I had to break the stare this time, dropping my hands from her arms as I went to leave the room, "Please feel free to explore the house and if you need anything." I paused and turned back to look at Kit, "I am just down the hall."
Kit nodded curtly, whispering a thank you. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it. Placing my hand over my heart as it continued to pound.
It only pounded like this when those hazel eyes looked in mine. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly pushing away from the door.
I had to figure out what it was about Kit that made my heart want me to betray my sensibility like I had with Victoria all those years ago.
The room was huge and really was twice the size of my living room. I wasn't sure how long I stood in the middle of the room staring at the sheer size and richness it provided. I was partly staring to distract whatever it was I was feeling while Claire went over the room. Her genuine smile that was only reserved for me plastered on her face as she pointed out the bathroom and the rain fall shower head. It was harder as I could smell her shampoo mixing with the ocean air still tangled in it, as she breezed past me a few times. Forcing me to clench my jaw.
I had to calm my heart and my mind when she left. Knowing my withdrawal wasn't not a factor in my fidgeting and hand wringing, it was the blonde woman who was pushing feelings into my heart every minute I spent with her and every minute she told me something personal about her. The story about her professor was true, I could see it in her blue greens eyes when the memories of a young love was disclosed over pizza.
I pulled off my suit jacket, draping it over the back of the fancy wooden chair that had a matching desk. I wanted a shower from all the mild sweating I had done throughout the day. My detox was going better than it had in a long time. Claire's herbal remedies seemed to be doing the trick or I was mentally willing my body to fight hard and not give the Senator any small clues for her to nitpick or show concern for.
I walked to the closet as I stripped off the rest of my suit, running fingers over the three pairs of jeans, the line of button downs hanging in prefect synchronicity with each other and the small stack of soft t-shirts on the top shelf. They were brand new and in my exact size. Claire had expected at some point I would have to spend the night. I smirked, she was always prepared.
I stopped, my hand hanging in the air. What if she had planned this? Forced Rebecca to leave town for a few days so we could be alone?
I chewed on my bottom lip, nervously. The fact that Claire had a relationship with my predecessor made me suspicious if she was attempting a re-do with me. I cringed, this had happened before, I became lost in the mystery and sensuality of my employer, the kindness I was shown, and it all led me blindly until I made a stupid mistake.
Moving away from the closet and brand new clothes, I decided I would have to be careful with Claire, watch her closer. Yet, at the same time, nothing about the blonde woman triggered my gut feeling that everything she had done for me came with a hidden agenda. It all was done because she cared for me, making me want to let her in more. Tell her my own silly stories of first loves and college debacles.
I groaned and shook my head, no. I couldn't let her in. The last time I did such a thing with the one I was tasked with protecting, I lost everything.
I snatched up the pajamas and walked into the bathroom. Undressing completely I pulled off the Band-Aid on my cheek while the shower warmed up. Leaning against the counter, I stared at myself in the mirrors.
I saw the effects taking hold from how rough I had been living my life and not taking any care of myself. I needed to start eating more vegetables and drinking water, not scotch. My body needed to be in top shape and I had to shake the shakes out of my hands before next week’s qualifications with the ever perfect Rebecca. I had to prove her wrong as well as my self-rising doubts that I could keep Claire safe. This was my second chance on many levels and I had to see it through this time or die trying.
When I was out of the hot confines of the massive shower, I slipped into the soft bed and fell asleep the minute my head touched the pillow. It was as if I was encased in a cloud. Warm, soft and cool all at the same time. I fell deeper into a listless and dreamless sleep, staying like that until my body revolted in the middle of the night.
I barely made it to the bathroom and to the toilet before my stomach emptied the small amount of food and liquid I had taken in.
The second day of my detox was always the worse.
I laid down on the cold granite tile of the bathroom when I was finally done throwing up. Welcoming the cold sharp feeling the tile sent through my head, easing the throbbing headache. I curled up into a ball, shivering, but glad to shiver. I hated when the detox made my body hotter than a volcano, like it had over the last twenty-four hours. I was finally on the downhill to home with the shivers.
