by C. A. Harms
“The last night I was in Miami, I found out Jase had hidden my father’s death from me.” I wrinkled my face in confusion. I wasn’t sure how something like that was even possible. “I know, hard to believe, but it is true.”
She took a shuddering breath as if to compose herself. “He rarely let me visit my father at the nursing home he lived in. Jase and Bruce placed him there because of the twenty-four hour care, or so they said. But it was just their way of keeping the hatefulness of their world hidden from my father. I know now I should have left and taken him with me, but at the time I felt he was getting the best care, and I would have gladly traded my happiness for his health.” She looked up at me, fresh tears staining her cheeks. “I found out from a complete stranger that my father had passed away. Jase never told me, because I think he knew that was my only reason for staying with him.”
“So he just let you go?” I wondered why they were even still married if that was the case.
“No,” she said without hesitation. “He’d never let me go willingly. He always told me that I would never leave him, that he would never allow it.”
This asshole sounded like a real piece of work.
“The woman I met, the one that told me of my father’s death, she helped me. Without her and the help of a long list of others, I would still be trapped, because half the law enforcement in Miami are on Jase and his father’s payroll. They made it next to impossible for me to escape.” She sat silently for a moment, and I wondered if I should say something, even though I honestly had no idea what to say. This was all so fucked up.
“That’s why I lied, why I didn’t tell you about Jase, and why I used a false identity. Because I can’t let them find me. I can’t go back there.”
I leaned in and wrapped her in my arms, pulling her body to mine. She didn’t fight it and seemed to welcome the comfort.
We remained in that position for a long time before either of us attempted to move. Finally I pulled back and took her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me when I spoke. “Don’t ever lie to me again,” I said sternly. “I don’t care what it is, or whether you believe it will make me angry or hurt me. You tell me nothing but the truth.”
She nodded immediately. “I used to be confident, and strong,” she confessed in an ashamed whisper. “I wasn’t always this weak. I spend every day scared, terrified actually, that Jase will find me.”
“That doesn’t make you weak, sweetheart,” I tried to reassure her.
“Yes it does. I never stood up for myself. I just took it. I let him control me, and in the process I also let him destroy me.”
The most amazing thing about Kinsley was that even though she’d been through hell and back, she still remained in control of her emotions. I rarely saw her cry. She got angry and heartbroken, but even during those times, she remained strong.
“Let me give you back the things he took, the woman you once were. I want to help you find the strength I know is inside of you, and I want to help you fight to find the Kinsley hidden down deep.”
KINSLEY
“LET ME LOVE YOU, KINSLEY,” Ashton whispered.
I never thought I would hear those words from him after the way he left things between us only days ago.
“Let me protect you and take that fear away.” The way he was looking at me made my heart feel as if it may burst. No one had ever looked at me with such love and kindness. My chest ached with the consuming intensity of his stare.
I wanted to believe Ash could do those things. But I was also terrified of the outcome. If Jase or Bruce harmed Ashton in any way, it would be my fault because I’d placed him in the center of my mess.
He didn’t deserve that.
“I think you should—”
He leaned in and pressed his lips to mine. It was a gentle kiss, but powerful enough to make me momentarily speechless.
“Let’s talk more tonight,” he said as he stood from the chair and lifted me from the floor in the process. “I’ll be here at five to pick you up. We have a lot to discuss.”
He didn’t even give me time to answer before he sat me down, took out his phone, and began typing out a message, I presumed to Murray. He then looked up and scanned over my face with a skeptical expression. “Maybe you should take the remaining part of the day off. You look exhausted.”
Again I attempted to argue only for him to shush me as he moved toward my office door and opened it. I followed him as he moved down the hall in search of something.
“What are you doing?” I asked, looking around, hoping we hadn’t attracted too much attention.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Stockman,” he said as if I should have already known that.
“Um, excuse me. Why?” I tugged on the back of his jacket just before I crashed into his back as he suddenly stopped.
“Ashton.” My gaze shifted up and over Ashton’s shoulder to find my boss only a few feet ahead. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”
“Good morning, Susan.”
Apparently the two of them were on a first-name basis. My stomach instantly bottomed out.
Fucked his way through his social circle. Lex’s words came running back to me, leaving a burning sensation deep in my stomach.
“I’ve actually come to take this beauty home for the day. She isn’t feeling well.”
Susan looked between Ashton and me, I’m sure trying to figure out what we were to each other. “Why didn’t you say anything, Kiera?” I looked back over at Ashton, and he appeared unaffected by her use of my fake name. “I would’ve let you go home earlier, had I known you weren’t feeling well,” she assured me.
“Really, I’m fine,” I said before Ashton curled his arm around my waist and pulled me close.
“I assure you that you will feel better after a good night’s sleep.” I was stunned as I shifted my gaze between Ashton and Susan, who was now nodding in agreement with him. Of course he looked smug, knowing he had control of the situation and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. But I was secretly pleased with the idea of him whisking me away and making the hell of the last few days a distant memory.
