by K. Z. Riman
“I heard you didn’t graduate.” He changed the subject, and it made me less fidgety. There was no trace of insult in his tone. There was pity, which was worse for me.
“Yes. I…was pregnant and had to take care of my baby.”
“Hmmm. You did quite well on that.”
“Not well enough.” Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.
“Oh, but Kelsey, you made the right choice coming here. Here is a good life.” He stopped and led me to sit on the bench which overlooked the illuminated fountain. He sat beside me, smiling.
“Can we talk about something else?” I crossed my feet. I really didn’t want every person I met talking about what they thought about me running to my in-laws.
“Sure.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Do you plan on studying anytime soon?”
“Maybe. That’s a plan. I work for the Grimaldi’s now so it would be really hard.” I wasn’t going to say I was Scott’s secretary. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of it. I just didn’t want him knowing I was working that close to someone like Scott.
“That’s good.” He eyed my ring again. “Getting married?”
I followed his gaze and let out a quiet laugh. “Oh, no. This is from…Seth.”
“Why didn’t you marry anyone in the past six years?”
“Why should I?” That was really something I believed in. “I have a son, who adores me and who makes me smile…”
“You need a husband to take care of you,” he cut in, a glint of emotion in his eyes.
“Husbands take the best of their wives and leave them cold once they have realized they want other women to warm them up.” I had been a witness to that my whole life. That was the reason my parents died in a car crash. My mother caught my father cheating on her. On their way home, they were arguing about a woman Mother found Father with at some bar. Perhaps she was hitting him. Perhaps he was hitting her. I really didn’t know. What I did know was that their car was upside-down on the highway and they were dead. I was home with an aunt then…
He let out a choked laugh. I forgot he had a stepmother.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean your father. I was just speaking out of…”
“It’s all right.” He tapped my hand lightly before holding it. “I won’t tell Father.”
I chuckled as he did, and glanced at our tangled fingers. I slowly moved them but he gripped them even tighter. “Why haven’t you gotten married? You should ask your girlfriend now, before she has a chance to escape.”
“I have no girlfriend.” He shook his head as he sat straight, looking at the fountain with me as it flashed different bright colors. “I haven’t had one for the past seven years.”
“You are very serious about your work.” Seth was the same.
“Yes. I need someone who can understand that, which no woman I have met yet has done. ” He looked displeased and disappointed at the thought.
“You will find her.”
He smiled contentedly, as if hearing my words gave him enough pleasure to forget about his frustration with women. When he looked at me, I saw the same glint in his eyes as I did back in the kitchen and was besieged with uneasiness.
“I believe I have found her already. I…”
“Mommy?” I heard Sean’s sleepy voice from the darkness behind me and I pulled my hand back immediately. He was walking slowly towards us, Scott a few steps behind him. “I’m tired.”
“Oh.” I stood and held my son close to me. “We’d better get going, Carter. It was nice seeing you again.”
“The pleasure is mine, Kelsey. You will come and visit me, right?” There was hope in his voice. I was beginning to feel like he would come and visit me soon.
Scott’s eyes were narrowed and intense as he watched me walk away from Carter. He nodded and said his good-byes to his friend before following me.
Sean was sleeping on my lap as we drove back to the mansion. Scott wasn’t talking to me and I didn’t ask him anything about his grip on my hand at dinner. His eyes were on the road and he manoeuvred through all the other drivers with ease. Though he looked so distracted, he kept his cool and managed his car competently.
I carried my son all the way to his room, where he woke as I changed him into his pyjamas.
“Mommy, are we home?” he asked, rubbing his sleepy eyes.
“Yes,” I answered, taking his hand off his face. “Don’t do that, honey.”
He looked at me and smiled, giving me the satisfaction of knowing he was still mine, despite the world offered to him.
“You better sleep now, boy.” It was Scott, leaning against the open door.
I ignored him, even as he walked inside the room. Sean, on the other hand, was enthusiastic about his visit. It woke him up again. “Uncle Scott!”
I wasn’t surprised that Sean was beaming when he called his uncle’s name. I had noticed in the past days that Scott had Sean’s attention, but could not see it.
He sat beside me. “You were good today.”
“Mommy told me to be!” Sean was as proud as his voice was animated. I was beginning to feel really tired, imagining how much longer I had to stay here if he wouldn’t sleep anytime soon.
“Good. Now, here.”
Scott pulled from his pocket a fifty-creolle bill and gave it to my son.
Sean took it immediately and grinned, running to his study table and inserting his money inside his coin bank.
“What are you doing?”
Scott stood and shrugged his shoulders. “What? I gave him money.”
“Exactly. Now he’s going to think that he needs money to behave.” I snapped at him. Scott had a very different way of thinking. If Seth were here, I bet he would scold his brother.
“No. He’s going to think that I gave him money and nothing else,” he said, as he watched me tuck Sean into bed.
“Go to sleep, honey.” I kissed his forehead and fixed his covers. “You were good at dinner tonight. That makes Mommy very happy.”
“I didn’t play at dinner,” he said proudly, giving me a sense of relief that I had somehow managed to still the damage Scott was unknowingly causing to my son. “You did.”
