…
The next few days were a whirlwind for Beckett. Everything had been abandoned, except helping his mother get back on her feet. She’d resisted some of the changes—like switching out her locks and meeting with a lawyer—but this time Beckett took Kayla’s advice. That meant helping Minnie face some harsh realities, instead of trying to Band-Aid the situation for her.
But the whole thing drained him completely. Caring for his family was exhausting. Emotionally. Mentally. So when he tried to throw himself into WealthHack, there was nothing left. And, after meeting with the bank and confirming they wouldn’t be able to loan him enough to get the project through to seed stage, Beckett knew he only had one option left: Lionus Aldridge.
Given the older man had hung up on him earlier that week, when he’d called to see if they could work things out, the only person who would have any sway would be Sherri. No matter how he tried to figure it out, he always came back to the same solution.
Which meant he needed to talk to McKenna.
He felt like a bastard sleeping with her and then calling things off. God, he was one of those guys he’d hated in high school. The asshole-type he’d warned his sister away from over the years. Guilt churned in his gut like a foamy, black wave. He had no idea what to say, no idea how to break the news.
The only thing he did know was that she deserved the truth. He didn’t want her finding out via some third party because he was too chickenshit to come clean with her. Beckett might not be perfect, but he wasn’t a liar.
Steeling himself, he headed out of his apartment and made the short walk to her front door. Every cell in his body resisted what he was about to do, making his hand feel as though it was filled with lead as he rose it to knock.
You’re doing the right thing by your family, and your future. Once you get WealthHack to market, you’ll be set. Then you can start worrying about what you want. Until that point, it’s about what you need.
But what did he need, really? Casting aside the money that Lionus had promised him—and the contract terms that left him in charge and in control—what did he need? A bed to sleep on, a roof over his head. The knowledge that his mother wouldn’t have to struggle. The fundamentals.
But he’d never thought beyond that. Never wondered what lay beyond the security of basic needs, because he wasn’t a guy who craved fancy holidays and fast cars. Beautiful women.
He swallowed and let his fist rap against her door. Beautiful woman. If he was honest with himself, there was only one person he wanted.
The door swung open and McKenna’s face lit up. “Beckett! What a nice surprise. I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”
He raked a hand through his hair, everything coiling up tight in preparation. Was he supposed to go inside? Or should they do it here? No, the last thing he wanted was people talking about his personal life.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
“Of course.” She gestured with a wooden spoon. “I was getting dinner ready. I’m trying my hand at making a Thai red curry from scratch. I’m not the best cook, I’ll be honest. But this recipe looked simple. Do you like spicy food? I’ve got enough for two if you haven’t eaten yet.”
She prattled on about the recipe, about the ingredients she’d bought fresh from the South Melbourne market, about that one time that she forgot to de-seed a chili before putting it into her meal. He let her voice wash over him for a few minutes, enjoying the tinkling highs and lows of her pitch. She spoke about everything with such excitement and passion, no matter how mundane the topic.
He could listen to that voice for the rest of his life.
Remember why you’re here. Don’t drag this out longer than you have to, it’s not fair on either of you.
“McKenna,” he said, reaching out to touch her arm. “We need to talk.”
A smile quirked on her lips. It looked as though she’d been wearing lipstick, but most of it had smudged off. A stray dot of sauce had stained her chin and he had to force himself not to swipe at it with his thumb.
“That’s the second time you’ve said that to me,” she said. “I’m starting to worry I’m rubbing off on you.”
Only in the best ways.
He cleared his throat. “Look, I don’t know how to do this…”
Seeing her easy smile dissolve into confusion and then worry was like an icepick to his heart. She didn’t deserve this.
“There have been some changes…” Shit. He’d never broken up with anyone before. But how was one supposed to do that before they were even dating? “I’ve had to reassess things.”
Her lip quivered. “This isn’t a good time to start using clichés.”
“I’m still going to get back together with Sherri.” Each word was like barbed wire scraping up the back of his throat, leaving him raw. Shredded. His voice wasn’t even his own. He sounded jagged and robotic. Like someone else was speaking for him. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but I need to do what’s best for my family.”
“Your family wants you to be with someone for the sake of money?” Her tone said she didn’t believe a word of it.
“It’s a long story, but—”
“I have time.” She folded her arms across her chest. “And I want to hear every word of it so that I remember the exact moment I figured out that I am physically incapable of telling the good guys from the bad.”
He cringed. “It’s not personal, McKenna. It’s nothing to do with you.”
“Yes, it bloody well is.” Her voice wavered. “I’m positive you’re not the type of guy to sleep around for kicks. It certainly didn’t feel that way the other night. That makes it personal.”
She stared at him, her blue eyes wide and surrounded by long, soot-black lashes. Unblinking. Her small frame was dressed in all black—a fitted dress, lace tights, and chunky, flat boots. Work attire. She mustn’t have been home for long.
