RUSH (Montgomery Men Book 1)

by C. A. Harms

  “Are you high? Drunk?” I asked, completely blown away by his behavior. I took in a deep breath when he just kept standing there without answering me. “Oh my God, what is wrong with you?” I threw my hands up in the air. “Where in the world do you get off telling my place of employment I won’t be returning? I have bills to pay, you asshole.”

  That got his attention, but only for a moment. He actually fucking smiled.

  “So if I call you an asshole that gets a rise out of you?” I took a step toward him, fully intending to give him more of my sass.

  “Baby, I told you this is your home. Everything I have is now yours. And you’ll never be able to be Kinsley at Stockman and Wright. I won’t let you hide anymore.” He placed his hand on my cheek. “I want you here, with me, every night. I want to share this home with you. If you want a job, then you can work at Montgomery Enterprises, but only as Kinsley.”

  And just like that, all my anger faded away. “I can’t,” I whispered as my stomach tightened. “It will only give him the power to find me.” I would never be able to be Kinsley again. Not the way I wanted to be.

  “You can and you will.” He placed his finger beneath my chin and forced me to look up at him. “I won’t let you hide the woman I love.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand more than you think I do.” Ashton gripped my face in his hands and forced me to continue looking at him. “I know what kind of man Jase Hellman is. In fact I know every dirty detail of his life. I know where he lives, where he works. I know exactly where he was last night and who he went home with. Sweetheart, I can even tell you if he had steak or seafood at the Stratford Benefit which was held at the Regency Hotel last night.

  “When I told you that your safety now lies in my hands, I meant every word,” he said. “I know you think I’m just some man that hides behind a desk and has more money than he knows what to do with. But, sweetheart, I can assure you that I am more than capable of keeping you safe.”

  I stared at Ashton, wondering with each word he spoke if I had truly given him enough credit. I was beginning to question my earlier conclusions about his abilities.

  “But you have to trust me,” he said just before he pressed his lips to mine. “Can you do that?” I nodded and looked deeply into his eyes. “Good,” he whispered and smiled, and I could tell by the look on his face that he had more to say. “The movers will be here this afternoon with all the things from your apartment,” he said before I could ask, then pressed a wet, sloppy kiss to my lips and pulled away, creating a loud, overexaggerated pop.

  The ass winked when he saw the exasperated look on my face.

  “I’ve got a few meetings this morning, but if you need anything, Lex has been directed to interrupt me.” I stood there staring at him as if he had completely lost his damn mind. “A man named Kevin will be here while the delivery men bring up your things. He works with Murray, so you can feel safe knowing he’s here.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear the haze caused by this whirlwind of a morning. For a moment I thought this was just another dream and eventually I’d wake up and Ashton would be sane again.

  “You’re not dreaming, baby.” I looked up just as Ashton walked toward to elevator and tapped the Down button, and realized I’d spoken my thoughts aloud. “It’s all real. And I’ll see you in a few hours.” He tossed me that signature grin of his, and without waiting for me to respond, he stepped inside the elevator and the doors closed behind him.

  Yep, he’d definitely lost his mind.

  I didn’t have much, but the movers had neatly organized it all into labeled boxes. I stood back watching as at least five different men took them to various parts of the penthouse. Obviously Ashton had directed them to take care of everything, regardless of what I had to say about it.

  My life had been taken over by a crazed control freak, and I should have been freaked out by that fact. But I wasn’t, not even a little. Because for the first time in a very long time, I finally felt at peace.

  And nothing had ever felt better.

  ASHTON

  I’D SPENT THE ENTIRE MORNING and early afternoon in conference calls that each focused on the same thing: Jase and Bruce Hellman. In a matter of a few weeks, my two brothers had formed a task force to bring those two fuckers to their knees and make them beg for mercy.

  The day was stressful and draining as I listened to one story after another about the things these two men were capable of. With each one, I only wanted to end them more.

  But all that anger faded when I entered the penthouse and found Kinsley cooking dinner. I watched in amazement as she softly hummed along with the song on the radio while she moved around the place as if she had been cooking in this kitchen her entire life. I slowly scanned the area between the living room and kitchen and saw that all her things had been delivered, but she hadn’t opened the boxes yet.

  “You hungry?” I turned my gaze back to Kinsley and found her smiling at me, holding a spatula. “I made Fettucine Alfredo and grilled chicken.” She shrugged, and the sweet innocence in the gesture made my chest ache all over again. I imagined her as an impressionable young woman fresh out of college. A young woman who felt lost because she couldn’t help her father no matter how hard she tried. That sick son of a bitch had seen that too, and he’d preyed on her instead of caring for her as he should have.

  “I’m starving.” I offered her a smile in return as I walked toward her, unable to take my eyes from hers. I gripped her hips, pulled her close, and buried my face in her neck. “Smells amazing,” I whispered.

  “I made garlic bread too, and salad,” she said.

  “I wasn’t talking about the food, but since you mentioned it, that smells amazing too.” I nibbled on the side of her neck and she laughed as she tucked her head down, trying to break free. I released my hold on her and allowed her to go back to making dinner. “When do you plan to unpack your things?”

