped around him but he moved to block my path.

“What did you want when you came down here?”

“For you to hide my dress.”

“That’s it?”

I shook my head. “I wanted you to make me feel less alone. Like when we ate ice cream together.”

“I’m not a cure for loneliness.”

I took a step toward him. “I know. But you also said a guy who doesn’t stick up for me isn’t someone who’s worth my time. And I have a feeling you’d always stick up for me.”

His eyes dropped to my lips. “I’ll never belong in your world,” he said.

My world? What world? The Pruitt’s? I didn’t belong there. I stared at him. But he was saying that I didn’t belong in his either. But his world was the same as my old one. How could I not belong in my new world or my old one? Where the hell was I supposed to be?

Before I even realized what was happening, his lips were on mine. His words said leave, but his grip on my hips and his tongue in my mouth begged me to stay. And I was more confused than ever as his kiss made my head spin.