Ten minutes later I pushed myself up off the floor, grabbed a blanket from the pile next to the bed, wrapping it around myself. I needed water and lots of it. I shuffled quietly through the house trying my best not to wake up Claire, since it was a quarter after three in the morning.
In the kitchen I found the largest glass I could and poured ice-cold water from the fridge into it. Downing one full glass in a matter of seconds, it helped ease the cramps radiating in my stomach. The second glass I took down a little more slowly and moved to look out the window at the stars.
I talked my mind into focusing on the constellations I could see, trying to remember which ones were which. I then tried distracting my stomach as I felt it begin to roll again. Unhappy that I had filled it with water when it was adamant on staying empty for the duration of this withdrawal
I clenched my jaw, whispering to the empty kitchen, "Big dipper, little dipper, Orion’s belt..." Until a strong cramp ripped through my stomach, causing me to drop the glass and grab at my stomach. I dropped to my knees at the same time the glass hit the tile, shattering like a cymbal in the symphony. I groaned and clutched at my stomach, leaning against the cabinets. Squeezing my eyes shut I took deep breaths trying to talk the cramp into releasing my stomach and me. I groaned through gritted teeth, "Fuck scotch."
I was so caught up in my misery I didn't hear her come into the kitchen. I only felt a warm hand on my forehead followed by frantic but soft whispers asking if I was okay. I opened an eye, I was face to face with Claire, looking over me with fear in her eyes.
She pressed her palm against my forehead, calling my name. "Kit, are you okay? What happened?"
I swallowed hard and went to push her away when another cramp rolled through. I groaned, "Stomach cramps. It always happens when I detox." I felt her hand run over my forehead and down the side of my face holding onto my cheek.
"We need to get you up and back to bed."
I tried to protest until I felt her strong, but gentle grip pick me and slide an arm around me, lifting me up as if I weighed nothing. I leaned against her, not really caring to protest or resist her help. I was too focused on the hell storm in my stomach. I walked with Claire back up to the spare bedroom where she set me on the edge of the bed and looked in my eyes, "Tell me what you are feeling."
I bit my lip to hold in another groan, "I’m freezing; my stomach feels like there are shards of glass being pushed into the sides." I waved a hand at her, "It's normal. It will go away in a few hours." I tried to smile, but it was cut off by another tinge of pain.
Claire stood up quickly and left the room. She came back a short moment later with a large bottle of water and a few pill bottles. She set them on the bedside table and sat next to me on the bed. "You are severely dehydrated Kit, it happens when the alcohol begins to leave the system and the body is craving water or more scotch." She shook out two white pills into her hand, "Take these; it will help relax your stomach muscles."
Looking up at her as I cringed, I saw the pure concern in her eyes and it made my heart twitch in a sad way. Claire was worried about me and it rained from her eyes every second she looked at me. I grabbed the
two pills, throwing them into my mouth, swallowing them dry I leaned forward on my knees to hold the sides of my throbbing head.
Another roll of cramps hit my stomach hard, harder than ever before and I lost the little strength I had been holding onto. The tears were released with little fight from me, then the sobs came. I covered my face as I felt my body shake from the pain and the sobs. I was tired of this, tired of the back and forth I would put my body in because I didn't want to remember anything.
I felt her arm wrap around my waist and pull me towards her body. I didn't fight it, only leaned into her chest. Sobbing more as I heard her heart beat quickly under my ear. Claire wrapped her arms around me in a side embrace, her hand running over my hair as she whispered soothing words I couldn't make out over my sniffles and gasps.
