If I wanted out, I’d have to actually leave the garage. I stared down at my plum gown, and only imagined what kind of spectacle I’d be in the snow on a busy street in downtown Chicago. Dash would never know, but everyone we ran from would.
Go.
“No,” I whispered defiantly, leaving the SUV in exchange for the first garage. When I stepped out of the glass door it clicked quietly behind me.
The garage was the only way I could leave into the outside world. I hadn’t wanted to go that far. I’d only wanted to know how far Dash had gone. But my feet moved for the exit anyway. I slipped past the bars and stood on the edge of the garage. A car could drive from the upper levels at any moment. I didn’t have to worry about anyone identifying me. No one knew me before I disappeared, and thanks to Dash and Denny, no one even knew I existed. Because in a way, I hadn’t.
I existed only to myself, and that was a barely lasting thing.
“Thank you, my king.” I glared at the light at the end of the ramp, and the darker light at the top. And since this way out wasn’t part of his plans, I knew it was at the bottom.
From somewhere in the garage, male shouting began. Their words were cut off and echoing, but I understood it enough to make sense of where I was. Valets. I hardly spent any time outside of my office and home. I had no solid idea of the layout of the city. But hotels used valets, and restaurants. If Dash had closed off our section, he’d done so with power.
He had thought of everything.
I felt trapped suddenly in his influence. The longer I stayed in the small cage he created, I’d never be able to stand beside him. And I wanted to. I wanted to stand beside a man who loved me and know we both wanted it that way. All my life I’d been behind them or in front of them. I just wanted to be beside one. To be equal. To share my insides and listen to his. I wanted my breaks to wrap around Dash’s, so we could find out who we were without them.
I took off down the ramp, my gown chasing after me.
When I got to the end, a Jaguar raced past me toward the onramp. I yelped just as their tail end zoomed away.
“Get out of the way!” the driver shouted out their window.
This is my kingdom, I thought acidly. “I’ll run away haphazardly from wherever I want.” Gathering my gown, I took off in my bare feet down the other ramps.
Luckily there were no other valets until I got to the bottom. They were posted under an alcove just within the entrance. They looked young, maybe in their early twenties. All males in white dress shirts and black pants. They laughed raucously as I peeked at them from behind a column. It was so strange to me in that moment how used to the tower I had grown. The silence, the solitude. No need to lie, no need to be anyone but the woman Dash wanted. I felt unsteady when I admitted to myself that I might want the tower.
I wanted my kingdom.
As I hid, a phone rang from the valet stand. One of the employees answered in a practiced, “King Suites Valet,” and my mind did the equation quick enough to determine that Dash owned this hotel, or at least the parking garage. If he owned it before the tower, then I wouldn’t think anything of it. But something told me he’d bought it when he bought the tower, and that meant if his father dug deep enough he’d have to know to scout this building out too. And if Dash had told me that, instead of keeping me in the dark, I wouldn’t be down here familiarizing myself with the way in and out of the tower.
The man who took the call hung up, and then tossed another a pair of keys. That was one man down. I waited for another few minutes, until a dark blue sports car pulled in, its tires covered in snow chains. I thought vaguely they looked ridiculous. But that was only because Denny had the same car, and he’d done his best to let others know that it was his. Washing it in the driveway right after it rained. Waxing it in the heat, even though no one could spot a dull spot. Denny was always into pretense. Maybe that’s why we both worked so well in the beginning. How I fell for his shit. I’d been hiding too. Only his lies were far more devastating.
I glared at the sports car as the driver side door opened. A woman stepped out. Svelte, black hair glistening, body encased in a pair of white skinny jeans. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, and pulled her fur over to cover her pregnant belly. It wasn’t huge, she wasn’t that pregnant, but she did look down at her nude heels fleetingly as if in regret. She handed the valet who took the phone call a pair of keys and shouldered her purse.
When she straightened, she looked up at the ramp I hid behind with the same look she gave her heels. She was coming this way.
