“Damon. That’s—” I turned to him, ready to explain and beg for his understanding, but he just slid his hand to mine and twisted our fingers together.
“Shhh, psichi mou. It’s okay. We’ll talk later.”
“We just asked the PI to find you again. He’d said that you no longer worked for Disney. He just told us this week that you were working for Christakos Construction.”
“Wait. Was that him in the black Charger?”
“Yeah, I think that’s what he drives.”
“What the hell? He’s been scaring the hell out of me.”
“He nearly caused her to wreck.” Damon tightened his hold on my hand.
“That wasn’t our intention, I swear. Katherine, Damon, I promise.” Jim set his hands on the table, like a poker player showing his cards and that he was hiding nothing.
I was a myriad of emotions, I was pissed and hurt and relieved all at the same time. Pissed at my parents, hurt by Damon for lying and seeing me as nothing more than a charity case but relieved that the Charger hadn’t been Presley after all this time.
“Well, your PI has been scaring the hell out of her. Call him off.”
“I only had him do it because last week when I met your interior designer at the property, she let me and Nina in so we could get some ideas for furniture. We got really worried when we found the camera. We thought maybe something had happened to Katy and Bee. For all we knew you’d discovered them and had her arrested. But when I searched the court dockets, there was nothing, so I knew she wasn’t in jail. We were worried. So I asked him to increase surveillance, that’s all.”
“No, this would have been prior to this week.” Damon and Jim continued talking but I was stuck on that one word–camera.
“Camera? Wait. What camera?” I looked over at them then back at Damon, totally confused. I probably looked like I was watching a tennis match, but I was examining their faces to see who showed what signs and who was going to say something.
Oh my God, it was all making sense. He knew, he knew this entire fucking time. That was why he didn’t care about my past. God, I was such an idiot. No one needs a fucking house-sitter when their only neighbors are their family who could check in on their house. Hell, he doesn’t even have a pet. Katy, Katy, Katy. You’re so stupid. How could you be so stupid?
“Damon, what camera?”
He let out a sigh and leaned back in his seat. “The camera I had installed at the house you were staying in.”
“So you were spying on me?”
He looked me straight in the eyes. “No. I was trying to figure out who was living in the model home.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I held my hand up, stopping whatever the hell he was going to say next. “You know what? Don’t answer that. I’ve been stressing myself out about telling you the truth because I thought that you cared about me, about Bee. I was stupid. Because in truth I didn’t have any secrets, you already knew them. You. You’re the one that had the secrets. I’ve been freaking out about this, and you knew and didn’t say anything. What was I, some charity case? Did you see me and think this would be your good deed for the decade if you took some downtrodden mother and offered her a job and place to stay? Why? To show me what I was missing? Was this all part of the plan as well?” I pointed at Jim and Nina. “Were you supposed to reunite a broken family? God, I feel like this is some fucking intervention.”
“It’s nothing like that. After we found the sock, I had a camera installed. For all I knew, the person living in the house was some crazy drug addict. You can’t get mad because I was protecting my company.”
I wasn’t mad about that. Not at all. But when I saw the sock in his car and asked him about it, he lied. He could have told me then that he knew it was Bee’s, but he hadn’t.
“The camera was directed to cover the main entry points into the house. I saw you and Bee on the camera, only downstairs in the main living area.”
“But why didn’t you tell me? Did you want to hold this over me? Guess what? I have nothing.” My voice rose a few octaves as I turned to my parents. “And you two, now all of a sudden you want to be parents of the year?”
“Katy, calm down. It isn’t what you think.” Damon placed a hand on mine.
I jerked my hand away. “How the hell do you know what I’m thinking?” I pushed my chair back and placed my napkin on top of the table and my uneaten appetizer, which no longer looked appetizing. Happy fucking birthday to me.