“WealthHack is everything I’ve been working toward. It means my mother won’t ever have to worry about making ends meet like she did when I was growing up. It means she won’t have to work some crappy minimum wage job that she hates.” He swallowed.
He’d never talked about his family like this to anyone. Ever. As far as people were concerned, he was just a guy who loved to create. But they were wrong about what he wanted to create. It wasn’t an app or a lavish lifestyle or fame. It wasn’t even that he wanted to change the world. He was simply a guy who wanted his bases covered. Who wanted to give his mother the one thing she’d struggled to give him.
“It’s not about what I want for me,” he said. “It’s bigger than that.”
Chapter Fifteen
McKenna didn’t want to feel sympathy for Beckett. Damn him. She’d never met a guy who was so devoted to his family in her entire life. It spoke volumes about who he was as a person. But all that was overshadowed by the fact that he’d slept with her while not having any intention of sticking around.
And that spoke volumes about her.
Can’t you get it into your head? You’ll never be good enough for these guys. Gage knew it. And now Beckett knows it. So why don’t you?
The drumbeat of her heart rang loud in her ears. What was wrong with her? What part of her was so broken that she couldn’t read people properly? That she couldn’t see the oncoming headlights of humiliation until it was too late?
His brows furrowed, an adorable crease forming between them. “I wish things were different.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh right, so now you’re going to say I’m beautiful and wonderful and I deserve a man who’ll treat me right. And you wish that man could be you, but it can’t.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, but he said nothing.
“It’s easy to say that shit when you don’t have to back it up. Which, ultimately, tells me it means nothing.” Tears threatened and she willed herself not to cry with every ounce of control in her body. She would not let him see how much he’d hurt her. “But don’t worry, it’s not like you promised
me anything to get me into bed. I don’t blame you for that. I blame me.”
“McKenna—”
“I went willingly, thinking that you showed up at my door because you felt that stupid little spark that I had. I didn’t ask questions, and I ignored that voice in my head telling me to watch out. I should have listened,” she charged on, letting the words erupt because if she didn’t let them flow, her tears would instead. She needed to cling to anger or else she’d start to feel something else. The snap of rejection, renewed like an old wound cut open again. “But I don’t blame you, really. You were clear from the start that you wanted her back and I should have known you wouldn’t change your mind even though I thought we had something.”
“We did have something,” he said, the words low and gravelly. Not his usual calm and even tone.
“No, we didn’t. Because if you really believed that, then you wouldn’t be going back to her.”
“I told you why it has to be this way.” He raked a hand through his hair.
“Do you care about her?” She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to hear him say yes or no. Each one was fraught with its own issues, and neither was a solution.
“Of course I care about her. We were supposed to be getting married.” He shook his head. “It’s different.”
“How is it different? Do you care about me, too? Or did you sleep with me because I was there?”
The muscle in Beckett’s jaw ticked. “I slept with you because I wanted to, because…I felt a connection.”
So he’d felt it, too. Her chest clenched. It seemed that even when she managed to find a decent guy, she couldn’t make it work. Something always went wrong.
“But that’s not enough.” She looked at the floor, the hot prickles at the backs of her eyes getting stronger. Overpowering her.
He cursed under his breath. “The timing…”
“There’s always something.” She lifted her head, looking him straight in the eye. “You know, that night I first came to your apartment I had decided to swear off men. Temporarily, anyway.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Well, I had. Reason being that I make bad decisions for myself.” She let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “I was determined not to let anyone else tell me I’m not good enough. But here we are.”
“I am not telling you that.” He reached out to her, but she stepped back and he dropped his arm back down by his side. “This has nothing to do with what kind of person you are.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me I am good enough, then?” she said, sarcasm weighing her words down.
“No one should have to tell you that, McKenna,” he said. “You should know it.”
He may as well have slapped her across the face for how badly the words stung. The entire mess had been created because she hadn’t believed in herself. If she’d started working on her freelance business when she should have, then she wouldn’t have needed Beckett’s help to secure an important wedding. And she wouldn’t have bent her own rules and slept with him, knowing that he was trying to get Sherri back.
Low self-esteem was the key ingredient in all her failings. But not for much longer.
“You know, I should thank you, Beckett.” She noticed that she was still clutching the wooden spoon and headed over to the pot to stir her curry. No sense letting her dinner burn because of him. “This has been an important learning experience. And you’re right, I shouldn’t need someone to tell me I’m good enough. I’m not going to seek validation from other people anymore.”
He continued to watch her, his assessing gaze fixed on her face. What was he thinking? Did he regret coming here? Would he be sorry that he walked away?
“I’m sorry that this”—she gestured to them both—“doesn’t fit in with your circumstances. But I really hope you don’t make her miserable so you can look after your family. Because she’s a person, too. And, like me, she deserves more than some guy who’s only with her for superficial reasons.”
For a moment, his emotions—shock, regret, anger—were brilliantly clear in his face. It reflected in the flare of his nostrils, in the tensing of his jaw, in the flicker of his gaze to the floor and back. But, like with most things that Beckett felt, it slipped back below the surface in an instant.
