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After a long, dreamless sleep, I wake up to my vibrating phone.
Where r u, chica??? my friend Alex texted me. Bill is PISSED OFF.
Crap, I forgot I was supposed to work at Aldi's today. Not that it would matter much if I remembered; Caleb wouldn’t let me go anyway. I make up a half-assed excuse to Alex: Oh damn, I forgot to call in sick.
What??? You’re sick? U never get sick.
Though I’m small and weak, I have a pretty strong immune system. When everyone at Aldi’s got the flu last year, I somehow remained healthy and sniffle-free. Unfortunately, it also meant I had to cover a lot of people’s shifts. Yeah, I don’t know how I caught it, I lie. But I can’t stop puking. And my voice is, like, basically gone.
Awww ): feel better, chica. I’ll tell Bill before he blows a fuse.
Thanks, girl!
Let me know if you need me to come by with chicken noodle soup.
I feel shitty for lying to my friend, but telling someone, Hey, I’m now my ex’s captive, isn’t exactly something you can do over text.
“Who’s Alex?”
“My friend,” I reply, ignoring Caleb’s jealous tone.
He narrows his eyes. “Male friend?”
I roll my eyes. “Female friend. A heterosexual female friend with no sexual or romantic interest in me whatsoever.”
“Have you been with anyone since you broke my heart?”
I cringe at his phrasing. “No.” Then I ask, “Have you?” Frighteningly, a little shard of envy pierces me at the thought of him being with another woman.
“No. Do you think I could be with anyone else after you?”
Relief and fear crash into me all at once. I feel myself swooning, and I don’t know if I can stop it.
Unwelcome disappointment enters me when he stands up and says, “I have to go to my office and finish some work.”
“What am I supposed to do then?”
“Wait for me, obviously.”
I glare at him. “What if I decide to leave the casino?”
With infuriating confidence, he says, “Oh, you won’t leave.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“I just know.” He kisses my cheek, then hands me one of his credit cards. “There’s food in the fridge, but if you want to buy something for lunch, you can use this. Call me if you need anything.”
“I’m going to max out this credit card!” I shout after him like a petty child. I don’t know if I’m pissed at him for leaving me or telling me I can’t leave the casino. I hope it’s the latter, but a part of me suspects it’s the former.
“You can try, Allie,” he says before leaving the apartment.
Alone, I sigh. He can go to work and I have to wait for him to come home like a housewife from the fifties. Annoyed, I get up and walk into his closet, grabbing a t-shirt and jeans. Screw him. I'm a grown-ass woman. If I want to go out, I can and I will go out. After changing, I grab my phone and wallet and walk out of the apartment, fantasizing about going on a ridiculous shopping spree with his credit card. My fantasizing is cut short when a tall blond woman in sunglasses greets me in the hallway.
“Hello, Allison,” she says.
“Uh, how do you know my name?” I feel my mouth go dry, noticing the strong Amazon-like body inside her black pantsuit.
“Mr. Romans hired me to keep an eye on you. My name is Kelly.” She holds out her hand.
Reluctantly, I shake it. “Nice to meet you, Kelly.” Of course Caleb would hire an intimidating-looking woman to make sure I wouldn’t leave the casino. There’s no way he was going to let me go that easy.
“Where would you like to go, Allison?”
I purse my lips. “I’m guessing Caleb told you to not let me leave the premises.”
“Well...”
“Bastard,” I mutter.
She clears her throat. “Are you hungry? Do you want to have lunch in one of the restaurants downstairs?”
“Sure. And you know what? I’ll buy you lunch too. Anything you want. The more expensive, the better.” I know I’m being petty, and chances are Caleb won’t even care about how much I charge on his card, but it does make me feel a tiny bit better.
“That’s very generous,” Kelly says as we walk onto the elevator.
“Are you going to take off those sunglasses?” She looks like a Secret Service agent. Knowing the kind of people Caleb hires, I wouldn’t be surprised if she worked for the president at some point. Caleb only hires the best of the best.
“No,” she answers.
“Why not?”
She lifts her shoulders. “I look good in them.”
I can’t argue with her there.
When the elevator doors open, I head toward Steak, the most expensive restaurant in the casino. My ex didn’t bother with giving the restaurants in Four Leaf proper names—he named the steakhouse Steak, the seafood place Fish, the dessert place sweets, et cetera. His straightforward approach seems to work, though. The steakhouse is packed, and Steak got raving reviews from food critics.
The corners of my lips turn down when I see the groups of people at the bar, all of them fidgeting while they wait for a table. “Maybe we should see if Fish is less busy—”
“Miss Huang?”
I raise eyebrows as the hostess comes up to me with a big smile on her face. “You’re talking to me?”
“Yes,” she says. “Table for two?”
“Um, yes...”
“Right this way.”
As I follow the hostess, I give Kelly a perplexed look. “I don’t understand. I didn’t make a reservation.”
