Sticking to the Script: Cipher Office Book #2

by Romance, Smartypants

  “You were?”

  Underneath the obvious surprise in his tone, I heard a pitch change that sounded like happiness. Or maybe hope. Either way, it made my eyes snap back to his to gauge his expression.

  His eyes—well, the one good eye—was soft and he was wearing a small smile. “No jacket?”

  Shrugging I said, “I forgot.”

  He removed his phone and earbuds from the front pocket of his pullover and put them in his sweatpants pocket. “Here,” he said, reaching behind to remove his hoodie.

  “What are you doing? Leave your clothes on,” I demanded. He was the one who was hurt and needed warmth, not me.

  He ignored me and held the shirt out. “It might be a little sweaty, but you should put it on, it will keep the wind off of you.”

  I felt my face bunch up. There was no way I was letting him give it to me. He had on a long-sleeve compression shirt, and I imagined the sweat being cooled by the breeze had to feel nippy. As a matter of fact, I could see those homicidal, sexy nipples poking out, and I wasn’t going to let the poor things get exposed to the elements. “Are you crazy? I’m not taking that from you. You’ll freeze! You’ve had an ordeal!”

  His nostrils flared. “Well, you either put it on and get warmer, or we both stand here cold because I’ll be damned if I put it back on!” he groused. I saw him wince, and he touched his cheek lightly as if it pained him.

  “Harrumph,” I said, reluctantly taking the sweatshirt from him. “Good to know your hair-trigger pissyness didn’t disappear since last I saw you.” I removed my glasses and set them on the bench so I could slip into the shirt.

  As soon as I had it on and adjusted the hood, Ken grabbed the front of it in his fist and pulled me to him, slamming our mouths together. And, by the mighty tool of Thor, my whole body lit up at the contact.

  He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in tight. I matched his hunger—all the terror and aching releasing into passion and relief.

  He was here in my arms. Safe. Safe, and kissing me like he missed me, like he wanted me, like he loved me.

  Normally, I’d let this ride—let the sex do all the talking for me, or let the sex distract from the talking. But I couldn’t do that this time.

  As much as I hated to do it, I pulled away from him. He started to protest, but the sound of approaching sirens diverted our attention to the road.

  Two police SUVs and an ambulance arrived, and I remembered King. My attention had so wholly been on Ken, I’d forgot to examine the scene. I put my glasses back on and looked to the group.

  Surrounded by Amid, Josh, and Damon, King was belly-down in the grass, his hands restrained behind his back and his head turned toward the trail. The lower half of his face was covered in drying blood. It looked ghastly.

  Gingerly, I grasped Ken’s right hand and looked at his swelling knuckles. “Did you do that to him?”

  He nodded. “Yes. He has a nasal fracture, but I’m almost certain I didn’t break his femur. He’ll be fine.”

  There seemed to be an underlying importance to his words I didn’t understand. Any damage Ken did to him to protect himself, King had coming.

  “Thank you,” I said, lifting his knuckle to my lips. Seeing my tormentor bleeding, broken, bested, and demoralized was a surreal experience. I didn’t know whether I wanted to crow or cry. It was over. Finally, over.

  “What are you thanking me for?”

  There was a flurry of activity around us, police officers and EMT, voices in conversation, King yelling obscenities, but my attention was entirely on Ken.

  What was I thanking him for? For being smart and brave when I wasn’t. For ending this nightmare once and for all. For having integrity and self-respect. If he’d allowed me to have my way and run roughshod over him, where would we be now? With one of us dead? Critically injured?

  “For everything.” My voice betrayed me by cracking. I didn’t think I could articulate all the guilt, relief, sadness and admiration I was feeling. But Ken honed-in on the crack, his one good eye narrowing. I knew he wasn’t going to ignore it—knew he wasn’t going to let me get away with not articulating it.

  He squeezed my hand. “Why did you wait at the Monument?”

  “To ta—” I began, but stopped myself. I was going to say to talk to you, but he knew that much. He was asking something else. Instead of taking the scenic route and making him pull it from me, I decided I needed to say it all.

