The Messenger (Professionals Book 3)

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Okay," he said, nodding. "Do you want to come back here tomorrow?"

  "It's the only lead we have."

  "Alright," he agreed, something in his tone that I was sure I hadn't heard there before, something that was akin to frustration. But that seemed unlikely. The only time I had ever seen him frustrated was that one night he came into the office roughed up. "Do you want to head back to Navesink Bank, and drive up here tomorrow, or get rooms?"

  There would go a few hundred I really could use to save.

  But it was stupid to drive two and a half hours back to Navesink Bank.

  Besides, I wasn't sure I was ready to go back to my apartment, to face all the falsehoods I would find within those walls.

  I just didn't have it in me.

  As much as that bruised my ego to admit even just to myself.

  "It's probably smart to stay around here," I told Kai. "You want me to look..." I started, so used to doing their research for everyone at the office that I automatically reached for my phone.

  "I got it," he told me, opening the door, letting me in while he reached for his own cell. "Only one in the area," he declared, climbing into his seat, tossing the phone into the cupholder.

  And with nothing else, he drove us out of the half-built development and to the hotel.

  Saying nothing.

  I would never accuse Kai of being annoyingly chatty, but he usually had something to say, some way of keeping a conversation going. Even in awkward and tense situations. Which this was more and more feeling like, to be perfectly honest.

  Or maybe that was just me.

  I certainly felt awkward and tense.

  And while tense might have been an old friend of mine, having never really been someone able to completely relax, awkward was an entirely new sensation.

  "You're quiet," I commented, unable to take it anymore, wanting my old Kai back, the one who would have been making comments about the town, about the music, telling jokes. Something. Anything.

  "Just thinking," he came back with, not helping the situation at all.

  Because now I couldn't seem to hold myself back from demanding what it was he was thinking about.

  "About what?"

  "Strategies. Plans. That kind of thing."

  "Well, I am a strategies and plans kind of girl."

  "Usually, yes. But today, I think you are a sit in the passenger seat and get lost in your own thoughts kind of girl."

  He wasn't wrong.

  But that was exactly the problem.

  I didn't want to be lost in my own thoughts.

  Just as those words were starting to work their way up my throat, over my tongue, we were pulling to the parking lot of a white stucco five-floor hotel with an overhang for valet.

  Valet.

  My gaze went to Kai's profile as he drove us under that overhang, wondering if this truly was the only hotel in the area... or if it was the only one he thought I would be willing to stay in. Because there had to be somewhere less expensive, one of those long, low motels off the highway where you might catch bed bugs or an STD from simply walking into it.

  But before I could ask if there was anywhere else, he was hopping out, rushing around the hood to beat the valet to my door, pulling it open for me.

  Gary hadn't been much of a door opener.

  And, to be honest, it was one of my biggest pet peeves about him. It didn't even cross his mind to do it when my hands were full, or when we were all dressed up, and heading to a fancy restaurant.

  Maybe it shouldn't have bothered me. Of all women. Since I prided myself so much on being independent, on taking care of myself in every way possible. So of course I could open my own door.

  I guess it was simply that it had nothing to do with sexism or feminism or anything like that. It was just basic good manners. And that had always been one of my requirements.

  But since he was good about most other things, I let it slide. Even if it irked me.

  Kai fetched our bags, leading us into the hotel with still nothing to say.

  The lobby was as spacious as you'd expect with how giant the place was, all creams and champagnes and the occasional hint of a rose gold.

  I was too busy admiring the enormous glass chandelier hanging over the center of the space - and maybe wondering how the hell one cleaned such a thing, let alone changed the lightbulbs - to notice what Kai was saying to the pretty brunette at the check-in.

  That was until I heard three words.

  "Only one room..."

  My attention snapped to her, finding her focus on Kai, and his on me.

  "The next hotel is half an hour away," he told me, shrugging, leaving it up to me. "It's only a king," he added, not two queens or fulls as one might expect.

  Thirty minutes wasn't far, not really.

  And I wasn't even the one doing the driving.

  But I felt drained.

  Like I wouldn't be able to keep my eyes open for the walk to the elevator, let alone have to get back in the hot car, drive to a new place, then see if they had any openings at all.

  "We'll take it," I told the girl, reaching for my wallet, only to see Kai beat me to it. "Kai... no..."

  "What? It's a business expense, right?" he asked, giving me a mischievous little smile, knowing I was the one who handled the company credit cards, and that Quin just blindly signed off on them.

  It wasn't until she had swiped it and handed it back to him that I realized he hadn't handed her a company card, one I knew to be gold since they all were, but a platinum one that must have been his own.

  I should have fought him on it.

  But I couldn't muster the energy.

  I'd pay him back.

  When all this was done, I'd figure out what the room cost, and pay him back. Even if I had to discreetly sneak it into his paycheck to keep him from knowing about it because I knew he would never take it from me.

  "Coming?" Kai asked, head dipped to the side, holding up two room keys, waiting for me to show any sign of life at all.

