Fate: A Trinity Novel: Book Five

by Audrey Carlan

  A blond waitress with pretty brown eyes hitting on me.

  The blonde leading me across the street to a hotel.

  Paying for a room.

  Falling back on a bed. Kathleen stripped naked on top of me.

  Not Kathleen…the waitress.

  The blonde riding my cock, my fingers digging into her hips.

  I need the release so bad.

  Wanting the pain to go away.

  Pounding into the wet heat of my Kathleen from behind.

  Blond head tipping back, screaming out in pleasure. Hair the wrong shade.

  Grinding my hips and pumping my release into her.

  Falling back on the bed.

  Waking up alone and hungover.

  * * *

  I had no idea that night had the power to get any worse. For over two years I’d pined over Kathleen. Sure, I saw a few women. Mostly to scratch a sexual itch. No one can go forever cut off from physical touch. Unless that person is Kathleen Bennett.

  Chase tells me she’s not so much as dated a man since breaking it off with me six months after her first rounds of burn treatments. Back then I still had hope. And then, all of a sudden, I see her again. I haven’t laid eyes on my girl in what feels like forever. And she responded like the old Kat would have. Shy, sweet, unafraid of my touch. Yearning for it, even.

  It took everything I had not to get stiff seeing her again, smelling her, feeling the softness of her skin at her nape. I’d always loved the way she smelled, especially near the hairline behind her ear. My secret spot and an erogenous zone on her. I wanted so badly to kiss, lick, and nibble that patch of skin, sink my teeth in and never let go.

  Fuck, my dick is getting hard thinking about it. I even touched her scarred hand. She stiffened, but she didn’t run away. The first time in years she hasn’t run away. There were no tears, no harsh words, almost as though a peacefulness had come over her. Much like the woman I once knew and loved. Still love, even after these last couple of years. Seeing her again…

  Christ. What the hell am I going to do?

  Nothing.

  Until I find out the results of the DNA tests, there is nothing I can do. But what a thrill it was to see her respond to me. Kissing her, even briefly, brought back everything I’d ever felt for the woman. Years later, and she’s still capable of bringing me to my knees. If Chase and Gillian hadn’t been there, I would have pushed harder. Thank God I didn’t. I have no idea what’s going on in my own life right now. At least I know she’s doing well.

  Chase has begrudgingly kept me apprised of her life—otherwise, I wouldn’t know a thing. Bastard. He’s become close to her. At first, per my request. I made him promise he’d take care of my girl. I even went old school and made him spit in his hand and shake on it. We’ve always been more than cousins. More like brothers. When he came to live with us at such a young age, his mother in a coma, my mother having just died, we bonded on a brotherly level that could never be broken. Now he’s the only link I have to her. If I’d been able to say those three fucking words, maybe things would be different.

  Even at the risk of losing her, I still couldn’t say them.

  I love you.

  I love you, Kat.

  I love you, Kathleen.

  Over and over I tried to tell her. Proved it every day with my actions. Bent over backward to help her heal, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted those three words, and I couldn’t give them to her. Every single time I’d attempted to utter them, move the breath past my lips, I’d remembered the last time I said them, and the pain and heartache would come back, stealing the words from me once again.

  After all this, I’m not sure it would have mattered. If I’d said them that night, maybe… She’d asked time and time again if I loved her. And of course I’d tell her I did, but she wanted to hear it. I wanted to hear it. All the time, I made her tell me. Needed it from her, but what she gave, I couldn’t give back. Maybe that was the nail in the coffin of our relationship. Still, it was hard to fathom it would end the way it did.

  I treated her well, like the goddamned goddess I thought she was. Nevertheless, once the fire happened, she lost something. As if the fire had taken away her ability to live. She gave up. Nothing seemed to work to pull her out of her funk, and with each painful treatment it got worse. A little bit more of the woman I loved withered away until I could hardly recognize what was left.