  I took a deep breath then bit my lip when I felt it begin to quiver.

  He squeezed my hand again in silent support, causing my eyes to well with unshed tears.

  “I’m tired.” A tear slipped down my cheek and I swiped at it, willing the rest to stay put or dry up. I didn’t think this was a great sign—losing my composure so early in the conversation. There was so much I needed to say to him, but I was verging on becoming a sobbing mess at any moment.

  Taking another deep breath, I continued. “I’m tired of being afraid of everything. Tired of worrying about my job, of King, of juggling secrets. Tired of missing you.”

  Ken released a shaky sigh, but didn’t reply, so I continued. “I was going to tell you that I had every intention of going to Quinn tomorrow when he came back from his trip, so that you’d know I was serious about this. But now…” I let the sentence hang, slightly dejected that I didn’t have any offering for Ken to prove my sincerity. Action always spoke louder than words, and after my treatment of him, I felt like he deserved more than promises.

  But now, that was all I had for him.

  He gave an insolent shrug of his shoulder. “I warned you.”

  Our eyes connected for a protracted moment and I imagined he was restraining himself from blasting me with all the obvious I told you sos. I appreciated his control. I already felt terrible for bringing this into his life and putting him in danger, I didn’t think I could take it if he went on the attack right now.

  “You did,” I agreed. “And it scared me. It scared me so much that I lashed out.”

  He let go of my hand, a look of angry bewilderment crossing his battered face. “What do you mean? That’s what set you off?”

  “I didn’t want Quinn angry,” I defended. “This job means the world to me. I have a lot of seniority there—a lot of responsibility. I couldn’t imagine there was a future for me that didn’t include Cipher Systems. I thought there was a very good chance you were going to ruin it all for me.”

  He shook his head and cursed under his breath. “Instead of talking to me about it, you picked a fight?” He shook his head again, this time more forcefully. “Nope. Not buying it. You know I would have bent over backward to help you. If you explained it to me, we would have come up with another way that didn’t involve your boss.”

  He put his hands on his hips, dipping his head closer to me. “What you said to me…you said because you wanted me gone forever—not just to make me keep my mouth shut. Do you really think I’m a liar? Think I’m a coward? Because if you do, there’s no point in talking about this anymore.”

  Before I could respond, he barreled on, his voice rising, “I’ll admit that I haven’t always been forthcoming about my sexuality. I’ve let my interest speak for itself without explanation. But with you, I haven’t held anything back—not my feelings for you or my past. I didn’t hold back because I wanted everything. Saying you don’t trust me means you’re basing those feelings off things I can’t control. That’s insurmountable. I can’t fight that! I couldn’t have done anything different.” Ken lifted his face to the sky and took a deep breath. When he brought his eyes back to mine, his expression told me he wasn’t going to accept anything less than the unvarnished truth. “So, let me ask you again. Why did you wait at the Monument?”

  “Because I was a liar and coward!” I shouted. “Because these secrets are suffocating me, and I needed to tell you everything. I didn’t think you’d stay with me—didn’t think you’d want me for long, so I used every excuse and weapon I had to drive you away.”
Tears were spilling onto my cheeks then, all the shame and buried feelings of inadequacy surfacing.

  “Didn’t think I’d want you for long? Because of women?” he asked gruffly. “That’s why?”

  “Women! Men! Anyone who’s better looking than I am—anyone who doesn’t have this clusterfuck baggage of King on their shoulders. Look at you, for God’s sake!” I swirled my hand around his head. “Look at me.” I jabbed my index finger at my nose. “It’s—we’re—” I cut myself off, unwilling to continue this pitiful line of self-deprecation. I raised my hand to lightly touch his face. “And, I’ve been a nightmare for you, bringing a psycho into your life and acting like a crazy person myself, when you didn’t deserve any of it. All you did was love me and support me and I was too scared to rely on you. I don’t deserve you or your forgiveness, but you need to know I’m so sorry, I’m sorry for everything.”

