by Kali Brixton
Three days had given me a lot of time to analyze without fear of someone interrupting once I told Mom and Dad where I was and that I needed to be alone for a bit. My memories of the past had been on rewind for so long, I wasn’t sure which moment in time I was living in anymore. The one question I kept asking was Why? Why was he kissing her? Why did all this have to happen when I thought things were actually falling in place for us? Why was I blind to everything? Did I only see what I wanted to see?
There were no answers, only more questions. Nothing to gain from it other than I needed to have a meaningful conversation and move forward like an adult, no matter what that meant.
A knock on the door reminded me of why I was here in the first place. I needed a place that was neutral to hash this out. I opened the door, wanting to slap him, but decided against it. I may need to keep a few of those in reserve for future use. A serious stare met mine, and I stepped aside to usher in the next chapter of the mess that had become my life. “Thanks for meeting me here, Caz.”
“Thank you for having me over,” he said, eyeing the bed.
“This is a business meeting, and we’ll treat it as such.”
“Okay.” He brought his eagle stare back to me.
“I’ve done some thinking.” This will save the family, Charlotte. This will protect the company. This is your decision—one that no one else can make. “And I accept your offer.” His wicked grin was foreboding. His mouth opened to speak, but I stopped him with a raised hand. “With a few conditions.” I was the mouse trying to dictate the terms of the chase with the cat, but I had to set this right from the beginning.
“What are your conditions, my beautiful negotiator?”
I walked over to the window, looking out at the beautiful day. I wished it was all a bad dream but knew I was making another deal with the devil, and the nightmare was just beginning. “First of all, this stays between us.”
“I think that was my condition, darling.”
I gave him a sharp look. “I mean absolutely no one else. No one but the two of us. We’ll become a couple in everyone’s eyes, and no one will know the truth. This needs to be believable to work correctly, so that has to be first and foremost.”
“Done.”
“Second condition: I’m a virgin. I will remain so until our wedding day.”
“That pleases me to hear. Of course, we’ll keep that condition, but there are other ways to be intimate.” The curl to his lip made me sick to my stomach.
I don’t even think so, jerk. “I meant virgin virgin. Nothing beyond a kiss until we get married…” I swallowed thickly. “Then, I’ll be yours.”
“I am a man with needs, Charlotte.”
Gross. “And you can take care of those needs elsewhere until we are married. But I will expect faithfulness once we are officially man and wife.” The words were bitter on my tongue, but I hoped that would keep him at bay for a little while longer. “Think of it as a pre-marital hall pass.”
“You sure you won’t be jealous? I have certain tastes and travel in particular circles.”
“As I said: this is a business meeting, and these are the terms of negotiation.” I flattened my emotions and packed them away, hoping to get through the rest of this meeting without feeling like I’m swimming in oil.
“I won’t be so benevolent. I don’t want another man’s hands on you.”
“The hall pass was for you, not for me. I won’t be touching another man, and no man will be touching me.” I made sure the point of my spiel came across clearly. I didn’t want his disgusting hands on me either.
“I like that you have fire in you. We’re well-matched in that respect.”
No need to know what that meant. “The last condition: under no circumstances do you fire anyone working for my father. He’s invested a lot of time training those who work for him right now. Everyone has earned their places among the crew and I want them to have a secure future. He retains the rights to hire and fire as he sees fit through Grey.”
“Why is this so important to you, Charlotte?”
“The people at Kasen Construction depend on their jobs, Caz. Some have been with the company for years—decades. Some have been there a short time.” My heart clenched thinking about a certain new one. “They’re a good fit together, which makes for a more productive team and a healthy bottom line. Too many investors come into companies thinking they have to immediately change everything to make it better. They forget to take time to assess what’s working well and what needs tweaking. Knowing your employees and surrounding yourself with ones who are loyal and will work hard for you goes a lot further than coming in and changing everything just because you can. Everyone stays on and Grey retains the rights to run the company without pressure to make rash decisions.”
“Is that all?” He strummed my long hair from chin to the tip, grazing my breast towards the end.
I took a step back. “No. One last thing…”
“Yes?”
“I’m not your darling.”
“Done. But I want to seal this with a kiss.”
Fighting against every instinct that told me to say no, I slowly nodded my approval. He took his hands, encasing my face with them, and laid his warm lips on mine. I kept my lips pursed to not give him entry to my tongue. “You are truly exquisite, Charlotte, inside and out. You think only for the wellbeing of others. It’s indeed a rare trait.” He pulled me to him for another peck, not bothering to try anything further this time. He had a dreamy look on his face when he pulled back. “I can only imagine the beautiful children you’ll give me. I hope they will take after your kind soul.”
I hoped the fertility gods and goddesses of young and old ignored his last comments because I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do less than to bear the spawn of this man.
Especially when my heart had always been set on a little boy with eyes like the sky and hair the feathers of a raven.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Deacon
I was at rock bottom. I knew it full well as I stood in front of the police station, but it had come to this.
