Her Brother's Billionaire Best Friend

Chapter 2

CHARLOTTE

The resort was absolutely ridiculous. There was no other way to describe it. We pulled through the tall wrought-iron gates at midnight, and everything inside the stucco perimeter fence was hopping.

"I thought this was a quiet seaside vacation spot," Mom said nervously as she peered out the window of the giant SUV that had picked us up.

A deep bass throb vibrated the air around the car as we pulled up to the reception building. When an attendant opened our door, the distorted voice of an overly enthusiastic DJ was shouting, "If you're having a good time, get those hands up!" to a cascade of cheers.

"What the hell is that?" Mom asked the man who'd opened her door.

The guy was probably around my age, but he didn't waver when confronted by Mom's I'd-like-to-speak-a-manager tone. Instead, he smiled broadly and said, "Wild Side Wednesday, ma'am. Trust me, you can't hear it from the residence side of the resort."

Mom's "hmm" made it clear she was not convinced.

"So, this is Scott's buddy's place?" Dad was already impressed. "I was imagining something else. Maybe a seaside Holiday Inn–type thing with a tiki bar."

"No tiki bar, I'm afraid," the attendant said, leading us toward the doors to reception. "Don't worry about your bags; they're going to take them straight to your villa."

"Villa?" I mouthed to Dad, who looked even more impressed than before.

We were greeted with glasses of chilled champagne while we checked in—there was a whole process for wedding guests, which included goody bags—and someone arrived on an electric golf cart to whisk us off to our villa.

"I can still hear it," Mom muttered, though the sound of the party was now far, far away.

"I bet Scott's down there," Dad said. "Sowing the last of his wild oats."

"I think that phrase refers to creating illegitimate children, so I hope not," I mused, wandering around the enormous great room of our villa.

The woman who'd driven us to our accommodations informed us that our luggage was already in our rooms. Mom and Dad were in the master suite on one end of the villa, I was in the bedroom on the other side, and in between were a full-sized kitchen, an enormous dining area, luxurious seating, and a television large enough to show frickin' IMAX movies on.

"Not exactly rent-by-the-hour, huh?" Mom teased Dad.

"There's a firepit on the patio," the woman informed us. "All you need to do is call me, and I can get someone here building you a fire and making s'mores in no time. And there are soaking tubs on the private verandas off the bedrooms—"

"Okay, I gotta see this." I headed into my bedroom, which was roughly the size of an entire hotel room on its own, and flung open the arch-topped french doors. The private veranda faced the gently rolling sea, which would give me a great view from the generously sized, freestanding tub.

I was going to spend so much time drinking in that tub.

Perhaps the best part of the private veranda situation was the path that wound toward the water and intersected with a larger sidewalk that disappeared behind a hedge. We were tucked away with as much privacy as one could get at a resort, and I could easily get away from the villa without my parents noticing and asking questions.

I was going to spend so much time smoking weed in that tub.

I just had to get my hands on some. In Cali, I had no trouble finding it, but this was South Carolina. At a resort, it shouldn't be that hard. I'd just have to find my way to where employees hung out on breaks; having bounced between plenty of restaurant jobs, I knew there would be at least one person in the kitchen who was permanently baked and not in the culinary sense. Many times, that person had been me.