  “I thought I’d wait a few days,” she said without turning to face me. “You know, just in case you decide you’ve made a mistake.”

  I picked the dishtowel up off the counter and twisted it a couple times before snapping it against her ass.

  Kinsley squealed in surprise as she spun around to face me, holding her hands out in front of her to shield herself from the next flip of the towel. “I was only playing!”

  “Oh, me too, sweetheart,” I said with a smirk as I twisted the towel again. “In fact I’m not done playing.”

  “Ash,” she said in warning, only it didn’t do anything to stop me.

  “When do you plan on unpacking your things?” I asked again, giving her one last attempt to answer the question correctly.

  “Well since I now have nothing to do during the day, I’ll start tomorrow.” She was still on guard as she continued to look between the towel and my eyes.

  Instead of striking, I tossed it over my shoulder, stepped toward her, and hooked her around the waist to pull her close. “Perfect answer,” I whispered against her lips before I gave her the gentlest of kisses.

  I would give anything to see her so calm and carefree all the time. Kinsley deserved that peace of mind, and I was going to make sure she got it.

  “This shit just keeps getting better, Ash.” Beckett walked into my office without knocking and tossed a file on my desk. “For us anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked as I reached for it.

  “Take a look at these documents.” He pointed toward the paperwork I was now sifting through: one copy after another of legal documents awarding everything Arthur Palmer owned to his daughter, Kinsley Hellman. His will stated that his life insurance policy of over one hundred grand be set up in an account solely in her name. Attached to the back of his will was a letter he’d written to her.

  A letter I was sure she never knew about. It was just another thing Jase had taken from her, as if the list hadn’t already been long enough.

  “I know you wanted to keep this quiet for
a while, but I don’t think we can.” I looked up from the letter to find my brother with a tortured look on his face. “We need to show all this to Kinsley. It shows that she signed everything over to Jase, and I’m pretty sure he forged her signature. So in order to proceed with this, we need her to know for sure.”

  I’d wanted to keep this investigation quiet, at least until we had everything we needed to bring this asshole down. It may have been wrong to shelter her, but fuck, I wanted her to be happy so badly. But I realized after seeing her father’s letter that to truly give her peace, I had to let her face some heartache.

  “You’re right.” I gathered up the copies and placed them back in the envelope. “I’ll talk to her tonight,” I assured him, even though the thought of her reaction left a knot in my stomach.

  KINSLEY

  “YOU COULD CHANGE THE BEDSPREAD to pink faux fur and lay out polka-dot pillows.” Lex seemed almost giddy at the idea. “Oh, and leave all your girly things lying on the bathroom countertop like an explosion of feminine products. Cover the couch with bright, colorful blankets. I could just imagine his reaction when he steps off the elevator and comes face-to-face with a scene pulled right out of Legally Blonde.”

  I was just about to add my own ideas when he squealed so loud I had to pull back the phone to keep my eardrum from bursting. “You need a Chihuahua, a girl preferably so you can dress her in pink too.”

  “That would surely make him regret moving me in.” I laughed myself as I imagined Ash’s face. “So is he still in his meeting?” I asked as I flopped down on the couch and looked around the room, where touches of my things were now mixed in with Ashton’s.

  “He left here a couple hours ago. Beckett stopped by,” Lex replied. “When they left, neither of them looked too happy, but those men are always so intense and intimidating. But damn if it ain’t one of the hottest things to see.” He sighed—yes, literally sighed.

  I could almost imagine that dreamy look in his eyes that he got every time he talked about the Montgomery men. Lex didn’t even attempt to hide the fact that he thought all three of them were hot tickets. I sat quietly on the couch for the next ten minutes while he went on and on about all the times he witnessed not only Ashton, but Beckett and Knoxville get all fired up.

  “Oh honey, I could satisfy myself for hours just taking a trip down Montgomery Lane.” And there went another sigh.

  “You are crazy,” I laughed because how could I not? Lex had become one of my very best friends, and I loved his spunkiness. He always had the ability to make me laugh, even when I thought I couldn’t.

  “I don’t care what the hell it takes, make it fucking happen.” Ashton’s voice echoed through the penthouse. He didn’t sound happy.

  “The dragon just got home, and he’s breathing fire down someone’s neck,” I told Lex. “I better go.”

  “Okay, but I think you should take full advantage of his current mood,” he said in a rush. “Ride the dragon, Kins. It would be an epic experience.”

  “Oh my God, Lex.” I rolled my eyes and hung my head.

  “I want details later,” he added. “Very explicit, dirty, dirty details.”

  “I’m hanging up now.”

  “And pictures,” he hollered as I pulled the phone away from my ear and hit End.

  Lex had no filter. He said whatever was on his mind, no matter how dirty it may be.

  “I want to see it in my email in an hour,” Ashton barked through his phone as he rounded the corner and came to a halt. His eyes connected immediately with mine, and the hardness in them faded. “Just do what you can,” he added in a much calmer voice before ending the call.

  “Bad day?” I asked, hoping to ease some of his tension.