I dropped my head into my hands, knowing full well that I did have something, Bee and I wouldn’t let anyone take her from me. Granted, these were my bad decisions. Not just staying in the houses but also trusting Damon and thinking that there were people who actually cared in this fucking world. I lifted my head and let a steel resolve wash over me. “I don’t care what the three of you’ve concocted, there is no way in hell I’ll let you destroy what I have with Bee.” I pointed at my parents. “She’s mine, do you hear me? Mine. I love that little girl with every fiber of my being, she is everything that is good in this world, everything that I didn’t get from either of you.” They cringed at my words. Good. It was as close as I would get to actually slapping them.
“Calm down.” Damon’s voice was an even staccato.
“Don’t tell me to calm down. How dare you? How? How dare you? I fell in love with you, and you’ve been doing nothing but lying to me.” I turned to face the Mastersons again. “Congratulations, you wanted to see me broken, well, this is it. Not because of either of you or him.” I poked at Damon. “But because of me. I can’t believe that I was so stupid to actually think someone did things out of the goodness of their heart. That there were Mary fucking Poppins types of people in this world and they were going to be in my life.” I stood and reached for my purse. “Want to know the sad part? I thought that you were too good for me. I knew that I was used goods, I’d been tossed out by the people who were supposed to love me the most. I’d lived on the streets and broke into homes for a safe place to sleep just to keep my kid safe. Worked my ass off so I could try to be worthy of someone someday. But you know what? You only care about yourselves; at least I care about Bee more than I do my own life.”
“We care about you. That’s why we started volunteering at the community center.” I didn’t meet his eyes but looked over to Jim.
“No. You did it for you. For your conscience. If you truly had altruistic motives, you would have just sent the stuff without making contact. But you wanted the credit for it. You wanted Bee to think that you were these super nice people and not the ones that ordered her killed.”
“Stop saying that.” Nina threw her face into her hands.
“Truth hurts. And you”—I turned my ice-cold stare to Damon—“you were after something, not sure what it was, but I’ll figure it out. If you were just trying to help a mom who was down on her luck, you never would have offered me the job. You would have talked to your aunt about helping me find a more stable position in the company. Instead you had me risk everything so you could control my world.” I brought my hands up and applauded all three of them. Maybe I was going crazy. I felt a bit crazy.
“Katy . . .” He reached out and tried to grab ahold of my hand, but I slid it out of his reach. “I was impressed. You’re an awesome mom.”
I needed to get away, get out. I didn’t have a car. Think, Katy, think. All right, we were right off International drive, there were taxis everywhere. I could hail one, go to his house, get Bee, and get out. We’d get a hotel. Oh my God, I’d go through my piddly savings account in no time. We’d be destitute again.
“Katy, I’m sorry. Please don’t go. Since the first time I saw you, all I’ve wanted to do was to protect you.”
“I can protect myself, thank you very much. I’ve been doing it for years.” I looked down at the two people who had ensured that I had no other choice.
“Yeah, but that isn’t the point, is it?” Damon’s voice was filled with exasperation.
“Re
ally? What’s the point then?”
“The point is that you don’t have to, not with me.”
“Oh, I think you’re wrong. I think you just proved that you are one of the people who I need to protect myself from. Protect me and my daughter. Don’t follow me.”
I raced out the door, not looking back at Jim or Nina or the man who had been lying to me just as much as I’d been lying to him. It didn’t matter how much I wanted to deny it, the fact remained that I’d fallen in love with him and I had no choice other than to walk away.
Chapter 30
Damon
By the time I finished with the Mastersons, convinced them to lay off with their PI, paid the bill, and got home, she was gone.
I walked into Tristan’s house, and everything she had ever been given was stacked on the bed she’d been sleeping in.
Picking up one gold shoe that she’d worn tonight, I twirled it in my hand. I was no Prince Charming, this wasn’t a fairy tale, and I didn’t get the girl. And the more I thought about the last few days, the more pissed I got.