  Ken didn’t speak for a long moment. I watched as his throat worked and his eyes shimmered with unshed tears. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “Forgiving you is easy because it’s what I want to do.” He brought his hands to my hips, holding me in a way that could have been an embrace, or could have been a precursor to pushing me away. “But the secrets, Steven. What else don’t I know?” His lips screwed up into a sneer. “Got any other big bombshells I need to know about?”

  “Yes, I do,” I admitted quietly. “There’s one big secret I never told you. It’s the scariest one.”

  Understanding dawned. His face changed then—the cynical twist of his mouth relaxing, his eye widening from its watchful squint. “You should have trusted me with that secret. I trusted you with mine.”

  A bitter laugh escaped my lips. “Yeah and look where that got you. At the first sign of trouble, I eviscerated you. You gave me so much power, and when I felt helpless, I wielded that power ruthlessly.” I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, shame and revulsion washing over me.

  Ken gave my hips a jostle and ordered, “Look at me.”

  Just as I opened my eyes, I caught sight of an EMT and uniformed police officer approaching. “Dr. Miles,” the officer began.

  Ken stiffened, and without looking to them, he cocked his head and raised his hand in a halt gesture to the duo behind him. “Stop. You need to give us a minute,” he said loudly.

  His tone, so full of authority and irritation, had the desired effect and the men stopped in their tracks, issuing each other confused looks.

  I smiled, finding the moment comical in spite of the tears on my cheeks and pounding of my heart. “Did you really just give a member of the Chicago Police Department an order?”

  “You’re damn right I did. You were just about to confess your love and they are not screwing this up for me.”

  I laughed softly, but Ken’s expression didn’t change. “No more secrets,” he said gruffly.

  Sobering, I promised, “No more secrets.”

  “You need to trust me,” he demanded, sliding his arms around my middle, pulling my body flush with his. “And you need to give up your last secret. Tell me now. Give me the same power I’m giving you.”

  “Yes! Have it! Have the power. There’s no one else I’d want holding my heart, Ken.” I grasped his cheeks in my hands, careful not to hurt his sore eye as I finally admitted what was in my heart.

  “I love you. I love you in a way that’s completely terrifying but wholly necessary. I can’t be without you. I don’t want to be without you. I feel like I waited my whole life for this love and even one more minute without it might actually kill me, I’m sure of it.”

  Ken smiled. “Well,” he began thickly, then cleared his throat. “We can’t afford to waste one minute.”

  He met my lips with his own. I could feel the relief and love and forgiveness in him and hoped he could feel my own full capitulation to him. I was his. He had me completely. He was my soft place to land and I was going to be his.

  “Um…” the officer said from behind us. “Dr. Miles?”

  I huffed a laugh against Ken’s lips and soothed, “It’s okay, McGrumpy. We have all the time in the world for kissing.”

  He pulled away slowly. His good eye was narrowed in exaggerated frustration, but his mouth was slanted with an impish grin. “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  *Steven*

  “I’m sure it is awful and terrible, Lambchop,” I said into the phone. “But, my god, you look absolutely gorgeous in these photos.”

  Kat scoffed.

  “I’m looking at one now where Dan is giving off major smolder, too. The camera loves both of you.”

  I couldn’t resist grabbing the tabloid this morning when I saw their picture under the headline, PHARMA HEIRESS TAKES CONTROL! It was surreal. And if the situation hadn’t been so serious, I’d be busting Dan’s balls 24/7.

  In the couple of weeks since King’s attack, Kat and Dan’s life had gone completely batshit crazy. It had been discovered that her cousin Caleb had been acquiring the rights to drugs manufactured to treat rare diseases and marking their price up by 500% in some cases. He’d been defrauding shareholders, and even went so far as to kidnap and ransom Dan in a desperate attempt to fund his own company.

  The media was rabid for the story—and any glimpse of the sexy power-couple at the heart of it.

  “That could have been you,” Ken said to me once the story broke.