  “Yeah,” he said as he walked toward me, still looking into my eyes. “It’s been a pretty shit day, sweetheart.” He sat down next to me and placed his arm behind me, resting it on the back of the couch. When he took my hand, he threaded our fingers together.

  I hadn’t noticed the envelope he tossed onto the coffee table until that moment. The name written on the upper left corner set off an alarm in my mind.

  Palmer.

  I shifted nervously as I looked between him and the envelope. “What’s that?” I asked, my throat tightening.

  Ashton didn’t answer right away. Instead he ran his fingers through the hair at my nape, and my eyes involuntarily fluttered shut for a moment.

  “It’s your father’s will.” My body tensed as my eyes shot open and I looked at him in surprise. “Beckett obtained a copy, and I’m not even going to explain how. But I can assure you that we weren’t supposed to see it.”

  “Did you read it?” I asked as the burning sensation rose in my throat. My head was spinning, and I had no idea what to say. Should I be mad, thankful?

  “I just skimmed it.”

  I sat in silence for a moment, unsure of what to say or do next. I stared at the envelope, both wanting to know its contents and feeling as if it might hold something I didn’t want to know.

  “Over the last week I’ve been digging around in Bruce and Jase’s lives. And until we ran across something big, I decided not to mention this to you. I didn’t want to upset you, but now it seems I have no other choice.”

  “You weren’t going to tell me?”

  “I wanted to keep it from you until I had more on them,” he tried to explain. But at this point I was just so angry with the entre situation that redirecting my anger toward Ashton became a way to cope.

  “Mr. Honesty,” I said sarcastically. “I’ll tell you the truth, Kinsley, always the truth.” I tried to get up from the couch, but he stopped me.

  “Baby, I had every intention of telling you everything. I’ve spent night and day digging deeper and deeper into the shit they’ve been trying so hard to hide. I wanted to bring it all to you when I had everything I needed to bury both of them.” He slid closer to me and took my hands in his. “You’ve been so relaxed and happy the last few days, I just didn’t want to take that away. I wanted for you to feel that happiness just once without the shit those two bastards have done tarnishing it.”

  I wasn’t mad at him. I just didn’t know what else to do with the feelings boiling within me. It was too much.

  “We think Jase forged your signature on the paperwork, and in turn everything your father left to you went directly to him.” He lifted the envelope. “We need you to look through it all and confirm that.”

  “I can’t,” I whispered.

  “You can,” he assured me. “Because I’m right here and I’m gonna be right here as long as you need me to be.”

  Ashton held the envelope out, and after a few seconds I took it. I wasn’t sure how long I sat there holding it, but Ashton didn’t push me to open it. He waited patiently until I was ready. When I finally did, I found page after page of legal documents, each signed and dated in penmanship I recognized. Tears filled my eyes as I continued to read. All my mother’s belongings my father and I chose to keep after her passing were mine, and so was the money from his life insurance policy. But I’d never seen any of it. I wasn’t even aware the policy existed.

  At the bottom of the page was a signature that was supposed to be mine, but wasn’t.

  “I didn’t sign this,” I whispered. “I’ve never even seen this.”

  ‘There’s more,” he replied as he placed his hand on my thigh. “Your father wrote you a letter.”

  The tears I’d managed to hold at bay broke free and I hung my head. My body shook as I attempted to fight them off. I looked up just in time to see Ashton reach into the pocket of his suit jacket and pull out a folded piece of paper. “He wrote it when he completed his will. The date on the top shows it was a little less than a week before he passed.”

  I took the paper as my hands trembled uncontrollably. With shaky fingers I unfolded the paper to find a letter addressed to me in my father’s neat handwriting. It was hard to see them through my tears, but there before me were the words he’d left fo
r me.

  My dearest Kinsley,

  Your happiness means more to me than anything else ever could. You’ve given so much of your life already for my benefit, and that breaks my heart. You put on a happy face, one you think has fooled me, but I know my little girl. I know that within you lies a sadness that only getting your freedom could heal.

  I’m sorry it took me this long to see that Jase isn’t the man that deserves you. You seem so lonely with him. I see it every time I look into those beautiful eyes of yours. I hate that sadness, and not saying something about it sooner will be the only regret I take with me.

  I don’t know where that sadness comes from or why it’s there, but I do know that to be happy, truly happy, you need to be with someone who loves you the way I loved your mother.

  Please promise me you’ll search for that.

  Promise me you’ll live your life to the fullest and you’ll find the happiness I had. Because you and your mother were the greatest part of my life. The two of you gave me so much, and I want those same things for you in return.

  I want you to find a man that will love you even during the hard times. I want you to feel secure enough to go to him with anything and know that no matter what you have to tell him, he will love you the same if not more because you confided in him.

  Unconditional love is what I want for you. The way I’ve loved you your entire life.

  It’s time to live, my sweet girl.

  It is time to let go of all the things you believed were for the best and go after your own happiness.

  And once you find it, promise me you’ll hold on tight and treasure every single precious moment of it.

  I love you so very much, and I don’t want you to be alone. I can assure you I’ll be watching over you, waiting for that smile of yours. That same smile that has brightened some of my darkest days.

  Both your mother and I will be smiling right along with you.