  I pull up to my house and the massive black wrought-iron gate begins to glide open. As I’m waiting, a white LabCorp Genetics minivan pulls up behind me.

  Seeing the van makes the skin on my arms prickle, and a layer of sweat coats my pits and forms at my hairline. I take a long, slow breath and get out of the car. Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it. One step at a time.

  The driver is a young college-age kid. Couldn’t be more than twenty years old. He’s wearing his company hat backward on his head and his unbuttoned shirt reveals a tie-dyed shirt underneath.

  “Hey, man, how goes it?” the courier asks, ruffling through a big bag.

  “Fine. You got something for me?” I ask.

  “Totally, dude.” He pulls out a nine-by-twelve-inch envelope. “Here you go!” He slaps the envelope into my hand with more exuberance than the situation warrants. At least he likes his job.

  “Thanks,” I mumble under my breath.

  “Yo! Wait up. Need your signature, or my boss will have my balls. And she’s a total tight-ass wench.” He grimaces.

  I chuckle, remembering the days when I had to answer to someone. Owning my own business affords me the luxury to come and go as I please and work when I want to. I’ll never go back to working for someone else.

  The kid holds out a clipboard. I scrawl my name across it and give a salute before I make my way up the steps.

  He zooms out of the circular drive, off to deliver someone else’s bad news, I imagine. I shake my head and move through my house.

  It’s huge. Not as big as the mansion estate I grew up in, but way too much for a single man. I’d hoped to one day move Kat in here, marry her, have a few kids. Growing up, I knew I wanted a big family. Had I not had my brothers, sister, and Chase, losing my mother would have been even more devastating. Because I had them, there was always something or someone to keep the tone in the house a little lighter. Push the darkness away.

  Once I reach the bar, I pour three fingers of scotch. I’m going to need it to get through whatever this report says.

  Taking my time, I go out back and keep walking. Past my pool and the horse stables and directly out to my ocean-view patio. When I bought the land, I had a deck built near the back of the cliffs, the ocean still a safe distance away but with a perfect open view. I’d even piped out speakers, lighting, and built a gazebo so that I could enjoy the ocean no matter what the weather was like. Today the sun was bright and the temperature a perfect seventy degrees. If only my heart was as light.

  Sipping my drink, I watch the waves crash against the shore and wonder what it would be like if Kathleen had never been in the fire. Too many times I’ve recounted ways I could have changed the outcome of that evening. She was supposed to have been with me, except her work ethic wouldn’t let her leave until the finishing touches were complete on the last piece she’d been working on.

  I should have pushed her to be with me. Told her I needed her. Fuck, I always needed her. She was everything to me. All women paled in comparison to her beauty, heart, and talent. I remember watching her work in her tiny apartment until late in the evening. Heck, sometimes I’d fuck her until we both passed out, and then I’d wake in the middle of the night to the sound of the sewing machine whirring. When I’d find her, she’d be working on something magnificent.

  Since then, I’ve heard she’s been designing clothes, working in partnership with my sister, Chloe.

  Now my sister is a sore motherfucking subject. She refuses, absolutely refuses to talk about Kat in any way. Even work-wise. Says it’s putting her in the middle and making her choose family ov
er her work and her friendships, and she won’t do either. Truth be told, it’s put a huge wrench in our relationship. One I should fix, since I’m the one constantly pissed off at her.

  I flip the envelope back and forth until I finally rip the seal and open it. I pull out the report. It’s several pages, most of it black boxes lined up along other black boxes. My name is on the left and Cora Duncan’s is on the right.

  While I scan the documents, so many emotions rush through me, beating me to a pulp the same way the waves are battering the sand. It’s all a bunch of garbled scientific nonsense until I get to the last page.

  A letter from my college buddy, Bradley Grover, who owns LabCorp Genetics, rounds out the packet explaining exactly what I need to know.