“Shit,” I whispered, gauging how much of me she’d see before I could get back up to the … “Shit,” I repeated, when I realized I didn’t know which floor I’d been on.
When I looked back at the woman, she had stopped moving. Her red painted lips were opened in shock. Her eyes were wide.
“What’s your problem?” an airy male voice demanded as the sound of the passenger door slammed.
My entire being exploded.
I knew that voice.
“McKenna?” he demanded once more. “Wake up.”
The woman and I locked eyes. My world and her evil collided for one second. In her dark eyes I saw evil and power. Realization and horror poured from her as my own looked the same.
“Denny,” her lips said, but no sounds came out.
I ran.
Like I always did.
And that’s when I heard him say my name. Not in calling, but in shock and question.
“Kinley?”
I sobbed as my bare toes dug into the cement. I had to find the under construction signs.
“Kinley!”
This time there was no confusion in his voice. It was nothing but rage, disgust—Denny wanted me gone.
Terror screamed in my body. It flooded me, making me run faster. I turned the corner so fast my gown caught on something in the beam. It yanked me back and threw me off balance. My knees smashed into the cement and the pain radiated in my shins. I muffled my cry by gritting my teeth. I’d ran my entire life. There was no way the pounding feet behind me were going to catch me now.
I ran full force from the beam. Behind me there was a tearing sound, but I kept pushing.
“What are you doing here?” Denny roared.
I could feel the fury at my back. It terrified me in a way I had never been. Even waking up in the tower didn’t frighten me that much. But making love to a man who wanted me gone did. I risked a glance over my shoulder. His body sprinted around the beam I’d just got caught up on. Something stopped him, but I didn’t know what. Seeing him was doing damage I didn’t understand. The part of me who’d thought he saved her, was destroyed.
“You’re not supposed to be here!” His fury-filled shout echoed in the parking garage.
Faster, I begged. We have to run faster.
“Denny!” a female screamed.
I skirted around the last corner, spotting the ramp that led to the under construction sign. I couldn’t take it. There was no way I’d get across the empty garage and inside of the door before Denny came in. I had to keep going up.
“There’s no way out,” Denny taunted. “Keep running, my sweet Kinley.”
I passed the under construction signs by and went up. Denny didn’t know everything. I’d loved Dash more in one hour, than I had loved him in four years. “I’m not yours!” I screamed back, taking the corner without looking. There were so many cars on this floor. I ran past the first two rows, and then went right, ducking behind a small coup. He’d expect me to choose the larger ones.
“Then whose are you?” His voice was on my floor, but far away, searching the first row. “His?” I could almost hear him roll his eyes. “You could have told me, you know? I never even loved you. If you wanted to sleep with Raynard’s loser son, who was I to stop true love?” But his tone was bitter, and I thought some parts of him didn’t agree. “The two of you together in those tapes?” He laughed with a hardness I didn’t know he possessed. “You were so …
pathetic. You were always pathetic. A pathetic needy bitch.” He screamed as his voice came closer. “You fell right into my pocket like Kenna said you would. Don’t tell my fiancé this, but she’s good at spotting a whore when she sees one. After all, she is one.”
McKenna … Kenna. “His fucking assistant?” I mouthed, brain turning.
I hadn’t met Denny’s new assistant. He’d picked her up right after we’d learned that conceiving was almost impossible. He’d needed someone to pick up the slack. She and I hadn’t met. But the first look on her face hadn’t been one of shock. It had been recognition.
“Is that any way to talk about the mother of your child?” I got on my hands and knees and moved back to my right. I had to backtrack, to make him think I’d gone deeper in.
“Aww,” he mocked. “Are you jealous? It’s only blood, my sweet Kinley. Blood you could never give me.”
That hurt in a place only Denny knew. “Is that all I was? A loan?” I poked my head around the furthest car, spotting his boots moving to check the back where I had been. I shot out to the other side.
“You still owe me.”
