I quickly jump in the shower and get ready for work. It’s really warm out today, so warm that I wish I could wear shorts to work but of course that isn’t safe or acceptable at the bakery. Instead I’m stuck wearing jeans and the bakery T-shirt with the store’s logo on it.
I love that my apartment has a balcony on it; it’s convenient to be able to step outside in the morning and have a cup of coffee.
Knock knock
“Good morning, Hunter,” I greet him at the door after setting the alarm and grabbing my purse.
“Good morning, Ms. Rose, how are you?” he asks.
“Are you ever going to call me Kenzie?” I’ve requested he drop the Ms. Rose many times, but he never does.
“Probably not,” he chuckles.
“Of course not,” I laugh at his admission. “I’m only working until one today, but then I need to do some shopping this afternoon. I’m thinking of stopping back at here for lunch and then maybe going shopping, if you are available?”
“Of course, Ms. Rose. I have the car ready for us downstairs.”
“I thought we would walk today since I’m not going in till later?” Hunter doesn’t think it’s safe to be walking just the couple of blocks to the bakery in the wee hours of the morning so we have been driving.
“I’m sorry, I forgot you wanted to walk. I need to drop off something on our way back from the bakery. If you want to walk, I can always come back here—“
“No, of course not. We can drive.”
While Hunter maneuvers through the city traffic, I take out my phone and read through the latest headlines. Even though I have the alerts set on my phone for anything related to Nicholas, I still search his name on the internet since I haven’t received anything recently. There is no reference of our attendance at the awards dinner, but I’m not surprised since it was a small event. I think it worked out well that there was no press, considering how sick Nicholas was that evening. The last thing he would need is to have the press get a picture of him leaving the dinner ill. I’m sure they would have had a field day with that.
“Hunter, where are we going? This isn’t the usual route.” I look out the window observing where we are. I don’t recognize the buildings on this street and it seems like we are heading in the opposite direction of the bakery.
“Yes… about thirty to forty minutes out depending on traffic. Yes… I understand,” Hunter says into an earpiece.
“Hunter?” I ask when he seems to have ended the call. “I think the bakery is that way.”
“It is, ma’am.”
“Where are we going?” Now I’m getting nervous… Up until now I’ve trusted Hunter; the ride to the bakery in the morning takes less than seven minutes so I haven’t considered the situation a risk. However, his actions this morning have me doubting my own judgment. I’m seconds away from having a full-blown panic attack… I can’t believe that I trusted a man again. I never thought Hunter would do something, but what if—
“I have been instructed to bring you to a location where we will meet Mr. Parker and Carter.”
“What? Where are we meeting them?”
“I’m not at liberty to tell you, ma’am.”
“You’re not at liberty? What if I refuse to go? You can’t just take me there against my will!” My breathing is increasing, my heart is racing—I can feel the walls pushing in. I need to get out of the car. I need to take control back… I have no control here. I try opening the car door, but it is locked, despite me hitting the unlock button multiple times.
“Ms. Rose… Ms.—KENZIE!” Hunter calls my name loudly. My eyes meet his in the rear view mirror. “If you don’t want to go, I will turn around and we can go back to your apartment. Please do not try to jump out of the car. You’ll hurt yourself, and Mr. Parker will fire me if you do that!”
“Where… where are we going?” I ask.
“We’re meeting Mr. Parker and Carter. I promise you are not in danger. Mr. Parker has arranged… something… he wanted it to be a surprise.”
“I’m supposed to be at work—my shift started nine minutes ago.”
“You actually aren’t scheduled to work today at all, Ms. Rose. Mr. Parker had requested your supervisor’s assistance in scheduling this trip so you would be surprised. She agreed to put you on the schedule for a couple of hours even though she didn’t need you to work.”
“He could have just told me about all of this!”
“It’s none of my business, but I don’t believe you two have exactly been talking this week.”
I slowly begin to relax. I feel a little more at ease knowing that I’m going to meet Nicholas and Carter. I can’t remember the last time I had a panic attack, but the fact that I almost had one a few minutes ago is very frightening. I don’t like feeling out of control, and I especially don’t like feeling unsafe. In the back of my mind, I knew Hunter wouldn’t have hurt me, yet that was immediately where my mind went when I realized we were unexpectedly heading in the opposite direction of the bakery.
“We’re here, Ms. Rose,” Hunter alerts me to the fact that the car is stopped a few minutes later. I look out the window but all I see is a parking lot, which doesn’t help me figure out where we are. He comes around, opens my door, and I step out into the bright sunlight.
“Kenzie,” Nicholas’s familiar voice erases the last bit of tension in my body. “Thank you for coming.”
“I don’t think I had much of a choice,” I say sarcastically, trying to hide any signs of the panic attack that was creeping up.
“You did… you always have a choice. But thank you for coming. If you’re ready, I’d like to start our day.”
“I guess. I didn’t bring anything with me—“
“I have everything you need, don’t worry.”
Nicholas leads me over to a set of stairs and the view before me absolutely stunning. We are at a marina with dozens of bobbing boats in each direction and beyond them is the open water.