  "Yeah," I agreed, letting him lead me down the hall, to an elevator, then up to the fourth floor, down another hall, then finally to our door.

  He let us into the hotel room, only the third one I had ever been in my life, and by far the nicest. Not that that should have been a surprise given how gorgeous the outside, lobby, and even the hallways were.

  But this felt like, well, coming home.

  Everything from the pristine - and unexpected - gray-wash hardwood floors, to the white nightstands and dresser, to the slightly shimmery champagne-colored drapes that skirted the ground, suited the style I liked most.

  Clean.

  Classy.

  Understated.

  My eyes roamed over to the bed, large enough for two, surely, but somehow seeming small, but with a beige tufted headboard, beige sheets, and pure white comforter.

  I found reassurance in that.

  Having a bit of a thing about things being in order and clean, the idea of a stark white comforter said that the thing needed to be washed - and often - to keep it that clean-looking.

  I turned to find Kai watching me, and found myself wanting to ask if this was why he picked the room, because he saw the room pictures online, and knew I would feel at home here.

  Well, at home without all the ugly memories attached to all the items scattered around.

  I was suddenly very strangely pleased by the fact that Gary hated my snow globes, that those were still mine and mine alone, that his touch and voice hadn't tainted those for me as well.

  At least that was something.

  I could get new furniture, new clothes, but there was nothing I could do about the snow globes, about the meaning and attachment behind them.

  So I was almost foolishly thankful that he hated them.

  "How about I go find us some dinner?" Kai suggested as he put our bags down on the dresser beside the TV. "Wraps?" he asked, expecting an automatic yes. Because, well, salads, wraps, fruit, and oatmeal were prett
y much ninety-eight-percent of my diet. I'd been raised to eat healthy, had kept the habit as an adult because it was what I was used to, and because it kept me in shape without having to kill myself at the gym.

  I wasn't - luckily - an emotional eater, having never learned the behavior in my youth.

  But just this once, yeah, I wanted to eat my feelings.

  "Actually... do you think there are any pizza places nearby?"

  "Pizza?" His voice and look on his face matched. Surprise. Confusion.

  "Do you like pizza?"

  "Everyone likes pizza," he shot back, face softening. "What kind do you want?"

  "Mushroom and onion."

  "Alright. Mushroom and onion it is. I'll be back in like... half an hour."

  He went to move past me, opening the door before the words escaped me finally.

  "Kai..."

  "Yeah?" he asked, turning back as I faced him as well.

  "Thank you," I told him, voice a bit thick.

  "For pizza? No thanks nec..."

  "No," I cut him off. "Not just for the pizza. For everything."

  His head ducked to the side, ear nearly touching his shoulder, eyes soft. "Don't mention it, Jules."

  With that, he was gone, leaving me with the tight-chest thing.

  Trying to think of anything but that - or the fact that my partner for the past almost two years was a liar and a con - I moved further into the room, finding a small tufted beige chair beside the dresser, sitting down, looking out the window at the slowly darkening day.

  Not thinking.

  I decided not to think as Kai got pizza, as he came back with it, as he sectioned it off onto plates he'd had the foresight to ask for, as we ate in silence while he flicked restlessly through the TV, trying to figure out the stations, eventually settling on an old Golden Girls rerun.

  He shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his seat on the edge of the bed, seeming restless with the awkward silence, but willing to allow me it if that was what I needed. "Hey Jules?" he asked as I decided my stomach couldn't fit another drop of grease.

  "Yeah?"

  "Have you talked to your family?"

  My family.

  God.

  How had they all managed to slip my mind?

  "Even just a text," he told me as I hopped up to dig through my purse to find my phone. "Just tell them you will fill them in tomorrow. Today has been crazy enough; I'm not sure you can take anymore."

  My pride wanted me to object to that, to insist that I could handle more, I could handle anything that came my way. But, quite frankly, it simply wasn't true. And Kai would know it was a lie.

  "Yeah," I agreed, shooting off a text to my mom and sister telling them I would explain everything after I got some sleep, not to worry about me. "I'm gonna take a bath," I declared, digging in my purse to find a small plastic squirt bottle.

  "What the hell is that?" Kai asked, brows drawn low.

  "Bleach and water."

  "You keep bleach and water in your purse? For what?"

  "For situations like this," I suggested, rolling my eyes a bit.

  "Do I want to know what other random items live in that?" he asked, jerking his chin to my slightly oversized bag. But it was okay. They were still in vogue. I had no idea what I would do if those mini wallet purse things became the thing again.

  "Let's just say, if the world ended tomorrow, I could live out of it for a solid ten months. Give or take."

  "I believe it," Kai said as I moved into the bathroom, taking a deep breath, reminding myself I needed to keep taking them as I scrubbed the deep soaking tub, as I stopped the drain, filled it with steaming water, dropped salts and bombs in, as I slowly stripped out of my clothes, feeling oddly dirty despite the fact that I had bathed twice already that day.

  I wasn't sure I would ever stop feeling like there was a film covering my skin, put there by hands that didn't love me like I thought they did.

