“He isn’t my first love, Mom,” I say, snorting. “I’ve had a couple.”
Her eyes widen. “Really? I always thought you were still a virgin.”
Now I’m blushing hard. “I haven’t been a virgin in years.”
“What? But you were always home.” She seems even more shocked and slightly offended too. “I can’t believe this.”
“Sorry, Mom, but I needed freedom. I needed to be able to do my thing, but you and Dad just wouldn’t let me,” I say, looking at them both. “I snuck out. A lot.”
Mom gives Dad a puzzled look. “I really don’t understand any of this. Is this girl our daughter?”
I laugh. “Mom … Really?”
“What?” she says with a snarky voice. “I just thought you’d be more like me.”
I shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you, Mom. I’m just … me.”
“And you? I feel like I don’t know either of you anymore,” Mom says while gazing at Dad.
“I’m sorry, Meredith.” Dad goes to his knees in front of Mom, grabbing her hand. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long, but you always said you didn’t want to know, and I didn’t want you to feel like I was cheating on you.”
“Are you?” Mom almost pulls her hand away.
“No,” he says. “Of course not. I would never. I love you too much for that.” He smiles.
“So these events are only for your guests?” she asks.
“Yes …” And then he glances at me. “But our daughter has apparently been to one of them as well.”
Mom’s face turns ghostly white. “Kat? Is that true?”
I nod, biting my lip. “I needed to know what they were doing there, Mom. I like to try out new and interesting things. Even if they involve sex, yes.”
All she does is stare at me with her mouth wide open.
“I’m not that picture-perfect girl you want me to be,” I say. “You kept me cooped up in here for so long … When I finally got my own place, I needed to experience what it was like to live in freedom. To do everything that’s forbidden and more.”
“So you’ve been doing all these … dirty things too?” Mom swallows away her disgust.
I nod. I don’t like admitting this to my parents, but it’s about time we played open cards. “Yes, and I’m not ashamed to say I enjoyed it.”
“It’s that boy. He made you do it, didn’t he?” Dad interjects.
“No,” I say, stepping away, shaking my head. “No, I approached him.”
“How? When?” Mom asks, her voice shrill.
“Online. It’s how I’ve been meeting men for a while now.”
“Men? Several?” Mom almost loses it. “But I thought …”
“Like I said, I don’t need any help in the dating department,” I say awkwardly.
“But for how long?” she mutters.
“As long as I’ve been living on my own. I’m a grown woman, Mom. I don’t need permission to do what I like.”
She nods a few times, clearly still trying to cope with the fact that I’m not who she thought I was.
“Please understand,” I say, licking my lips. “I am my own person too.”
“I know, but …” She reaches out to me with open arms. “You’re my little baby.”
I smile and go in for a much-needed hug. “I haven’t been a baby in a long while, though,” I say softly.
She sniffs, and we stay there, hugging in silence for a while.
After a few minutes, she speaks again. “I’m sorry, honey. I just wanted the best for you. Not any of this. I was just so worried all the time that you’d be exposed to something bad …”
“It’s okay, Mom. But I have to live my life the way I want to. I need to experience everything. Even if it hurts.”
She nods again. “All this time, I’ve been trying to protect my only girl, only to be the one to cause her pain.”
“No, it’s not like that,” I say, almost unable to keep the tears at bay myself.
“Yes, it is. You’re our only one. Our miracle baby. I was so hung up on that, I forgot you have your own needs … your own voice.” She places a hand on my cheek. “I love you, honey.”
“I love you too, Mom,” I say, smiling as a tear manages to escape my eyes.
“And if you want to be with this man, then I will support you all the way.”
I rub my lips together. “I do … but …” I gaze at my dad.
“You’re really hung up on him, aren’t you?” Dad responds.
I nod. “A lot. And it isn’t just … physically.”
“All right, all right, I don’t want to know,” he says, holding up a hand. “Just tell me … does he treat you right?”
“Yes,” I reply, trying my best not to sound obnoxious. “He’s what I want right now. What I need. Please understand. This is who I am.”
He rubs his lips together. “If it makes you happy …”
“A lot,” I say, smiling. “And not just me … he is amazing when it comes to organizing the events, so you have to keep him. He’s so devoted he even opposed dating me because he feared I would expose the hotel.”
“Really?” Dad raises his brows. “Well, that would be a concern, considering what you do for a living.”
“Dad …” I make a face.
“I know, I know. You’re my daughter.”
“And I’d never do that to you,” I say. “Now that I know you run that hotel …”
I’ll just have to rework all the words I’ve already written for the magazine so it doesn’t expose anything about the location.
“Please tell me you’ll rehire Declan,” I say. “Take him back. He’s a good organizer. He knows his business. He doesn’t deserve this.”
Dad sucks in a breath and gazes down at his feet.
“Please?” I place a hand on his arm. “He will do his utmost best, I promise. And it would make me very happy if I wasn’t the cause of all his problems.”