  Carson,

  I’ve personally ensured that my top geneticist ran your swabs against Ms. Cora Duncan’s DNA three times. During the PCR analysis, or polymerase chain reaction process, we compared twenty-one genetic markers by multiplying twenty-three paternity indexes derived from twenty of the genetic loci we test.

  Based on the testing results included within, the probability of paternity is 99.9%.

  That means eighteen-month-old Cora Duncan is in fact your biological child.

  Call me if you’d like to discuss. Carson, I imagine this is an intense time, but I’m here if you need a friend.

  Brad

  Bradley Grover

  Chief Executive Officer

  LabCorp Genetics

  Fuck me. I’m someone’s father. I have a child. A daughter.

  Cora Duncan.

  Even her first name starts with a “C,” as is tradition in my family.

  What the hell do I do now?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KATHLEEN

  “Ugh, what I wouldn’t give to have a doughnut right now,” Chloe grumbles and sips on a wheatgrass smoothie.

  I watch her suck down the disgusting concoction and fight my gag reflex. “Still on the paleo diet, I see.”

  She bites down on her straw as if drinking the stuff is hurting her as much as it is helping. “A few more days, and then I can work up to a twelve-hundred-calorie diet again.”

  My eyes practically bug out of my head. “Work up to it? What are you eating now?”

  “Five hundred,” she says while pushing papers around her desk.

  I’ve just given her the designs for the new menswear line I want to start my team on.

  “Sounds…er…practical,” I say, the lack of sincerity in my voice betraying how I really feel.

  Chloe rolls her eyes. “We both know I’m basically starving myself so I can look incredible in the gown you’ve drawn up for Paris Fashion Week.”

  I chuckle. “You could just take a couple of Bree’s yoga classes.”

  “And look at that hot bitch while sweating like a pig and falling on my ass in a position God never intended a woman’s body to be in in the first place?” She stares at me, blinking rapidly.

  That does it. Laughter pours out of me, and I flop back against my own chair in the master office we share. “God, you’re good for me.” I wave at my now overheated face, trying to cool down.

  “Well isn’t that the truth.” She sucks on the green smoothie, grimaces, hacks, and tosses it half-full into the trash before grabbing a foil-wrapped treat off my desk. “How many calories do you think are in just one of these? Like ten, right?”

  I snicker. “Try seventy-five to a hundred.”

  Her eyes widen after she plops it into her mouth. “Your numbers are jacked. I’m going with ten. That means I can have nine more of these suckers.” She winks and then picks up one of the designs.

  “What’s this little L-shaped thing here?” She points to a section of my work.

  My penmanship with my left hand has gotten better, but actual designs don’t always fare as well. Usually, I take advantage of the super savvy voice-activated computer Chase had crafted by his tech geniuses. The software records what I speak, and with a finger I can scratch onto a tablet display to get my designs down on paper.

  “It’s a pair of socks.” I smile.

  Chloe nibbles on another Snickers bar. Mentally, I plan on taking out an inch on the dress I’ve designed for her without mentioning it. What are friends for, anyway?

  “Socks? Since when did we get in the business of sock making?”

  “Well, it’s something I wanted to chat about. I was with Chase last week and noticed he always tries to match his socks to whatever shoe color or pant color he’s wearing. What if we design socks to match our suits? We can even create an entire line of ties that can be sold with each suit and sock set to make it even easier for the customer.”

  “As if being a man isn’t easy enough?” she deadpans.

  I wait. Finally, a hint of a smile curves her lips at the edges.

  “Clo…”

  She waves a hand and opens another candy. “No, no. I’m seeing it. Totally seeing it. We could call it Men at Ease or something like that. Make it easier for the men to get dressed in a given week. Everything can be interchangeable. It’s brilliant as usual, Kat.” She smiles.

  “I thought so.” I waggle my eyebrows.

  “Let’s meet with the creative team about it later in the week. Sound cool?”

  I nod. “Yeah, works for me.” I push the button for our shared receptionist. “Jen, can you schedule a meeting for both of us to meet with creative for a new product powwow? We’ll probably need a good two hours. Make it over lunch, and we’ll order in.”