  “See, I told you Dan was a hero and a saint. You should send him some macarons.”

  “Maybe I will.” He nodded.

  “Nah, better not do that,” I cautioned. “We don’t want Dan to know he was her second-choice husband.”

  “Yeah.” Ken’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “I remember how torn up over you she looked in her wedding video.”

  McPretty was still a riot.

  “He’s got plenty of smolder,” Kat agreed, her voice taking on a dreamy quality.

  “Aren’t you glad I didn’t marry you?” I teased.

  “You would have made a fine husband, Steven,” she said matter-of-factly. Her pitch rose as she continued. “But I was calling to ask you for another big favor.”

  “My seed? Done. I can’t wait to see little mini-mes running around your mansion.”

  “Oh my God, no.” She laughed. “Not that.”

  “I’m hurt! Offer rescinded.”

  “I’m not after your seed, I’m after your brain.”

  “I can’t put that in a cup for you, sugar.”

  “But could you come work for me? For Caravel?”

  Well…that was unexpected. I sat in stunned silence for a moment, my mouth agape.

  “After the fraud, after the way Caleb has tanked production, I just don’t know who I can trust. I need you to be the head of finance. I know you have a boyfriend to think about—”

  “Ken,” I spoke up. “His name is Ken.”

  “Discuss it with him, and don’t worry about Quinn—he’s already given me the green light to offer you the position.”

  My ears buzzed at this. Kat’s voice took on a faraway quality as the blood drained from my face. Quinn’s passing me on.

  “…Don’t answer yet,” she continued. “Just promise me you’ll think about it, okay?” I was silent until she said louder, “Steven?”

  “I-I’ll think about it and get back to you,” I promised.

  After we disconnected, I sat staring at my office walls. On one hand, I was shocked. I couldn’t believe he’d do it. But on the other…well, it was my fear made into reality. Hadn’t I worried this day was creeping up? Hadn’t I felt it coming?

  After Quinn had come back from Boston the Monday after King attacked, he called Alex and I to the penthouse for a debriefing. Even though he’d just spent a few days embroiled in the kidnapping of his best friend, his mood seemed…normal. By normal, I meant terse and abrupt, but not angry.

  By this point, I knew Ken had been the one to prompt Quinn to utilize protection against King, and I expected some sort of tongue-lashing
from Quinn…but it never came.

  Maybe instead of taking that as a good sign, I should have known then Quinn didn’t give a shit—didn’t think we had a relationship beyond Cipher spreadsheets.

  The debriefing had been enlightening. Alex had continued investigating King after I left him that morning in the data center. What he’d found—by hacking my phone and then King’s phones—was that I was not the only man being tormented.

  Once Alex discovered it, had proof to show Quinn, he’d involved him. When Ken had gone to Quinn…he’d already known. Ken’s talk with him did result in my mail from King being intercepted. When I thought communication had stopped, it was escalating, both in number and in vitriol and threat.

  “We’ve encouraged these two men to come forward, press charges and present evidence. We’re going to make sure he goes away this time,” Quinn announced.

  Many times over the years I’d felt lucky to be working for Quinn—but never more than at that moment.

  Now? Now it looked like it was all coming to an end.

  If I went to work for Caravel, I’d likely find satisfaction in taking the chaos there and setting it to rights. I’d have Kat—and probably Dan to some extent, so it wouldn’t be a complete tragedy.

  But…Ken. Ken loved his position at BKC Memorial—loved life in Chicago. I knew I couldn’t take this job in Boston without his whole-hearted agreement to come with me. Neither one of us was going to be satisfied with a long-distance relationship.

  If we moved—if I still had Ken and Dan and Kat and a challenging workload—I still wouldn’t have Cipher. Janie, Alex, Quinn. God, for all my griping, I loved working for the grump.

  I stewed on this for a long time, staring out my office window at the Chicago skyline. I went through stages of grief in those moments, but when I got down and dirty into anger, I decided Quinn needed to hear some of this.