I took a deep breath, pushing my voice to be heard in between sobs, "Claire why are you doing this for me? Why not just let me suffer in my mess and let me be." It was a question I had held in for the last few days. I wanted her to give up on me or see the mess I was like Rebecca did, but every time I tried to get her to do so, she tried harder to show me I was of some worth. Small gestures of smiling at me or bringing me a glass of water when I didn't ask for it. All so small, but meant so much to me since I had given up on the world and myself in the last two years.
Claire held me closer, "It's not important right now, Kit. Just relax and keep breathing." It was her doctor voice, the one she had used on the couch when I fought her looking at my cut.
I pulled back from her embrace, shaking my head, "I am not important. Don't you see Claire? I did this to myself and keep on doing it." I wiped at my face and turned quickly to face her. "I did this to myself, all of it. I am a fuck up and I should suffer for it."
I went to stand up when I felt two warm hands latch on the sides of my face. Pulling me to look in the eyes I really wanted to avoid. Our faces were inches away from each other, I could feel her body heat move around mine, chasing some of the shivers away.
"Kit, stop it! Stop saying that! You are important and you should not suffer for mistakes made. Because that's all they are, mistakes." Claire held my face firmly, searching out my eyes until I finally looked into hers. I watched her swallow hard, "I am not going to give up on you no matter how hard you try to push me. I see something in you that I haven't seen in anyone else in a long time."
She reached up, brushing a tear away, "You have proven to me your worth and every day I spend with you, you prove it more and more." She smiled, looking at me harder, "Aside from that, there is something about you I cannot ignore, Kit. I don't want to ignore."
I watched as her eyes dropped to my lips and then back up to my eyes. My heart began to beat a little faster, "But why, Claire? Why me?" The air suddenly filled with a heavy tension, I knew what was about to happen and strangely enough, I wanted it to happen as my own eyes fell to her lips.
Claire swallowed harder, moving closer, her head resting on my forehead as she whispered, "Why not you, Kit."
I moved closer, I could feel her breath as it floated across my lips. I reached up, my hand settling on her neck. Fingers grazing her pulse, I felt how hard it was racing. I took a deep breath, I wanted to kiss her as much as she wanted to kiss me. I closed my eyes, moving closer until I felt my lips brush across her soft bottom lip. Her breath catching slightly as she pulled away suddenly, breaking the minuscule contact, "You have a fever. I will grab a cold washcloth."
Claire moved away from me, breaking all the physical contact we had and walked into the bathroom. Leaving me to swallow my heart down and the embarrassment of what I may have just misread. I leaned forward again, my head in my hands and let a few more tears out. Secretly glad Claire had stopped the kiss before it happened. I had made a promise years ago, that I would not do this again. No matter how drawn I was to the blonde and how my heart would always fight my mind in shutting down whatever it was I felt for Claire, I had too, because I already knew as I sat on her bed with her hand reappearing on my back as a cold washcloth was pressed against the curve of my neck.
I already knew that I couldn't lose Claire like I had lost him.
Chapter 8
Kit's fever broke and she fell into a deep sleep. Her body was exhausted from the extreme and rapid shifts she was putting it through over the last week. Covering her in blankets, I sat on the edge of the bed, staring out into the open view of the night sky the glass windows offered me. I waited until Kit seemed to be sleeping heavily and easily before collecting the wash cloths and bottles of water spread out on the bed.
I walked quickly through the house, depositing the half dried wash cloths into the laundry, setting the empty glass in the dishwasher on my way to the second basement office I kept in the house. A room that even Rebecca had limited access too.
I swiped my card, entering the room and waited for the click of the door to let me know it was locked with the only person with the only key locked inside. I let out the breath I had been holding, falling into the soft leather chair in front of my multiple monitor setup. I ran my hands over my face in a feeble attempt to rub away the feelings lingering from a few minutes ago.
I almost kissed Kit, she almost kissed me.
What in the world was I doing?
I leaned back in my chair, staring up at the ceiling. My mind running over what just happened or almost happened in the bedroom. The want to kiss her came from nowhere.