  “Nice. Good idea.” Chloe gives me a thumbs-up.

  Once I hang up, Chloe lays out her new concepts for our women’s line. “I’m not feeling that strap and bodice together. Something’s not quite right.”

  I focus on the design, and it reminds me of the sequined dress I wore to Carson’s father’s birthday party all those years ago. I run my scarred finger down the design. He was so handsome that night and happy to show off his new girlfriend to his dad. That was also the night Chase proposed to Gillian. Seems like forever ago…

  “Earth to Kat. Hello? Cut the strap or leave it?”

  I shake my head, and a few drops fall down the slope of my nose and onto the paper below. I glance away, wiping at my eyes.

  Chloe gasps and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Kat, what’s the matter?”

  I sniff and lift my head, trying to blink back the unwanted tears. “Nothing. Uh, the design just reminded me of a better time, that’s all.”

  She sighs and leans against my desk, sitting on the edge. “Lay it on me.”

  I clear my throat. “There is nothing to lay on you.”

  She sits on my desk and crosses her ankles and her arms, obviously planning to hold out for the long haul. The woman is ruthless if she wants something, and right now it’s whatever has me crying over her designs.

  Stupid men.

  “Does deflecting usually work for your best friends?”

  I shake my head. “Not usually, no.”

  “Then what makes you think it will work on me? Kat, we’ve been partners for two years now, working together for almost three. I know when your head is not in the game. Usually, I don’t care, as long as your heart is in it. But crying over a design? If you hate it that much you could have just said so.” She holds a serious stern look until she can’t any longer, and her lips tremble with laughter.

  On instinct, I elbow her thigh. “Shut up.”

  “You shut up. No, actually that would be the opposite of what I requested you to do. Blonde moment.” She conks her own head.

  “Stop trying to make me laugh.”

  “Stop avoiding the question.”

  I inhale a long, slow breath. “I’m fine. The design reminded me of a better time is all.”

  “Ah, I see. My guess is something having to do with my brother?” Her eyes soften.

  I shrug. “Yeah. I saw him last weekend.”

  Chloe pounces and with a nudge to my shoulder spins my chair 180 degrees. Before I can right it, she spi
ns me the rest of the way and gets in my face.

  “You saw him? When? How? Why? Are you getting back together?” Her words come in a jumbled string.

  I lean back in my chair, giving myself some space. “He was at Chase and Gillian’s the morning after I spent the night.”

  “Fucking bastard cousin of mine. I’ll kick his ass for putting you on the spot.”

  “Cut it out. He didn’t plan on having me spend the night, and he did plan on having Carson there. It was fine, actually. Nice, even. I hadn’t seen him in a full year. He looks good.”

  Really. Fucking. Good.

  Drop-dead gorgeous.

  “So, what happened? Did you talk to him?”

  I stand up and pace the room, trying to get my thoughts together. “Not much. We chatted. He kissed me. We had coffee and a quiet breakfast, nothing more.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back the truck up. Put that shit in reverse. He kissed you?” Her voice croaks as if she’s holding back her excitement the way a kid does when parents tell them they are going to Disneyland but not for another week.

  “Yes. Kind of the way he used to, just after the accident. Softly, barely even anything. Still, something was definitely there.”

  “My God! Oh my freaking God. Does that mean you’re going to get back together?”

  I groan and let my head fall back as I look up at the ceiling. “No, it doesn’t mean anything of the sort. He’s with someone right now.”

  “Not if you said you were available. The man has been pining for you for three years, Kat. If you say you’re ready to take him back, he’s going to be there with bells on.”

  “Not true. He’s been living his life just as I have,” I counter.

  She makes a noise that sounds like a cross between blowing air out through her mouth and spitting. “I wouldn’t call what either of you have been doing as living.”

  “Really? Even after all we’ve accomplished?” I shoot back, my tone laced with a hint of acid.