Ashton turned with me still securely tucked against him and led me down the hall. “Give my best to your parents,” Susan said just before we turned the corner and were no longer in her sight.
I laughed lightly.
“What’s so humorous?” he asked.
“When the two of you began talking, I had a flashback to something Lex told me.” The entire idea felt ridiculous now.
“Do you plan on explaining further, or are you just going to leave me hanging?” he asked when we stepped into the elevator and he pressed the Down button.
“He oh so kindly assured me that you were a good man, even though you had slept your way through your social circle.” I tried to hold back my smile as realization struck him.
“And you thought I’d slept with Susan?” He narrowed his eyes at me, and I could no longer fight against my smile. I nodded.
“She’s a college friend of my mother’s.” He shook his head as the doors slid open and laced his fingers with mine. When he tugged me along, I couldn’t keep from smiling. I hadn’t felt this relaxed in nearly three days.
We were far from okay, but knowing he could forgive me for the lies I was forced to tell him gave me hope.
ASHTON
“I DON’T CARE WHAT IT takes, Beck. I need you and Knox on this. If what she says is true, this guy has everyone on his payroll. I need anything we can use to bring him and his father down,” I said into the phone as I paced the floor of my home office.
Kinsley had fallen asleep hours ago, and from the sound of her snoring, I knew she was in desperate need of rest.
“He’s fucking dirty. He’s got a lot of people in his corner that should have been protecting her instead.” My hands were shaking. The more I thought about the things she had gone through, the more fucked up my head became. There was nothing I wanted more than to bury that bastard and h
is father for all the heartache they’d caused Kinsley.
“I don’t want her to worry anymore,” I confessed as I squeezed the back of my neck. “As long as those bastards are free, she’ll fear them. Dig up anything and everything you can.”
“I’m gonna have to tread lightly on this one, brother,” Beckett replied. “If these guys have an in with the local authorities, who’s to say their reach stops there? I can’t send up red flags, and poking my nose into their business will do just that if I don’t play this right.”
“I know.” My brother was correct, and I knew he would handle this. He was a good man and one hell of a detective. I trusted him and Knoxville fully.
“Just keep an eye on her. Make sure she’s not alone.”
“I got that taken care of. You just focus on taking the asshole down.” I didn’t need my brother telling me how to take care of my girl though. I had that.
He chuckled as he hung up.
I hadn’t told Kinsey yet, but I’d hired a driver for her. A driver who just so happened to be a retired Navy SEAL and highly recommended by Murray himself. Now that Murray knew about everything that happened between Kinsley and me, he also knew just how important keeping her safe was.
Kinsey would get yet another surprise if she thought she would be returning to her apartment. Instead she would be moving in with me, whether she liked it or not.
Hell, if I could I’d convince her to quit her job at Stockman and Wright and come work for me, but I knew that would send her over the edge. So for now, I’d leave that one alone. That was where Kevin, her driver, came in. He would serve as my eyes when I couldn’t be with her.
I would not budge on that matter.
I’d been sitting at my desk doing a little investigating of my own when I heard footsteps near the door to my office. I looked up and found Kinsley standing in the doorway of my office wearing one of my dress shirts. It hit her at midthigh, and though it was buttoned up, it hung off her left shoulder, exposing a majority of it and her collarbone.
“Hi,” she whispered timidly, and I realized just how much I’d missed her over the weekend.
“Come here.” I leaned back in my chair.
She slowly moved toward me and stepped up to my side.
I ran my fingers along the back of her exposed thigh and her eyes fluttered shut. “How did you sleep?”
She was enjoying the feeling of my fingers as they danced along her silky skin so much that she didn’t answer right away. “Good,” she whispered, or more like panted.
Her eyes opened as I removed my hand, and she looked down as if searching for it. I fought the urge to laugh. Carefully I took hold of her hips and moved her to straddle my lap. “I missed you,” I said, unable to hold back my confession.
“I missed you too.” She leaned in and took control as her lips covered mine. “No one has ever made me feel the way you do,” she said against my lips before kissing me once again.
Tremendous guilt hit me when the face of the other woman from my weekend flashed before me. I pulled back and rested my forehead against hers for a moment to regain my composure. I had to tell her. I preached about trust and honesty, and even though I only went so far with the woman, I wanted to be truthful with Kinsley in return.
“I need to tell you something,” I whispered.
She remained silent, and I leaned back because I wanted to see her eyes when I told her what I had to.
“This past weekend I was in L.A. I was initially going for business, but after what happened on Friday, I went more for leisure. I just wanted a little time away to think.” She nodded as if she understood. “That first night there I spent a few hours with a bottle of scotch in the hotel bar, and I got pretty wasted. And during that time, I met someone.”
She flinched, and my stomach twisted at her reaction.
“Let me say this, please. I need you to know.” The mixture of anger and sadness in her eyes almost gutted me. “We kissed, and when we went upstairs to my room, I couldn’t do more. Nothing about it felt right.”
“But you took her up intending to sleep with her?”
I could only nod.