Maybe it was because she let me in as she cried in my arms, maybe it was the way she looked at me when she asked why her, that spurred me on. I had held back the best I could until I felt her fingertips on my neck. Moving so painfully soft across my pulse, that I would have let Kit do whatever she wanted in that moment. The brush of her lips over mine, the softness of them was mildly intoxicating.
God, how I wanted to close that last millimeter between us and kiss the woman.
Then the voice in the back of my logical head shouted at me, breaking the moment. Demanding answers for what I was doing. Was I taking advantage of Kit in her unguarded state? Even though it was a mutual move on our parts, I knew it wasn't right. The last thing Kit needed was me testing out a theory or a hypothesis about the strange chemistry that hung in the air whenever we were near each other.
I rubbed my eyes, swinging my chair to my monitors; hands acting out of habit, running fast fingers over the keyboard. I needed a distraction from my libido and my photographic memory replaying over and over the way her lips felt on mine. Reading boring emails and progress reports from the senate would kill any sexual desire I had running in my veins.
Entering my secured system I sorted through personal emails that only I had access to, another thing I still had to keep hidden from Rebecca and everyone else. That is why I had this second office constructed, a place where I could go and hide if need be, since it was also a high-grade panic room and a quiet room where I could work endlessly on my Criterion projects free from prying eyes. I clicked through lab reports and progress reports from the Criterion lab staff, when a request for video chat from Dr. Zehren blinked on one of my screens.
I clicked accept, smiling when the older man's face filled up the middle monitor. Dr. Zehren was almost twenty years older than I and looked like the typical Austrian doctor. Clean cut, no facial hair, and dark green eyes that reminded me of the water in the Mediterranean Sea. More importantly than his angular good looks, Dr. Zehren was pristine to a fault just like his work. We both shared the same passions for medicine and quickly became one of my closest, most trusted friends and colleagues.
I had met him when I was in my senior year at Princeton and preparing for a run for local city council president. My father thought it would be a good idea to check out the charities the Avondale family supported and utilize them that as a selling point in my campaign. There I met Dr. Zehren and in that first meeting we began to work together on what would become our largest and most dangerous project to date.
I smiled at my old friend, "Good morning Doctor."
> "Good morning Claire. I took a chance you would be up late as usual." He raised an eyebrow at me, "Appears I am correct. Trouble sleeping?" his soft dulcet tones with the tinges of an Austrian accent floating through the computer speakers had an immediate calming effect on me. He sounded like Mr. Vontrapp in the Sound of Music, but much more Austrian.
I shook my head, "Not at all. You know my brain sometimes wants to work more than it wants sleep." I shifted in my seat, "How is Rebecca?"
Dr. Zehren sat back in his own chair, grabbing a chart, he flipped through a few pages, "She is resting over at the other facility. We ran the tests and samples." His face dropped slightly when he looked back at me, "There is a small issue with her heart. Primarily in the main chamber of the left ventricle. The walls are thinning week by week. I have gone over the work a thousand times and cannot figure out why her heart is reversing after all this time." Dr. Zehren paused, "I fear in a few months' time we will be back to where we were in Paris."
"Can I look at the chart?" I asked quietly, not wanting to revisit that day.
Dr. Zehren nodded and clicked on his end. A large file appeared on the tablet on the desk in front of me. Swiping it open to reveal Rebecca's entire chart laid out for me to manipulate. "I called you as soon as I looked over the results and fooled with a few of my own ideas and theories."
I swiped through lab reports, EKG, MRI and CT scan results, all showing me that there was a slight decrease in Rebecca's heart rate and production of pumps. I kept reading, "Blood tests showing any abnormalities?"
"Only that there is small sloughing of proteins into the blood, telling me that the tissue itself is starting to die in microscopic quantities. Sloughing off into her blood and out of her system in time. I was lucky that my assistant noticed the high protein levels and how it wasn't proper since Rebecca has been on a strict diet for the last year until full stabilization of the organ."
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