All I was doing was trying to protect her and keep them safe. In one giant sweep, I sent everything sailing off the bed and scattering onto the floor. Storming out, I headed to Bee’s room, where my anger died a swift death. Dropping to my knees, I leaned against the dresser and picked up a Barbie, one of many. Bee had left every Barbie, accessory, and even her unicorn outfit in the room. Every time I’d gone out, I’d come home with a new toy for her. No kid wanted to leave their toys, and seeing them still sitting there made me want to shake the shit out of Katy. How dare she do this to Bee? To us.
I needed to do something. I wasn’t ready to go to sleep. I couldn’t. I needed to work. Heading back to my house, I quickly changed into jeans and a T-shirt.
Grabbing a bottle of whiskey and a tumbler I took a drink but as the amber liquid warmed my throat, I knew that it wouldn’t be enough. Sitting and drinking wasn’t going to help me work through these issues. I needed to move and work.
I opened the garage door and pulled my truck out of the way. Lifting the table saw, I rolled it out, grabbed my staple gun, my electric hammer, and my drill and then set them all on the workbench. Heaving one large wall panel up, I propped it up onto the wood horses and started the detail work. There were six panels. Once complete, all I had to do was haul them over to Sophie’s and put them together. Make a floor for the house, and it would be ready.
Popping my headphones on, I turned on the sander and went to work smoothing out each spindle that would make up the gingerbread detail around the porch. When that one was done, I started on the next, getting lost in the work. I’d stop long enough to grab the drill and make the holes for where we’d attach the porch before getting back to work.
She wanted to be like this, then fine, she could be like this. I couldn’t change someone who didn’t want to change. My love, no matter how much of it there was, would never have been enough.
I grabbed the staple gun and attached a window frame.
She needed to be mad at people, and I was just one more person for her to rage at.
I traded the staple gun for the sander. The loud humming soothed me, becoming a cadence of noise for my thoughts to sink under.
That was, until the humming stopped.
I turned to see Kayson and Ian standing behind me.
“What the fuck?” Ian said, which had Kayson shoving him forward.
“Let’s go inside.” Kayson headed into my garage.
“No. Go home. I need to work.”
“It’s two in the fucking morning, your family needs to sleep. Sophie and Carter are ready to kill you because Avril has been crying ever since you started, which means that Gianna and Harlow are up. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if you are expected to babysit three grumpy girls tomorrow so their parents can take a nap. Now, go inside,” Kayson ordered.
I rolled my eyes but did as he ordered. “You know, for being the youngest you sure are a bossy fucker.”
“Why didn’t you just stay inside and do this?” Kayson pointed to the bourbon sitting on my coffee table.
“I was doing that, then decided that power tools sounded better.”
“Aroohh.” All three of us mimicked the sound from Tim the Toolman Taylor. Even in moments like this, certain things were ingrained in you, and when you talked about power tools, aroohh, that was one of them.
“Let me guess, Katy left you?” Ian asked in mock dismay.
“Fuck you.”
“What’d you screw up?”
“Nothing. She screwed up. Apparently, she is as screwed up in the head as Tristan said.”
“Tristan told you that Katy Nichols was screwed up in the head?” Kayson asked for clarification.
“Well, not exactly. He said that I needed to be prepared to walk away because she was broken and might not want to be healed. Well, he was right, she doesn’t want to be. She wants to stay angry at all the things that have gone wrong in her life instead of letting anyone help her.” I set my highball glass down and decided to fuck the fingers, I was just going to pour as much as I wanted to. It was my bourbon, after all. I could do what I wanted.
“Did you tell her that?” Kayson placed his hand on the bottle to keep me from knocking it over.
“Yes, I told her that. I just wanted to protect her. But she got pissed about the camera. Like she was any better. She was the one fucking living in the model house.”
“Whoa. Back up just a minute and fill me in. I’m totally lost.” Ian looked between Kayson and me.
I started at the beginning and told them everything from finding that damn sock and those drawings to the camera to Tristan’s offer to let her house-sit.
“And you still hired her?” Ian was dumbfounded.
“I’d already hired her. She’d been working for me for a little bit.”