“I appreciate you giving me the heads up instead of ghosting me,” she said, her anger receding. Something deeper and darker had bubbled up, and she didn’t want him to see it. “But I think you should leave now.”
“McKenna…” He sighed, his fist clenching and releasing by his side. “I’m sorry.”
No, that’s not what she needed to hear. Because no other guy had ever made an apology for his actions, and not once had she cared. She’d always picked herself up and dusted herself off—angry, but never vulnerable. Never hollowed out and aching and so freaking sad.
Why now? You weren’t even dating. You didn’t have anything with him. One night? It’s nothing.
Maybe that’s why it was worse. Because it felt like they’d become friends.
“Please, just go.” Her voice had taken on that strangled sound. That uneven, crackly, pre-crying sound. “I don’t have anything else to say.”
She turned around and promised herself that she wouldn’t move until she heard the door close. The sound came without any footsteps preceding it. Like he’d vanished into thin air. Even then she counted to three before the tears fell.
…
After messing up his chat with McKenna, Beckett felt like a caged animal for days. He paced back and forth across his living room—unable to work, unable to move on. It was like mental quicksand. Even the few times he’d picked up his phone to call Sherri, he couldn’t seem to make his fingers work.
But Kayla’s rehearsal dinner was fast approaching, and he still hadn’t told his family that they’d broken up. Which meant the time for fixing his mess of a life was now. He hurried down Clarendon Street toward the Wooden Llama, Sherri’s café of choice. It was less than a block from her office, and if he knew his ex like he thought he did, then she’d be there at three on the dot ordering a flat white.
He got there early, bought her coffee and his. Like clockwork, she walked through the doors a moment later. Her eyes widened when they settled on him, and Beckett held out the paper cup—stamped with the café’s signature llama head.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, a half smile forming on her lips.
He hadn’t been sure what reaction he’d get turning up like this, but Sherri loved romantic comedies. And the guy always seemed to show up in the right place at the right time at the end of those. Given her sweet expression, it looked like his gamble had paid off.
But instead of feeling any gratitude toward his fortune, or any sense of happiness or relief at seeing her again, his stomach sank. Every cell in his body told him to get up and walk out of that café. Had he been subconsciously hoping that she’d turn him away so he could be absolved of this decision?
“I wanted to talk,” he said.
God. That phrase was becoming his go-to lately…who the hell had he become?
“Wow. Okay.” They took a seat at a small round table in the corner of the café.
Sherri shrugged out of her trench coat and hung it neatly on the back of her chair. She had her hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail and wore natural makeup, as she always did. Even her perfume was the same—something soft and lemon-y. Familiar.
But that familiarity only served to exacerbate the unease growing unwieldy in his stomach. The feeling of wrongness consumed him, confusing him. It occurred to him how different she and McKenna were. Both beautiful women, in their own way. But he felt none of the spark with Sherri that he did with McKenna. None of that sizzle and zing that had captured him and confounded him from the moment she’d entered his apartment to claim a wayward box of sex toys.
The memory was like a knife to his gut.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your coffee time,” he said.
“Not at all.”
She sipped her drink, looking at him expectantly. “This is a very pleasant surprise.”
This was what she’d wanted all along, for him to step outside his usual way of doing things. To surprise her. To want to talk.
It occurred to him that all that behavior had started when he’d met McKenna. In the short time they’d become friends—or however he was supposed to label it—he’d changed. Work had taken a back seat, and he’d made time for other things. A date, communication, kissing. Sex.
Incredible, mind-bending, insatiable sex.
He shook his head. Cutting ties with McKenna should have put a stop to his thoughts about her, but instead it had the opposite result. It was like he’d unplugged something in his brain and now there was a constant stream of her filling his head.
“Did you have something you wanted to say to me, Beck?” Sherri asked softly.
What the hell was he doing? This wasn’t who he was, who he was raised to be. He didn’t use people. Leading Sherri on now would make him no better than Greg—a thief, a liar. A selfish asshole who was happy to stomp over those he should have cared about if it got him what he wanted.
“I’m sorry for how we ended things,” Beckett said. He wrapped his hands around his cup, willing the warmth to unfreeze his brain. “I didn’t give you the time you deserved when we were together.”
She nodded, her hand reaching up to smooth her already perfect hair. “You do love your work.”
“I do.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, I did.”
He’d treated WealthHack like it was the only thing that mattered for so long. It was the key to solving his problems, for creating security. But he knew now that security wasn’t as guaranteed as he’d once thought. His mother had enough money for two years of rent, and now it was gone. Security could vanish at any time.
Just like control.
He couldn’t dictate his mother’s life so it would fit into his idea of an “end state.” He couldn’t tell her how to spend the money or whether she needed to ask for her job back or whether she should let Greg back into her life. That was him imposing his values on her.
Trouble Next Door Page 15