  I sank down in the water, feeling it lap up to my chin, a shiver moving through me despite the overly hot water because a new, startling thought broke through the fog of my brain.

  Gary had this thing. This preference. This fetish, in a way.

  He only liked to have sex from behind.

  He only ever wanted to screw me when he couldn't see my face.

  Christ.

  How the hell could I have just looked over that for so long? Accepted that even though it wasn't something I liked, it stole the intimacy I so badly craved?

  Why had I made so many excuses for him over the course of our relationship?

  When had I become so accommodating, so willing to settle for things I most certainly did not want? Or even like remotely?

  He fucked me from behind because he didn't want to see the face of his mark while he used her in the most despicable way possible.

  Used.

  That was absolutely what I felt.

  Maybe I had felt that way each time he touched me.

  Maybe that explained why I hadn't known the sensation of an orgasm in so long I was pretty sure I forgot what one felt like.

  Maybe it wasn't stress, exhaustion, a position I hated. Maybe it wasn't those things. Maybe it was because a part of me knew something was off, but the other part of me had been working so hard to suppress that knowledge. Maybe in suppressing that, I'd suppressed my own pleasure as well.

  My head slammed back against the porcelain hard enough to rattle my teeth.

  I was supposed to be angry with him.

  That should have been my dominant thought.

  But all that could penetrate was about me.

  Anger at myself.

  For missing the signs.

  For becoming someone in that relationship that I didn't even recognize.

  Someone weak, compliant, someone willing to give so much of herself that she lost pieces - hell, chunks - along the way.

  What the hell would I fill those spaces with?

  Self-loathing?

  Were those going to be the new pieces of me?

  It would be so easy for that to happen.

  Effortless, really.

  So many women had it happen, without realizing, without even truly being a part of the process.

  I'd seen so many women - friends, family members, clients at work - who became shadows of their former selves after something happened to them, something they took no part of, but shouldered the blame and guilt and shame of it all regardless.

  They didn't see it happening.

  But I could.

  I could see it, feel it, and I owed it to myself to stop it, to fill those spaces with something else, something that would improve my life, not destroy it.

  What I could fill myself up with, that was still up in the air.

  More work, most likely.

  Some books about the tricks of conmen, probably.

  Some relentless hours at the gym trying to purge these feelings inside that were demanding to come out in the most offensive way I could think of.

  Tears.

  The ones I blinked back relentlessly, pinning my eyes closed, pressing my palms to the lids, refusing to let any more of them fall.

  Better to let them out in sweat.

  Salt water was salt water.

  I was convinced they were interchangeable.

  Or at least I would make them so.

  Because I damn sure wasn't going to cry about it.

  About him.

  I didn't use this phrase often but it seemed appropriate.

  Fuck him.

  Fuck him seven ways to Sunday.

  He had gotten my body, my time, my hopes, my plans, my money.

  He wasn't getting anything else from me.

  The water turned cold before I finally climbed out, wrapping myself in a fluffy white towel that was long enough to almost skim my knees as I stood in front of the mirror, washing my face, brushing my teeth, going through the motions.

  When life is falling apart, angel, take care of the things you can, my grandmot
her used to tell me when some minor - or major - crisis would rock our family, leaving most of us feeling powerless. Wash your face, sweep your floors, make your bed even if all you are going to do is crawl right back into it in an hour. Create order in the chaos.

  That, well, that I could do.

  I took care, slathering on the lotion I kept in my bag, brushing my hair free of tangles, slipping into the silk blush-colored shorts I had packed, only pausing when my hands pulled out the matching camisole.

  I never had to give much thought to my pajamas before, having lived in a room with my sister, then alone in adulthood, never having to think about things like bras and cool, unforgiving of nipples material.

  But I was thinking about my pajamas now.

  With a single bed in the other room.

  And Kai to share it with.

  I was thinking about how my shorts hitched up a bit in the back, creating a sexy cheeky thing if I didn't pay attention. And that the bodice of my shirt scalloped down a bit to show a swell of breast. That the air was pumping in the space. There would be no way to prevent my nipples pitching under the silk top.

  Bare arms, bare legs, a hint of belly.

  But I only had one other outfit to wear.

  For the next day.

  A dress.

  I couldn't wear a dress to bed.

  And I had a moral opposition to wearing my dirty day clothes again after bathing.

  I took another breath, hauling the camisole over my head, sliding it into place, deciding I would just roll onto my side facing away, make sure the covers were pulled up high.

  With that, I flicked off the light, moving into the bedroom finding Kai had darkened the room as well, only leaving a light on dim over near the door.

  He was already in the bed, in a simple white tee, a little loose around his slim body. I had this odd longing to see his inky hair tickling the collar. I never thought I would get attached to a colleague's hair.

  The bed - large enough for three people really, seemed oddly cramped as I rounded the unoccupied side, pulling back the covers, climbing in, settling on my side like I told myself I would, seeing some lights through the pulled blinds of the windows.

  It was a long couple of minutes of nothing save for the occasional door clicking in the hall, the quiet ding of the elevator, the muffled sounds of a TV in another room.