And in his threat, I heard everything I needed to know. Yes, we were marked, but I owed Denny McDonald something Dash didn’t. I searched for something to distract him. If he caught me, I knew in my bones it would be an entirely different nightmare. And there would be no beauty in it.
“Kinley.” Barely contained rage simmered in my name. “You knew you owed me something. You knew there was nothing about you worth wanting. Why else did your mother and father get rid of you? I searched for them. I thought you’d call on everyone you knew, and since they’re all you knew and Dash may or may not be with you—thanks for clearing that up by the way—I wanted to make sure you weren’t with them. You weren’t, of course, because your father doesn’t want anything to do with you.”
That’s what he always did. Tore me down. Hit me right where it hurt the most. I covered my mouth with my hand and denied the sob in my throat freedom. I crawled past the back of the cars, searching for his approaching feet. I could hear him.
“Do you have any idea what he’s going to do to your true love when he finds him?” His boots came closer, crossing in front of the car I hid behind. “You’re going to the whore house to work off your debt. But Dash … Dash is Raynard’s.”
Dash was mine.
I held my breath as he kept going, ducking behind the row in front of me. Once his boots kept going, so did I.
“I watched every video,” he said, his voice grower lower, intensely livid. “You were never that way with me. You were such a smart assed little bitch with me. But with him. You were so … quiet and attentive. You cared for him. But you loved me too, didn’t you, my sweet Kinley? Otherwise, you would have kept going. You would have ended up in our bed with him.” Something like a pound echoed in the garage.
“I should have.” I pulled in my rage, my hurt.
“Maybe,” he agreed. “Or maybe you’ll spend the rest of your life blaming yourself for what happens to him as man after man takes your broken body. You’ll never be free of me. You gave me your soul the day we met, and I’m not stopping until I have it.”
I scooped up a discarded fountain cup stuck between the tire and the wall, and lobbed it across the row to where neither of us had gone yet. His feet took off. I ducked to the first row, letting out a sigh of relief when I saw the ramp entrance.
“Your soul is mine!” he bellowed as the pounding increased.
My knees were scraped raw, but I ignored it as I managed to crawl down my row and around the corner. The moment I was free, I stood, running down the ramp so fast I knew if I fell I would lose it all. One glance behind me showed me nothing as I sprinted into the under construction garage. I stabbed at the button on the door and ducked inside. My breathing blocked out any other sound. I forced myself to calm enough to make out any signs of Denny. I saw a blur on the far left where the signs were, but one glance into the empty garage and he took off down the ramp.
With a back breaking sob, I forced myself to continue. I had sixteen minutes to get back to Dash.
And that was all I wanted.
25.
Ought The King Forget His
I closed the mirror door behind me.
I refused to move once I was in my dream bathroom. I had never loved the tower more than I did in the moment it was almost gone.
My knees trembled and my heart tried to beat amidst the breaks. My feet moved on their own. They wanted the same thing I did. But when I came back into the living room, Dash was still passed out on his stomach snoring. The sight of him did me in. I sank onto the couch and stared at him. At his pale muscled back, the top of his ass, his messy sweat dampened black and brown hair. I wanted in his arms.
Up here we are safe.
My tears blocked his body from me.
I gathered my gown. Leaving him, I had to get rid of the evidence. I tore my grown off and stomped it into my closet. I stuffed it behind my panty drawer. I washed off the blood and snot in the shower. I dressed in black sweatpants to hide my scuffed knees, and left my hair down to hide the flush of lies and fear in my cheeks.
The shaking in my body didn’t stop until my skin touched his. I fought his heavy sleep-laden arm, and made it so it slung around my shoulders. In the cocoon of his chest and scent, I pulled in a deep breath of Dash McKing. “I forgive you,” I whispered. “I forgive you, my king.”
He groaned deep and low in his throat. “Kin?”
“Go back to sleep.” The second he shifted, I wiggled beneath him. “I want to sleep.” I wanted to dream.