“What do you mean?” My heart seemed to stop for a second.
“You and Uncle Scott. You were playing thumbs war under the table,” he said, before turning his back on us. “Good night, Mommy. Good night, Uncle Scott.”
I paled and felt my cheeks go cold at what he said. I never thought he noticed! I was too preoccupied, watching if all the others—who might misunderstand—saw us. I shot Scott an accusing glance and brushed my shoulder heavily against him as I went out of the room.
“Kelsey,” he called, as he followed me behind.
“Kelsey, dear.” Mother and Father were in the hallway. “We need to talk to you.”
“Now, Mother?” Scott asked, panic apparent on his face. I suddenly felt like he was trying to hide something.
Mother narrowed her eyes and smiled deviously at Scott. “Yes. Your father and I will be visiting some old friends in Brockswind for a few days. We would like to take Sean with us.”
For a moment, I thought I heard Scott let out a sigh of relief, like he was thinking of something else his parents might say.
A few days without Sean? “When, Mother?”
“We leave tomorrow,” Father replied. “Don’t worry about him. Luis and some others will be there with us. He will be perfectly safe.”
“Oh.” I didn’t want them thinking I didn’t trust them…but a few days without my son? “I know that, Father.”
“You’ll miss him, we know.” Mother held my hands. “It will only be for four days and three nights. You are practically working the whole day, anyway, and we would like to see the new amusement park there. I’ve heard it is simply wonderful.”
“You two could follow, Friday night. If you do, we could stay a day longer,” Father suggested, sounding like he was trying to tell Scott more than he tried to tell me.
“Yes. I was planning to hold a party on Friday, but I will have to cancel it, given that your Uncle Andrew and Aunt Kaidence went to their secret hideaway again.” Mother chuckled as she spoke with passion about her best friend, who was also Father’s sister, Kaidence. “I swear those two never get tired of honeymooning.”
“They’re in love. Let them be.” Father teased his wife. “Now, shall we rest so we can leave early for our own ‘honeymooning’?”
“Don’t worry about Sean, okay?” Mother finally said, as she pinched my chin before they headed off to their room, giggling.
“I think that’s a good idea,” Scott said, placing both his hands inside his jeans’ pockets.
Oh no. You don’t think anything about this!
I rolled my eyes at him and walked swiftly along the hallway to get to my room. “Yes. Sean will be away from you for a few days.”
“Am I that much of a bad influence on your boy?” He followed me, still trying to make an argument out of this. “I barely speak with him.”
“Yes, and when you do, you say things which are out of the context of good parenting.” I accused him and then flinched at my own words. Not that I meant for him to be a parent. Coming here for shelter and a family meant that Sean would be with his grandparents while being with me. It should not include Scott being a second parent. At least not while he was still being a jerk.
He stuck his foot between my door and its jamb, stopping my attempt to keep him out. “Go to your room, Scott!”
“Oh-ho!” He grinned in disbelief as he pushed open my door. “You are not the boss of me! You have no business telling me what to do.”
“You should stop doing…whatever it is you are doing! You almost gave Sean the wrong idea,” I said, trying to push him out of the door but he forced himself in, closing the door behind him.
He was deliberately annoying me, doing the exact opposite of what I asked him!
“I think it is a good thing he got the wrong idea.” He found it amusing that his action was taken innocently by a little boy.
“Would you rather he told everyone his uncle was holding his mother’s hand under the table, at dinner?”
“Yes! That would have been more believable.” I snapped at him as I removed my jewelry and placed it on my vanity. “Thumbs war suggests actions that might mean something else for adults.”
“Actions?” He grinned as he strode slowly, pacing about my room. His purple eyes glistened beneath the incandescence of the bedside lamp. He looked radiant, dangerously handsome, with his coat unbuttoned and his tie loose to reveal the first few buttons of his shirt undone.
He looked so much like Seth, but there was something markedly different about him—something that drew me like a moth to a flame, so perilously enticing. It was like he was Seth’s other side, the side I had wanted to see, just to get a glimpse and taste of an adventure I never had.
“Actions like…pushing and pulling…forcing one beneath the other?” He was walking closer to me now, one taunting step after another.
As I dodged, he mimicked my every move, blocking my way to my closet. Perhaps it wasn’t a very good idea that I went there. It could be seen as an invitation to relive the memory of his kiss. “Leave me alone, Scott! You haven’t changed at all!”
“Oh, I have changed. Open your eyes and smell the evening breeze as it gets warm.” He grinned again, taking a few steps more to catch me, his prey. His hands wrapped strongly around my waist. My hands reached for his chest to push him away, but to no avail.
“Your parents are…”
“Honeymooning in a different corridor. They wouldn’t even notice I’m here,” he whispered salaciously, as he looked into my eyes. I’d recognize that look anywhere. It was a look of disaster, for me.
I shouldn’t be swept away! “I would.” I pressed my hands against his chest and pulled away from him.
“Close your eyes.” He loosened his hold on me, just enough to let me turn. He grabbed me again, pressing himself against my back, my arms crossed to my chest. “Close your eyes and just feel.” His voice was warm in my ears, flaying sensations all through my veins until my blood boiled to that of needing, wanting, desiring.