Three weeks. Three weeks of texts, phone calls, social media messages… Everything short of a carrier pigeon—and that was because they were extinct. Three weeks and still nothing. Not a blip. Not a Go fuck yourself with a sharp object. Although, given Charlotte’s disdain for cursing, I’d say she would put that one in kinder terms. That is if I could even get a response back.
She hadn’t been back on site since Elsie’s death and Grey was of course ignoring me outside of necessary work-related directives. I didn’t want to drag Charles and Lynn into the shit pile this was. So when I came to help with Charles’s therapy, I didn’t ask, and they didn’t either. I could see the worry on Lynn’s face, but to her credit, she never brought anything up.
I talked at length about it to Merritt, and she told me to give it time, that things would cool down. Considering I had crossed into ice age territory, I felt another tactic was worth a shot. Out of the ice, into the fiery pits of Hell.
I walked into the police station, noticing the relative quiet of the office. The calm before the storm. I walked to the secretary’s desk and ask if I could speak with Officer Kasen. She was a middle-aged lady with clothes too tight and makeup too young. After an appreciative once-over, she smiled. “What’s your business with him, honey?”
I was about to say it was a personal matter, but my words were cut off by a calm voice. “Deacon.”
I pulled myself upright and met the odd smile of a man who had despised me forever, walking towards the desk. Well, this is odd. “Mason.”
“What brings you to the station?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Officer Kasen, you have your meeting with—”
“This won’t take long, Clara. Please…” he said as he motioned to a door, “Let’s go in here and we’ll have a chat.”
Why did I feel like a lamb being led to the slaughter?
The c
ocksure grin on his face gave away his amusement too quickly, but the anger flaring in his eyes told another story. He was pissed and delighted at my misfortune. This was going to be an uphill battle for sure.
“Close the door.” He walked around to the other side of his desk and sat down in his squeaky office chair. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company today?” He gestured to the seat in front of him, like this was a friendly visit between two old friends.
I needed his help, but this was ridiculous. “Cut the bullshit, Mason. You know why I’m here. You also know that I’m beyond desperate to be coming to you, so the cutesy crap stops now.” I put my fists down on the edge of the desk and leaned forward. “Where’s the asshole who enjoyed busting my balls at the cookout?”
The grin that kept half his face looking somewhat docile had now slipped, and the anger in his eyes flooded over the rest of his face. There he is. “Oh, I know why you’re here. Although, I believe that since you’re the one with little ground to stand on, you can cut the shit and tell me what you want so I can savor the disappoint on your face when I tell you no.”
Zero to sixty, this one. “I need to talk to her.”
“Over my fucking dead body and yours. Now, you can leave.”
“You don’t even know what really happened.”
“So, you’re calling my brother a liar?”
“You know I wouldn’t, but it's not what it looks like.”
“Oh, really? Then, please tell me what the hell it was, Deacon. Because I caught you talking to a ‘friend’ at the cookout and apparently Charlotte found you making out with her best friend. I have a sister who’s devastated and a brother who wants to kill you. I’m failing to see the poor Deacon angle here. Besides… I already told you what would happen if you hurt her, so paper or plastic?”
This asshole was certifiable. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Paper or plastic? I told you I’d bury you in pieces, and I’ve gotta have something to wrap them in. I’ll even be generous and let you pick which one.”
Well, fuck. “First of all, I wouldn’t willingly betray either of them. Even you know me better than that.”
“So, you’re saying it’s all Nikki’s fault?”
“It sure as hell ain’t mine.”
“Why’d she have her tongue down your damn throat?”
“That never happened! You’re making shit up now.” I was living in an episode of The Twilight Zone and didn’t know how to get the hell out of it. “I get that you don’t want to believe me for whatever reasons you’ve cooked up in that dickhead detective brain of yours, but it’s the truth. I didn’t know she was coming, and I still have no clue why the fuck she’d ever wanted to kiss me in the first place. Everything went to Hell from there on out so fast, I still can’t wrap my head around it.”
“Sounds more like a bad Lifetime movie than the truth.”
“Look. I really don’t care if you believe me or not. I get that you hate me, and that’s fine. All I want is the chance to explain to her that I don’t know what the hell Nikki was thinking, but I would’ve never done anything to hurt her like that. Never.”
“I think it shouldn’t surprise you that she doesn’t care to hear your side of things.”
“So, I guess Nikki made it out like it was my fault.”
He looked at his cellphone and put it in his right pocket. “She’s not speaking to Nikki at the moment. Neither is Grey.”
I was relieved to hear that I wasn’t the only one in the doghouse, but unfortunately, I was still in it and didn’t know how to get out. “I love her. I’ve loved her since I was eight years old and I’ll love her forever. If she hates me and never wants to speak to me again, it will kill me, but I’ll understand, and I’ll stay away. But, I want her to know the facts before she makes her decision.”
“If you want to respect her wishes, leave her be. If she wants to talk with you, she’ll come to you.”