In seconds he was passed out on top of me the way I wanted. His body weight and heat comforted me so deeply, I wrapped my arms around him to keep it that way. His snoring was soothing. His entirety was exactly what I wanted. I felt so incredibly guilty for blaming him, it started to eat at my soul. Dash had done nothing wrong to me. Nothing. I sobbed into his chest, crying myself to sleep.
A zombie woke me up.
Well, a zombie with a six pack and gold eyes.
Dash was on his knees clutching at his skull and groaning. His eyes were pinched shut. He rocked back and forth slowly.
Without speaking, I got to my feet and wrapped my grip around his bicep. I helped him to his feet and into his bathroom as quickly as possible. The moment we were in the black and silver room, he slid to his knees near the toilet and puked violently. Each gag made me cringe. I joined him on my own knees, rubbing his back and hair. I’d been there hours before, but the hour after made it hard to breathe.
I stared at his profile, aching to tell him what I’d done. He should know. Denny was out there, right down there, and he knew we were right up here. My fingers trembled on his back. He was too sick to notice.
“Water?” he managed, retching a toxic stew of marshmallows and bitter brandy.
“Anything, my king.” I kissed his temple before getting up and leaving him. On numb limbs and excruciating guilt, I got a clean mug from the kitchen and returned it to him full of lukewarm water. Cold water would only hit his empty stomach and come right back up. I watched him drink it all the way down as his eyes bored into mine intently. I met them full own, praying he picked up on the lies in my eyes.
But these were normal lies. And Dash wasn’t used to these.
“You were crying,” he accused, his voice scraped raw and gravely sounding. “Why?”
I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. I didn’t want to lie. I shrugged and extended my hand for his empty mug. “You want more?”
He gave up his stare and instead covered his face in his hands. “Aspirin. It’s in the stockroom by the condoms.”
“Dash?”
“Aspirin, Kinley.”
He wasn’t in the mood to talk—I understood that. I was thankful for my empty stomach as I crossed the living room for the stockroom. I managed to locate the aspirin and sifted through the other medicines for anything else that might help him. There wer
e packets of vitamin C powder. I stacked my find and returned to the bathroom to find him slouched on the floor where I’d left him. I tore open a packet of the Vitamin C powder, and emptied it into his empty mug. Once fizzy, I handed it to him with three aspirin.
“Drink it all.”
He tried. Sweat saturated his body, dripping from his dark hair. The smell of his puke was turning my own stomach. To ward off the nausea, I made him a bath. I ducked into his shower and plucked one of the male body soaps from the cubby, and poured the pale green liquid into the warm water. The smell of fresh air, musk, and citrus filled the room. It was an entire bathtub of Dash. I wanted to submerge myself in it. To feel his warmth envelop me.
But I no longer deserved his warmth.
Maybe I never had.
“Come take a bath.” I helped him to his feet and to his tub. Once balanced, I pushed his suit pants off his hips and helped him out of them. I grabbed his shaking hand to hide my own, and helped hoist him into the tub. The moment he was beneath the water, his deep satisfied groan filled his bathroom.
“Thank you,” he whispered, eyes closed, head back, unaware that I had just marked us far worse than anything he’d ever imagined.
“I’ll clean up.”
“Why were you crying?”
I flushed his toilet, watching it swirl … “Did you know that Kenna is having Denny’s baby?”
Behind me, water shifted. “What are you talking about?” There was confusion and humor in his question.
Silly, Kinley. Denny’s gone.
“They’re engaged.”
“Kinley.” His measured tone had lost his humor. “What are you talking about?”
“Why did you pick that parking garage?”
“Kinley!” he screamed, making me flinch. “What are you talking about?”
I dropped the puke covered ball of tissue down the toilet and picked up his mug. Then I faced him. “Before you panic, I came back.”
Rage and fear clashed in his eyes. “I don’t want to scream at you. Please tell me what you’re talking about.”
A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel Page 24