He was pressing his mouth against my bare shoulders now and I felt it sting deliciously into my skin. I gasped as I threw my head back and it found its place on his shoulder. He skimmed his lips up my neck to bite my earlobe again.
I groaned softly as I stiffened in his arms. I turned to face him, wanting to close my eyes but needing to see, just the same.
He tightened his jaw and pulled mine to him, so our lips met. I never thought I could be so willing to yield to a man’s desire. Why did it have to be Scott? Of all the men who had tried sweeping me off my feet after Seth had died, why did it have to be his brother…his twin brother, who looked exactly like him but acted so wildly? It was confusing me. It was driving me completely insane.
“No, wait.” I pulled back when his arms loosened their grip on me. “We can’t. I can’t.”
“It’s been six years, Kelsey,” he whispered, looking at me gently, yet with pity.
“Yes, and I could live sixty more without a man by my side, if it wasn’t Seth,” I replied.
I couldn’t believe I had said it. It was the voice of a hypocrite; a woman acting so bravely and so strongly, when she had been longing for someone to touch her, to love her.
It couldn’t be Scott. Scott could only be capable of having sex with me. He wasn’t the type to fall in love with someone, especially a woman with a son by his brother.
“You can’t believe that,” he said softly.
“I can believe anything I want.” I swallowed hard, raising my head to meet his gaze. “Right now, I believe you are crossing some serious lines.”
“Which you should cross yourself.”
“Yes, but not with you.”
He cringed, taken aback by what I had said. He hardened his jaw and crossed his arms in front of him. “Now, why is that?”
“You know why, Scott.” If I were to cross a line and have a man by my side, it would be with someone capable of loving me, and taking care of me and my son.
Scott wasn’t that man.
Chapter Eight
Kelsey: One Hot Night, the First of Many
“Hi, I’m Siena, from Marketing.” A young blonde came to my desk, smiling cheerfully as I looked up from my work. She was wearing a see-through blouse that revealed her colored bra. “I heard it’s your second day here.”
“Yes. I’m Kelsey.” I reached out to shake her hand and she sat in front of me, glancing at the documents on my table. She was chewing her gum, her attitude more familiar than I thought appropriate.
“So…you work for Mister Hot Ass.” She giggled, propping both her elbows on my desk to hear what I had to say about Scott.
Oh, I had a lot of things to say, but I couldn’t say them here.
“Excuse me?”
“You know.” She swayed her head from side to side, giggling and sighing with desire as her cheeks mimicked the color of her lips. “Mister Scott Grimaldi. Everyone’s been saying how they envy your position as his secretary. You get to see him every day.”
I would see him every day even if I wasn’t his secretary. I might as well make a living out of it. “Oh, Mister Grimaldi?” I chuckled innocently. “Yes. He is…quite an…ass.”
Quite the stubborn ass!
“Siena! How long do you plan on…?” A man about my boss’ age, with a round face and golden hair, rushed towards Siena. Seeing us talking, he stopped, and flashed me a welcome grin. “Well, hello there. I’m Ethan from Marketing.”
>
I never worked in an office before and I wasn’t quite sure if this was a proper way to act around co-employees. They all seemed to be friendly and welcoming.
“Hi. Kelsey.” I took his hand and nodded, nonetheless. I needed to make friends if I wanted to stay for any length of time. “You’re both…”
“From Marketing. Yes.” Ethan placed his hands inside his pockets and glanced from me to his pal, perhaps assessing how close we already became. “We’ve just had lunch. Siena usually runs late so I thought she had gone somewhere again before clocking in.”
“Oh, you know I don’t do anything stupid on days before and after beer night.” Siena stood and waved her hand in front of Ethan’s face. “Management will hold beer nights against me. I don’t want that if I’m planning to get drunk. We call it beer night, but we usually go to clubs and drink cocktails and wine. Long story.” She cackled, her eyebrows flickering at me for an approval I would never give.
“Hmmm. Must be a hell of a beer night,” I said drily, trying to get on with my work. Scott was demanding today, asking for too many things I didn’t know if he really needed.
“Yes. It’s Diane’s birthday, another one from Marketing.” Her eyes grew wide with excitement. Partying was her scene; the glint in her eyes gave her away. “There’s a new guy in our department. He is so hot! Completely—as in smoking hot. Of course, your boss is the hottest guy around, but this guy’s also hot.”
“I’ll bet.” I hoped I wasn’t being too sarcastic. I wasn’t at all interested in anything she was babbling about.
“I’m going to make sure I land second base with the new guy tonight.”
Yep. She was the type, all right. She acted the way she looked. She was friendly though, and that was all that mattered to me right now.
“You should come,” Ethan offered casually, shrugging his shoulders and curving his lips a little to the sides. “I mean, you need to meet everyone here, since you are working for the Vice President.”
“Yeah! You have to come!” Siena jumped a few times, causing Ethan to stare at her bouncing chest before clearing his throat. “It’s an early affair, of course, because it’s Tuesday, so no one would be late tomorrow. It’ll be fun.”