Silence set in over us as she remained straddling my lap. But she wasn’t looking at me, she was looking down at her hands that were fanned out over my pecs. Only moments ago her touch was intimate, yet now she seemed to be struggling not to pull away.
“I think I need to take a shower,” she said as she slid off my lap faster than I could register what she was doing.
“Kinsley, wait.” I stood up and took a few steps toward her retreating back, but she only continued to move toward the doorway.
“I’m fine, really,” she said, but I could see she was far from fine. “I just need a few minutes.” She waved me off, and I stopped, suddenly feeling defeated.
She had the right to know. Some may say I was wrong for bringing it up, but what kind of hypocrite would I be if I kept that from her but insisted she keep nothing from me, no matter how bad it was?
I gave her time alone, hoping it would ease the tension that was now hanging thick in the air. It was next to impossible to stay away, because all I wanted to do was rush to her and tell her how sorry I was, but I remained in my office.
As the minutes ticked by into an hour, my body hummed with nervous energy and I couldn’t wait any longer. I exited my office, and when I approached my bedroom, I found it and the en suite bathroom empty.
Panic ran through me as I thought of her leaving. Only a few days ago I thought we were over. I’d convinced myself she was some malicious, lying woman who I was better off without. Yet now I knew what hid behind those lies, and the only thing I wanted to do was keep her safe and close.
I moved around my penthouse in search of her, growing more frantic with each passing moment. When I came up empty, I turned around to hurry back to my office for my phone only to come face-to-face with Murray, who had Kinsley standing at his side.
“Would this be the reason you look so worried?” he asked.
Kinsley crossed her arms over her chest and glared back at Murray with a look that reminded me of a scolded child.
“Yes,” I said.
“I found her exiting the building alone as I was coming in, and when I asked where you were, she said, and I quote, ‘Maybe calling his slut friend from California.’” Murray arched an eyebrow in question, only this wasn’t the time for me to explain things to him.
“Thank you, Murray,” I said dismissively and locked my eyes on the brunette beauty. She appeared even more irritated with Murray than before as he left the room.
“I think I should go home,” Kinsley announced as she turned to face me, only I didn’t listen.
I took a step toward her, knelt, and tossed her over my shoulder. “You are home.”
“Let go,” she squealed as she dug her fingers into my back and wriggled, trying to escape as I walked back to my bedroom with her.
Inside, I kicked the door closed, walked toward the bed, and tossed her onto the mattress. Her small body bounced on impact, and she tried to scurry across the mattress to gain some distance. The sassy spitfire I had grown to love returned with a vengeance. She was hurt, and I understood why.
“I know you’re mad, and you have every right to be upset.” I loosened my tie and tossed it to the floor. “Even though I walked away and said we were over, I still couldn’t get you out of my head. I tried alcohol and a lot of it, but you were still there. That look in your eyes when I walked away fucking killed me, baby. Gutted me.”
“So you decided to fuck me out of your head when the alcohol didn’t work.” She was still glaring at me.
“I couldn’t do it,” I said as I knelt on the end of the bed and began crawling toward her. “Nothing about that woman felt right. Because even though I said you weren’t the woman I fell in love with, I think I knew all along you were. Even though you went by Kiera, you’ve always been Kinsley. I know that now. I’ve always had Kinsley. Although you tried like hell to hide
her from me, she was there in everything you did and said.”
Her lower lip trembled, but she remained in control.
“And she is the woman I fell in love with,” I whispered as I lowered my body to hers. “You are the only woman I want, today and every day after that.”
KINSLEY
THE THOUGHT OF ASHTON BEING so close to sleeping with another woman while I was falling apart nearly broke me all over again.
But did I have the right to be mad? After all, he had ended things with me before he met her. But if he felt about me the way he did, how could he move on so quickly?
“I’ve kept myself sheltered from the possibility of love. It was something I didn’t think I wanted. Sex was always just an escape, but even when I turned to that, hoping to rid myself of your memory, you were still there. Fuck, Kinsley, I was one drink away from alcohol poison and I shouldn’t even have been able to speak the word no, but I did.” Ashton brushed away the hair that had fallen in my face. “I told her I couldn’t do it, because even though I felt like you had betrayed me, you were still all I could fucking see.”
He leaned in and kissed the corner of my eye. “These eyes melt me, baby. I’ve never looked into another person’s eyes and felt the pull I feel when I look into yours.” He kissed my lips. “Your smile brightens my day and has ever since the first moment you gave it to me. And no matter how hard I tried to fight it, no matter how I tried to replace it, it never once faded.”
My vision blurred with the tears I tried so hard to fight. I didn’t want to let them fall, because once I did, I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop.
“I just need some distance,” I whispered as I focused on his jaw instead of looking him in the eyes. I knew if I did I would give in to him, and right now that was the last thing I wanted. This all just felt too familiar. I’d spent half my marriage to Jase being replaced by one woman after another. I couldn’t help but fear I had fallen into a repeat of that relationship, and I just needed time to think clearly. And to do that, I couldn’t be in his presence. Ashton Montgomery was to consuming.