“No, she won’t.”
“Then, I guess you have your answer.”
“Mason, I have never asked anything of you before, but I am begging you to do one thing for me.”
“What is it?”
“Tell her I’m sorry, and if she wants to know my side of things, she can get in touch with me at this number. All she has to do is text ‘Talk’ and I’ll drop whatever I’m doing and come straight to her.”
“You don’t have her new number.” That at least answers a few questions for me. “How will you know it’s her?”
“I got it this morning solely for that text. She’s the only one who will have the number to this phone. Well… Other than you, now.”
A raised eyebrow met my gaze, followed by a sharp clearing of the throat. “So… If I were to entertain this stupid plan and give this to her, then what? Is she supposed to just forgive and forget? Like always?”
Like always. I never fail to see how wonderful a person Charlotte is, but I sometimes forget that she’s that person every single day, no matter what. “No. She’s not. I am fully ready to beg and grovel and debase myself however I need to because she has always been so forgiving and it shouldn’t be expected like everyone does with her. She needs to know she’s the most important thing in my life—because she is. If she doesn’t want to talk to me, that’s okay. But I have to try.”
“What if I decide it’s not in her best interest to give her this number?”
“Like you did with the note I left for her?”
He narrowed his eyes. Gotcha, bitch. “Then, you’ll be doing the exact same thing I’ve been doing—hell, everyone’s been doing to her throughout her whole life.”
“I only want to protect my sister from fuckers who think they can walk all over her.”
“That’s not protecting her—that’s making her decisions for her. It’s the same thing Aidan and I both tried to do. You see how that shit turned out.”
“You don’t fucking get to talk about him!” He came around the desk and grabbed me by the collar, pushing me against the door. I shoved him back and he landed a punch right on the spot that had just healed from Grey’s blow. Fuck this. I threw a punch, hitting him in the nose, a loud crack splitting the air. Blood poured freely from his nose, but the fire in his eyes raged beneath the mist in them. He charged me, knocking me into the wall, somehow opening the door, and with another shove, we spilled out of the office onto the squad room floor.
“Sgt. Hartley!” A shrill scream pierced the room as a few of the officers jumped in, pulling us apart.
A man who I knew well from the night my dad skipped town barreled into the room. “What in the ever-loving, cornbread-battered hell is going on here?”
The bloody nose Mason had and swollen jaw I now had was proof I had made yet another wrong decision. Sgt. Hartley was a brawny man who was a few inches shorter than me but made up for it in sheer power. He was a beast of a man—a beast who looked like he was ready to chew both our asses up and spit us out for the hell of it.
“Who started this shit?”
I gave Mason the death stare, who was obviously pissed, but there was just the slightest edge of worry there as he looked at Hartley. “Sarge. I…”
“Kasen, so help me God, if you…” There was obviously something bigger going on here, and the fact that Mason looked like he was getting ready to get canned didn’t sit well with me. Yeah, he started it, but in hindsight, I knew better than to come here in the first place.
“It was me.” The group of men stared at me like I had an extra head growing out of my neck. With how the last three weeks had gone, maybe I did at this point… “I threw the first punch.”
Hartley was pissed. Mason, on the other hand, looked surprised. “Get Devereaux in a cell.” Two officers grabbed my arms—the snick and ratcheting of the cuffs on my wrists sealed my fate—and pulled me towards the back of the station. “Clara, get Kasen some ice.”
I sat there for a while, mulling over how this would be grounds for dismissal at work—and probably
would sever any final tie I had to the Kasen family. I had fucked up royally and now my stupid ass was going to be in an orange jumpsuit for a while. Punching a police officer was by and large one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done, but whatever Mason’s problem is with me has set of gangrene in his soul. I don’t know why I even thought he’d be willing to help me.
The clanging of the bars brought me out of my thoughts. “You get a phone call.”
It’s a lonely feeling when you realize you have no one to call, no one to depend on because your track record for being the man people can rely on looks like a puppy chewed it up. Merritt was four hours away and after the fight with Mason, the whole Kasen clan was out of the question. “I don’t have anyone to call.” He nodded and walked away, leaving me to my solitude.
I was alone in the cell, watching the colors of late afternoon fading to the darkness of night in a small window nearby. A rustle of fabric and the sound of metal meeting metal alerted me to the cell door being unlocked. “You’re free to go.”
Since I didn’t make a call, I wondered who would even know I was here. “Who’s bailing me out?”
“The police officer you assaulted. He’s not pressing charges.” Something was up. There’s no way he’d even remotely let me off the hook for this. I left the cell and was brought back to the bullpen area, Mason standing there with a bandaged nose and a bloodied shirt collar.
“You do realize you could have landed yourself a nice, long vacation at Ironside Pen, right? Assault of a police officer carries at least a two-year stay and puts a felony on your record.”
What mindfuckery was he up to now? “I did hit an officer.”
He took a deep breath through his mouth and exhaled sharply. “Not until the officer hit you.”
