CHASE: Complete Series by Cassia Leo Page A

into my mouth and hastily washed them down with the rest of my fresh-squeezed orange juice and espresso.
“Thirsty?” he remarked.
“You have no idea.”
     

3
I spent nearly two days shut inside my room, trying to resist my desire to talk to Drew. He continued to bring exquisite meals to my room even though I had insisted I didn’t need him to cook for me. I wanted to hear Chase’s voice. Every time I touched myself I thought of Chase, but this morning Drew’s face had flashed in my mind. I decided then that I would hold off until I saw Chase in three or four days— if I saw Chase in three or four days.
I sat cross-legged on the floor of the bedroom, just inside the doors leading to the balcony and watched the sunset. The polls had been open for a few hours on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I should be watching the news coverage on my phone, but I couldn’t stand seeing all the interspersed clips of my interview with Diane Sawyer and Heather Rodin’s venomous reaction. I had destroyed Heather Rodin’s career. Actually, she had done that on her own when she fabricated her sources, but it didn’t make me feel any less awful.
A knock came at the door and Drew entered. “I brought you the laptop in case you want to watch the coverage on something bigger than a four-inch screen.”
“Thanks. You can set it down on the bed.”
He laid the computer on the bed and stared at me for a moment. “I was senior class president in high school.”
I smiled. “Is that supposed to impress me?”
“Of course,” he replied, as he joined me on the carpet. “I was embroiled in a big scandal just before that election. I’d been caught ditching home economics two days in a row.”
“Quite the scandal. How did you ever manage to recover from that one?”
“I paid off my Home Ec teacher to dispute the findings.”
I looked at him questioningly and he grinned.
“Okay, the truth is I won because I was extremely good looking. No one cared if I ditched class. There weren’t enough goody-goodies in the school to outweigh those who wanted to bask in the glow of my popularity.”
I chuckled weakly. “I get what you’re trying to say, Drew, but this is a whole other level of deception going on here. I just wish I could be honest. I wish everyone knew that Chase and Katherine’s relationship is a sham. I wish they knew that Chase and I are in love. That’s what I wish the most. I hate the secrecy more than the scandal.”
“Are you afraid he’s going to leave you if he loses?”
“What do you mean? Do you know something I don’t know?”
“No, no, I was just asking,” he replied, shaking his head emphatically. “It’s just… I’d hate to see you get hurt after all of this.”
“Well, I would really hate to get hurt after all of this. This is definitely the most complicated relationship I’ve ever been in.”
“To be fair, what did you expect? He’s Chase ‘Fucking’ Underwood.”
I shrugged. “I guess I didn’t expect to be hidden away in some remote corner of Europe, staring out a window at the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen, alone.”
“Hey,” he said, as he nudged my shoulder. “You’re not alone.”
I turned to him and his smile made my stomach flip. The hair on my arms prickled as I thought of what I had been doing in the shower this morning when Drew’s face flashed in my mind. Suddenly, his face was just inches away. His boyish features and round blue eyes were getting closer; so close I could feel the warmth of his breath.
I placed my hand on his chest and pushed him back. “I’m sorry, Drew. I can’t do that.”
He placed his hands on the floor behind him and leaned back. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I find you very attractive and I think you deserve to be with someone who can give you everything you want; someone who can give every part of themselves to you.”
I stood from the floor and went to the bed where I scooped up the laptop. “Let’s watch some exit poll