“We’re…?”
“I’m taking you out for a day on my boat, that is if you want to.”
“Wow… I mean, yes, of course!”
We walk down the steps to the dock, past several smaller boats until we reach the largest boat in the row. Nicholas helps me step onto the deck, before having a few words with Carter.
“Ready to take off, Kenzie?” Nicholas asks.
“Yes!”
“We have to go slow until we get further away from the Marina, it’s the ‘No Wake’ rule, but then we’ll speed up. If you want to walk around, just hold onto the railing, it can be tricky on a moving boat until you get used to it.”
With that, Nicholas climbs up to what I think is called the bridge and starts the motor. As he said we would, we move slowly through the marina, but I don’t mind because it gives me a chance to take everything in. We pass by dozens of all different sized boats, and then the water just seems to open up. The boat accelerates, and we start moving through the water much faster. As we go out further, we begin to pass by large, beautiful houses that are clearly designed to take in the view of the water. They are the types of houses that you can only dream of living in but will never be able to afford. As we move further away from the coast, the houses slowly fade away, and looking around, the only things that I can see are a few boats and the open water.
Feeling rather silly while he does all the work, I decide to go off and find Nicholas. I stand up and immediately feel a little unsteady on my feet but quickly gain my confidence as I walk further into the boat. I glance down a set of stairs and see what looks to be like a small living room. I carefully head toward the back of the boat where I find Nicholas holding the wheel as he gazes out the window at the endless water in front of us. He seems very relaxed, more so than I ever think I’ve seen him. I can see why he said he finds it so relaxing; it’s almost as if no one else in the world exists. He looks so different than the man I first met to discuss a business contract, yet he also looks different from the man I spent time with over
the weekend. He looks like someone who doesn’t have a care in the world.
“It’s beautiful out here,” I say.
“Oh! You startled me; I didn’t hear you. Would you like to try steering it?”
“No! I’ll crash into something or break it!”
“Kenzie, look around. There’s nothing for miles. There’s a boat all the way over there.” He points to the left of us. “You won’t crash into anything, I promise. C’mon, take the wheel.”
He puts his arm out, indicating I should step in front of him to take control of the steering wheel that sort of resembles one that you would find in a car. I cautiously step in front of him, still worried that I’m going to somehow break the boat. He steps closer to me and brings my hands onto the wheel. He is standing so close to me right now that I swear I can feel his breath on my neck… I can’t help but think about how good it felt to fall asleep with his arms around me last Saturday night. I slept so soundly after the nightmare, unlike most nights when I have nightmares, where if I even try to go back to sleep I end up having another one.
“I’ll be right back, just hold the wheel steady,” Nicholas lets go of the wheel and walks away from me.
“What?! Where are you going?”
He doesn’t answer me but disappears down a set of steps just to my right that I hadn’t noticed before. While he’s gone, I concentrate on holding the steering wheel straight, which isn’t really that difficult. I constantly scan the horizon for boats or big rocks or land or anything else I might crash into while Nicholas is gone. A few minutes later, he comes back up the stairs carrying two glasses of orange juice and a bowl of fruit. He sets everything down on a table near a couple of lounge chairs.
“You doing okay?” he asks.
“I haven’t crashed us yet.”
“No, you haven’t,” he chuckles in agreement. “I was thinking we would cut the motor and drop the anchor up ahead to the right. What do you think?”
“Uh… sure. Whatever you want to do is fine.”
“Think you can steer us over there?”
“No.”
“Sure you can. It’s just like a driving car; don’t jerk the wheel too hard in one direction. Slowly ease the wheel in the direction you want to move… Yup, that’s it; hold it steady just like that.”
He is right behind me again; one of his hands is on a control that seems to be decreasing the speed of the boat. With Nicholas this close to me, it’s hard to think of anything other than the night I slept in his arms. It felt so good to have someone hold me again, to have someone’s arms wrapped around me. If we weren’t under contract with Bridget, I would turn around right now and throw my hands around his neck and press my body against his, just so I could feel him against me again. I could just imagine his arms wrapping around my waist as he pulled me even closer to him, his lips would slowly come down to reach mine—
“This looks like a good spot… What do you think?” He pulls me from my thoughts. My face heats up in the realization that I was just thinking about him kissing me while he was standing right behind me.
“Sure, sounds good.” I try to hide the embarrassment from my voice.
Nicholas hits a button and the motor immediately silences.
“I thought we could have some fruit? I can get something else, if you’re hungry?”
“No, fruit is fine. I had breakfast not that long ago.”
He leads me to an area with several lounge chairs and tables where we sit, the fruit bowl and drinks on a small table between us.
“If you get too warm, I brought a change of clothes for you, as well as a bathing suit if you want to swim.”
“You did?” Wow, I’m shocked that Nicholas came this prepared for the trip. While the breeze is cool now, I could see it heating up in the next hour or so when the sun is higher in the sky.
“We also have a packed lunch, bottles of water, wine, suntan lotion, towels, and probably anything else we might need. I wasn’t sure how long you would want to be out here, so I planned as if we were going to spend the day on the water.”