“Does Tristan know she was homeless? I doubt he’d want her in his house.” Ian shook his head in disgust.
“Don’t get self-righteous with me. Whose idea do you think it was for her to house-sit?”
“What are you going to do?” Kayson refilled his tumbler before leaning forward to refill mine for me.
“Nothing. Nothing I can do. She doesn’t want me.”
“Do you love her?”
I scoffed and then let my shoulders fall forward. “Yeah.”
“I mean, can you imagine life without her?”
“I don’t want to, but I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” I took a long swig. “Worst part is, she’s dragging Bee through her emotional roller coaster as well. She’s destroying Bee with her lack of trust. She’s always afraid someone’s going to hurt her so she’s going to run away before they can do it. What she doesn’t fucking get is that Bee is the one getting hurt in all of her running away. She claims that she wants what’s best for that little girl, but over and fucking over again she’s the one hurting her.”
“What do you want?” Ian spoke up for the first time in a while.
“I want my family back.”
“But they aren’t your family. She’s your secretary and Bee is her daughter, not yours.”
I jumped up, and the room moved for a minute before righting itself. I’d never hated one of my brothers, but right then I hated Ian.
“Get out of my fucking home. I never want to see you again. You wouldn’t say that to Sophie about the girls or Carter about Gianna and Avril. Why? Why do you say that to me?”
“I’m going.” Ian stopped at the door to my garage. “But to answer your questions, I wouldn’t say that to them because they didn’t give up on each other. They deserved their happy ending. A real man fights for his family, at least that’s what Pops taught us. If they were your family, you’d fight for them.” Ian strode out.
“Listen, Damon. Sleep off the bourbon, and maybe tomorrow you’ll be able to think clear and start again.” Kayson closed the door behind him.
Chapter 31
Katy
Nichols?�
�
I looked up at the volunteer who called my name and stood. “I’m Nichols.”
“You have a visitor. Please gather any personal items and follow me.”
I picked up my duffle that I’d used as a pillow and grabbed Bee by the hand as we followed the lady to a small room. When she opened the door, I let out a long sigh.
“Yia Yia, did you come for us?” Bee ran to Christine and threw her arms around her.
“Aww, Beetsa, of course I came for you. Have a seat, Katy.”
“How’d you find me?”
“You were so upset last night after you picked up Bee from Sophie’s that she made Carter follow you so that we knew you were safe.”
“Well, I’m safe. You can let them all know.”
“We thought maybe you’d gone to a hotel.”
“Really? I don’t have a job. I can’t burn through my savings. I have no clue how long it will take me to find one.”
She nodded slowly as if she understood and then reached for the bag sitting next to her. “You hungry? I brought some food.” Christine pulled out a Tupperware container. “I even brought pancakes since they’re Beetsa’s favorite.”
“Thank you.” I took the container, opened it, and slid it over to Bee, who didn’t hesitate to start eating. “Why are you here? Truthfully?”
“I’m here for you.”
“Christine, I don’t know if you’re aware, but last night Damon and I decided that we weren’t going to see each other anymore.”
“What?” Bee let the fork drop as she stared at me, her bottom lip trembling. “But he promised to go to the daddy events with me at school next year. Yia Yia promised she was throwing me a birthday party and Harlow and Gianna were coming. I’ve never had a party with people.” I wrapped Bee tightly in my arms.
“Shhh, Bee. I’m sorry. I will make it up to you.”
“Will you let me finish?” Christine reached out and lightly rubbed Bee’s back. “I’m here because from the moment I met you, I knew that you were family. Did I want you to marry my son? Sure. What mother doesn’t want to see her son happy and married to such a great woman? But I didn’t say you were family only if you married my son. I said you were family, and you are. That’s why I’m here. We have two rooms set up in our house for you and Beetsa. We are family regardless of what happens between you and Damon. Will it be strained? At first, I’m sure, but you will both adapt. You work together, so you’ll have to.”
Impact (Iron Orchids Book 3) Page 19