Dad bursts out into laughter. “You? The cause of all his problems? Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Mom pokes him gently. “Fred!”
“What? You know she never listened to any of your rules. Why do you think I wanted you to let her breathe for a while? You know, let her get her bearings in life.”
“Don’t start arguing again, please,” I say, rolling my eyes. “At least you’re honest with each other now. That’s a good start.”
“Well,” Mom mumbles, “it does explain why you were always so busy with work all the time.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Dad says. “I’ll do my best to be home more.”
“See? Communication.” I wink. “Works wonders.”
And then we all laugh.
Like a normal family would.
Chapter 31
Declan
I’m in the middle of unpacking all the things I brought home from the office when someone rings my doorbell.
“Door’s open,” I say, lackluster.
However, the moment her face appears, I immediately light up. It’s really her. I can’t believe it. After what happened in the office, I thought I’d never see her again.
A smile forms on my lips. “Kat. You’re here,” I say, almost unable to believe what my eyes are telling me.
“I am,” she says. “Surprised?”
I nod, still unsure of how to react. “What are you doing here?”
I hope it’s not to say goodbye. Anything but that.
The door softly closes behind her. “I wanted to see you.”
She bites the bottom of her lip so seductively it makes my head spin already, but I have to stop focusing on that. This will probably be the last time I’ll ever see her. Fuck.
“You can stop unpacking now.”
Her words tug at my heart.
I frown, letting go of the box I was holding. “Why?”
She can’t stop the smile from forming on her face. “I begged Dad to keep you on, and it worked.”
I stare at her for a few seconds befor
e actual words manage to get out of my mouth. “What?” I’m stunned. “Really?”
“Yup,” she says, adding a cute giggle that makes my heart pounce.
“But he caught us. Isn’t he pissed as hell I kept bringing you here?” I ask.
“Yeah, but we had a good talk, and we finally came to an understanding.”
“Huh.” That strict man … having a good talk with his daughter? She continues to surprise me.
“I just wanted to apologize for putting you in that position,” she says, tiptoeing around and fiddling with her fingers. “I never wanted you to lose the one job you care about so much.”
Even after all this going down with her dad, all the secrets and lies, she still cares more about my feelings than hers? She keeps amazing me.
“You don’t have to apologize,” I say, smiling briefly as I approach her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yeah, it was. If I’d been honest from day one about who I really was, you would’ve told me my dad works here.”
With my hands tucked in my pockets, I stand before her. I don’t do it because I wanna feel casual. It’s to stop myself from touching her because I know that if I do, I won’t be able to quit.
“But then … we would’ve never had the opportunity to bang like we did.”
She tries to hide her snorting behind her hand, but it’s no use. I can see right through her, just from the way her eyes sparkle. Beautiful. Just like her. Why can’t I stop noticing?
Without thinking, my hand instinctively reaches for that loose strand of hair framing her face, and I tuck it behind her ear. Her cheeks slowly begin to glow like mine when I watch her smile.
“So Kat Bronson … or should I say Kat Mayer …”
It sounds so strange, especially considering who her father is. I’ll have to get used to calling her that.
Her cheeks turn even more red. “I prefer KittyKat.”
A smirk spreads on her lips, and it makes me shake my head. “Of course, you do. Why should I expect anything else?”
Not that I’m mad. On the contrary, it’s exactly what I was thinking as well.
“Once a slut, always a slut,” she says with a certain cockiness I could get used to.
And I definitely like where this is going.
Still I need to know one thing before we proceed. “So about your dad … he never told you where he worked then?”
“No, my dad was very secretive. My mom didn’t even know,” she replies, chewing on her bottom lip.
“Wow …” I take a deep breath to let it all sink in.
“I suppose it’s only normal, considering the line of work,” she says. “But anyway, we’ve talked it all out now.”
My eyes narrow. “All of it?”
She nods.
“What does your dad think of all this?” I ask, licking my lips. “Won’t he be mad that you’re here?”
“I told him to accept me for who I am, and that includes my interest in you.” She winks, which makes it hard for me to concentrate on the actual conversation instead of the thoughts swirling in my head about banging her right here on my kitchen table.
“And what about your mom?” I add, clearing my throat.
“She knows … although she prefers to call you ‘my boyfriend.’” She uses quotation marks, but that doesn’t decrease the gravity of the word. It makes my heart pump faster, but I don’t know whether that’s good or bad.
“Interesting,” I muse.
Up until now, no girl has ever gotten so far as to call me that. But she’s gone far beyond what I thought I would be willing to do. A definite rule breaker … and I’m not even mad.
In fact, seeing her right here in my home reminds me of how much I was starting to miss her. How much she’s really grown on me.
But I have to remember that there is still some unfinished business.
“So,” I say, clearing my throat. “Kat Mayer … do you work for a magazine?”
Her eyes widen. “How did you—”
“I searched for your name online. Didn’t take me long to find you.”
Her entire face turns as red as a strawberry. I like the color.