“Mr. Romans probably instructed his staff to take care of his woman,” she replies with a shrug.
“I’m not his woman.”
“Right,” she says, her voice neutral.
The hostess leads us to a booth and hands us our menus. As I scan the menu for the most expensive items, Kelly remarks, “Mr. Romans seems to really care about you.”
“If trapping me here against my will is your definition of caring.” My phone begins vibrating. I take it out of my pocket, glowering at the screen when I see that it’s Caleb calling me. I put my phone down on the table, ignoring it even after it vibrates anew with his second call. Once my phone is still, Kelly’s cell starts ringing.
“Hello, sir,” she answers. She nods, then hands me her phone. “It’s for you.”
My ex sure is a persistent ass. “Hello,” I say into the cell through clenched teeth.
“You shouldn’t ignore my calls,” Caleb says.
“You shouldn’t hire a babysitter without telling me.” I mouth to Kelly, No offense.
“None taken,” she says.
“I needed a form of insurance,” he says calmly.
I scoff. “Why did you call me?”
“To check up on you.”
“Well, I’m fine. So there, you accomplished your mission.”
“Do you need anything?”
“Nothing from you.”
A pause. Then: “At some point, you’re going to stop pushing me away, Allison.”
Before I can respond, he hangs up.
I flush. You’re going to stop pushing me away. He sounded so sure about that. Then I remember last night, when I kissed him and asked him to sleep with me. My blush grows deeper. I’m so stupid. Of course that would make him think that he still has a chance.
Hey, if you’re going to be honest with yourself, he does have a chance. Your feelings for him haven’t exactly gone away.
Shut up, annoyingly right voice in my head.
“Hmm, I think I’m going to have the filet mignon and a glass of merlot,” Kelly says.
“Drinking on the job?” I joke.
“I have a very high alcohol tolerance.” Then she says, “You should stop pushing him away.”
I gawk at her. “Do you have super-hearing?”
Ignoring my question, she says, “He adores you.”
I force a snort. “Okay.” You have to admit she’s right. A manipulative bastard Caleb may be, but he has showered me with affection: feeding me my favorite foods, giving me orgasms, and saying he would marry me if I got pregnant. Could I spend the rest of my life with a casino owner though? A casino owner who profits off people’s self-destructive tendencies and does whatever to claim what he thinks is his? That’s why I broke up with him—I couldn’t find a way to be comfortable with his profession or with the morally dubious things he does for said profession, although he took care of me and I love(d) him.
After we eat a ridiculously decadent meal of steak, goat mac and cheese, and crème brulee, I try to get the check, but the waiter tells me, “It’s been taken care of.”
“Mr. Romans,” Kelly says with a smile. Once we exit the steakhouse, she asks, “What would you like to do now? Try your hand at blackjack?”
“No, I don’t gamble.” I fear I wouldn’t be able to stop once I started, in case I’m more like my father than I thought.
“Okay, would you like to go shopping?”
Four Leaf is so huge that it contains a mini shopping mall. The mall only has super bourgeois stores though, like Louis Vuitton or Saks Fifth Avenue. I don’t mind dropping some dough on good food, but I balk at the idea of spending $200 on a top. Nonetheless, I say, “Sure, let’s go shopping.” I don’t really have any other options unless I want to go back to the apartment. I won’t buy anything though; I’ll just take a perverse enjoyment in seeing how much the one-percent is willing to spend on bullshit labels.
When Kelly and I are by the women’s section in Saks Fifth Avenue, I hear a familiar voice exclaim, “Chica, I knew you weren’t sick!”
I pale as I see Alex walking toward me, her black curls bouncing around her heart-shaped face. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
Her olive cheeks get red, and she slaps my arm. “Girl, don’t try that with me. But if you must know, my shift at Aldi’s ended early and I felt like playing the slot machines. The real question is what are you doing here. Aren’t you supposed to be at your apartment puking your guts out?”
“About that...”
“Do you need some assistance, Allison?” Kelly asks, snapping into bodyguard mode.
“No, I’m good, Kelly.”
Alex lifts an eyebrow. “Who’s Kelly?”
“The person Caleb hired to keep an eye on me.”
“What? Explain.”
I explain. With my every sentence, Alex’s eyebrow climbs higher and higher up her forehead. At the end, she hisses, “I could kill him. Using your situation like that—that fucking son of a bitch.”
“Yeah, he sucks.”
“He actually won’t let you leave the casino?”
I shake my head. “Not even for my job.”
She curses. “Don’t worry about your job, chica. I’ll convince Bill you have some health issue that requires you to take the month off. The guy’s dumb; it’ll be easy to fool his ass.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Oh, but I shall. In the meantime, let’s have some fun. You know your douchebag ex recently opened up a club here? It’s supposed to have an awesome bar. Let’s get trashed.”
“Trashed? It’s one in the afternoon!”
“It’s night somewhere, my dear Allison.”
Then my friend takes my hand and we go to dance the day away.