“Thank you… you really didn’t have to go to all this trouble, Nicholas.”
“I did.” He takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. He looks very conflicted, as if he is trying to figure out what to say next. “I fucked up, Kenzie… I’m not proud of my behavior toward you on Sunday. I sounded ungrateful and as if I didn’t care that you gave your entire weekend up to take care of me—“
“No, that—“
“Please, Kenzie. Don’t downplay how I acted. I realize now that I was treated you as if you were an employee rather than as a… friend. I can’t imagine how badly I hurt you that day, and I’m sorry my stupidity caused that. I realize now that you spent the weekend with me without expecting something in return, without wanting something for yourself. While it doesn’t excuse my behavior, you need to understand that having someone like you in my life is a true rarity. Every day I’m surrounded by people who want something from me or are trying to use me to better themselves.”
“Nicholas, I would never—“
“I know you wouldn’t, I realize that now. At the time though, I couldn’t see why you would agree to cancel your cooking classes, rearrange your schedule, and practically move in with me for a weekend without expecting something in return. I assumed initially that you did it because you expected payment for the weekend, which would be a rather large amount—“
“Nicholas, I never thought that!” I quickly interrupt, immediately pissed off that he would think that was the reason I agreed to stay with him.
“I know that now. I knew it the moment you walked out of my apartment. I know now that you stayed with me last weekend because that’s just the type of person you are—that you wanted nothing more than to help me the way I helped you after your nightmare.”
“I never expected you to pay me for staying with you, Nicholas. The thought never even entered my mind. I could see why you jumped to that though… your mind immediately went to our contract. This is a business arrangement after all.” I shrug my shoulders and look out to the water.
“Kenzie, I’ve been telling myself the same thing. This is a business arrangement and nothing more.” He takes another deep breath and I find myself waiting for him to tell me that the contract is over. That he needs to terminate the contract because we’ve crossed too many lines, that—
“The truth is though, this has become more than a business arrangement for me.”
“It has?” Okay, not what I was expecting at all.
“I hope you realize it, too. I think this weekend, or maybe even before this weekend, we’ve begun to become friends. I enjoy spending time with you and I felt like we got to know each other more. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to trust a woman; when I feel threatened, I immediately go into business mode. It’s what I do when things start to spin out of control, either professionally or personally. It helps me take control back.”
“You felt threatened?”
“Not by you… no, that’s not true. I guess I did feel threatened by you.”
“Nicholas, I don’t understand. How could I threaten you? Did I do something—“
“No! You didn’t do anything. Unfortunately, I got burned a long time ago by someone I trusted very much—“
“Who was she?”
“Her name was…” He takes another deep breath, running his hands through his hair, which I’ve learned he does when he is stressed.
“Harper… and at one time I thought I loved her.”
Chapter 25
Nicholas
I can’t believe I’m about to tell Kenzie everything that she did. I haven’t talked to anyone about her since the truth came out. Not since the world as I knew it was completely turned upside down. Everyone knows to dare not mention her name around me. If it were up to me, I would erase that time in my life entirely. It’s amazing how things are when you take a step back and really look at what you thought you had. Looking ba
ck to that time, I can’t figure out how I was so blind to what she was doing to me. I pride myself at being able to recognize when people are lying or trying to use me; yet for the first time someone completely deceived me.
“It’s been more than two years, but obviously the damage she did still haunts me to this day. It’s been a long time since I allowed myself to consider trusting a woman again.”
“What did she do to you, Nicholas?” Kenzie sits up in the lounge chair so she can face me.
“She nearly ruined me; she nearly cost me everything.” I cringe at the thought of what could have happened. “Harper interviewed me for an article that was to be featured in some small paper. It was supposed to be her first article that she wrote alone. The interview itself sucked: it was boring, her questions weren’t unique, and the answers could have easily been found on the internet had she typed my name into google. I only remembered the interview because she seemed so full of herself that day, yet was clearly unprepared for the interview itself. She hadn’t memorized the questions, she constantly had to refer back to her notes, and the recorder she brought didn’t work.”
“Sounds like a rough interview.”
“I didn’t see her again for a year, or maybe it was close to two years later. We ended up attending the same charity fundraising event that was being held at a hotel downtown. She was there as a guest of her father’s, whom I’ve done business with in the past. We both had too much to drink that night, one thing led to another and before I knew it, we were upstairs in a hotel room.
“From there, we... I guess you could say we used each other whenever the need arose. For the first few months, that’s all it was… just sex. Eventually though, she started staying over at my place and things started to shift between us. Suddenly, she was calling or coming over more; initially it bothered me but… I know this sounds crass… the sex was good and she was convenient. It’s hard to look back and think about when things started to change, but somehow we moved from a sexual relationship to something more. We started spending more time together, attending events, or going out together. At one point, I remember thinking she was perfect. She did everything to try to please me; she changed her plans to see me whenever something came up, she enjoyed the same things I did… But you know what the weird thing was?”
The Arrangement Duet Box Set Page 25