She may have been able to hide her fake name pretty well, but her real name? It showed me everything I needed to know about her.
I cock my head. “Were you writing articles for them?”
“About that …” she mumbles, almost unable to say the words.
“Just be honest with me.” I tip up her chin, forcing her to look at me.
“I was. Actually, I am,” she says, sucking on her bottom lip.
“About the hotel? About me?”
“It’s not like that. I—”
I place a finger on her lips. “No need for lies. I just want to know why.”
She nods a few times. “I did it because I wanted the recognition so badly. So I could get a raise,” she explains. “All the extra money I earn I donate to a good cause, but it’s so little. I wanted to do more. And when I started on that chat site and met you … I just knew it’d be an amazing opportunity.”
Donates her money? I didn’t even know. If that’s true, my admiration for her only grows.
She sighs out loud. “I only wanted to get a good story out there, but I promise, I was never going to include your name or the hotel. It was going to be an anonymous thing only.”
“Show me,” I say, trying to remain headstrong even when I can see she’s hurting inside.
She knows what she did was wrong and that it would ruin everything between us, but we’ve gone so far already … I’m not even sure we can stop. If I want to stop.
She fishes her phone from her pocket and scrolls through an app until she finds what she’s looking for. “I saved it in my documents. Here.”
She hands me her phone, and I read it all.
A lot of mentions about a secret chat site … sex with a nameless man … meeting him again and again at a hotel … some of the orgies. But she’s right. No names. No numbers. No address. No date.
It’s completely anonymous, yet I can’t stop reading it over and over again simply because of one thing.
Her admission that everything we did—even the craziest, filthiest, most degrading things—were incredible experiences, and that if she’d known beforehand about all the things that would happen to her, she’d do it again in a heartbeat.
My lip twitches, my body unable to stop the smug smile from growing.
I hand the phone back to her in silence.
“And?” she asks, swallowing.
I nod a few times, thinking about how I’m going to respond. “Are you going to publish it?” I ask.
“If you don’t want me to, I’ll delete it. All of it. Right now.” Her thumb hovers over the button on her phone. “Just say it, and I won’t.”
I lower the phone and her hand, stopping her from pressing the button. “No need. I’ve already made up my mind about you.”
“I don’t want to see you hurt,” she says. “I care too much. I’m …”
I grab her face and kiss her, silencing the words that didn’t need to be spoken.
I know how she feels about me.
I feel the same for her.
So I kiss her, finally sealing the deal. My job doesn’t matter in this equation and neither does the hotel. Not anymore. Neither of them will fall because of her because she’d never allow it to happen and neither will I.
And I don’t give a damn if she’s writing an article about our thing together because it doesn’t change anything about my attraction to her. We’ve been fighting the pull for no reason, and I’ve had enough. All I want is her … All I need is her …
It’s been right in front of me this whole time, and I never truly saw, until now, just how much she means to me. And how badly I’ve already fallen in love with her.
When our lips briefly part, she mumbles, “I don’t understand. I thought you’d be upset.”
“I was, but then I decided there’s no point,” I reply.
<
br /> She cocks her head. “So you trust me?”
I raise a brow. “Prove it to me. Publish the article.”
She nods and a genuine, heartfelt smile forms on her face, making me fall even deeper.
I don’t even know why or how. I can’t explain it, and I don’t understand how it happened, but it did. That’s all that matters.
“I love you,” I whisper.
The phone drops from her hand.
Her lips part. “What did you say?”
“I love you.” I don’t have to think twice to say it again.
It feels so natural to finally admit it. I’ve been fighting it for so long, but not anymore. I need this woman in my life. I just never knew how badly until she almost got ripped away from me.
We’re two sides of the same coin. Equally dirty, cocky, and downright bad. But I love her for it. I love how she challenges me, how she pushes me to rethink my boundaries and live in the moment. How she made me risk it all, and it paid off.
Because she’s here, right in front of me, and I don’t think I could ever let her go again.
So I grab her face and kiss her. Hard. Greedily. Just like I always wanted. I should’ve admitted my fucking feelings long ago instead of avoiding them like they’d kill me. I should enjoy living a little … and I certainly can with her by my side.
When she pulls back to take a breath, she murmurs, “So does that mean you’re actually my boyfriend now?”
I narrow my eyes as a filthy smile spreads on her lips. “Please don’t. I despise that word.”
“What then? Partner? Boy toy?”
I shake my head, musing, “Declan will do just fine.”
“But there is something …” she says, pointing at my chest. “You can’t deny that.”
I grab her finger and hold it. “I’m not denying anything.” I bring her finger up to my lips, pressing a soft kiss to the tip before taking it into my mouth to give it a slight suckle. “I think I made that very clear.”
“So what now?” she asks, rubbing her lips together.
“Now,” I say, lifting her up in my arms, “we fuck.”
Chapter 32
Declan
I set her down on my table and shower her neck with kisses, unable to stop myself from ravishing her any longer. I need to have her … now.
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