by K. Z. Riman
She was in a lot of pain. She was always crying when she was alone, but remained cheerful as she went out with her boy, or with Grace. She kept to herself a lot of her sorrows, perhaps in fear that someone would take advantage of her.
She remained by herself, ignoring all the men who had sent her flowers, or walked past to take a second look at her. She remained chaste, unblemished by deeds that were not of love. I remained desiring her, wondering if it was really right for me to watch her that closely, sometimes imagining how I would love to rush to her and feel her under me.
When I couldn’t fulfil my brother’s wish to watch over her any more, I stayed away, agreeing to Father’s wish that I studied abroad. I would never forget that last moment I had with Seth before he died.
“If I die…”
“You are not going to die,” I urged Seth that night as I stared at him, running with the nurses as they rushed him to the Emergency Room. I lied to him, saying it was nothing serious and he wasn’t as broken as he felt.
I was right behind his car when a van filled with teenage idiots crashed their car into his, sending him off the road. It was the most terrifying thing I had seen in my whole life. I stopped my car and sat inside with my hands on the wheel, unable to breathe, or move.
“If…I die…” His voice was husky as his breathing became difficult. “Take…care of…Kels-ey…” His hand, slippery with blood, tightened its grip on mine. “P-lease…she needs…I think…she’s preg…”
“Sir, you can’t come in.” A nurse stopped me from entering the Emergency Room. That was the last time I saw him alive.
He was right. Kelsey was pregnant. I watched as she paled and sobbed, holding her tummy as she leaned against the wall before slowly sitting, letting Mother and Father hug her. She never saw Seth alive that night. That must had been the worst thing about it.
Seth. She almost called me Seth again in her closet. I hadn’t planned on kissing her but she was so beautiful, so hard to resist.
Kissing her…that was bliss. I expected her to pull back, to push me away, to put up a fight. Yet, she remained still and then responded hesitantly, trying to deny to herself the warmth that she missed, the warmth she deserved. She grew agitated each time I tried to taste her sweet skin that was just her—no expensive perfume, no oil…just her. I grew stiff, imagining how I would love to pull her to her bed. Perhaps that was what drew me to her now. Though she had a lot to hide, she had a lot to give.
She was quiet on our way back to Bovaghn. Although she must have had a lot of questions for me, she said nothing, staring out the window until she fell into a nap. Halfway home, I decided I was too hungry to continue driving without having something to eat, so I stopped at a restaurant beside the highway.
She protested at first, wanting to get home to Sean, but as she saw the menu, she conceded. She bit her lip and sighed, ordering herself a hearty meal.
After a moment of quiet, she spoke. I strained to hear her above the background music. “Don’t…kiss me again.”
As if she meant it. I felt her. She liked what happened inside her closet. She didn’t put up a real fight until she heard Leo coming. “No?”
“No.” She looked at me this time, fake conviction in her eyes. She swallowed and blinked rapidly until she could not look at me anymore. She pretended to take a sip of her wine. “That kiss was totally inappropriate,” she said sternly.
I grinned, showing her she could not fool me. “I could have sworn you gripped my shirt tightly to pull me closer…”
“I would never…!” she hissed, looking around to see if anyone had heard her. She was good at that, keeping things to herself, wanting people to mind their own business.
“Tell me then.” I could pretend to agree to that, until she told me what I needed to know. I most certainly could not guarantee that I wouldn’t kiss her again. God, she had tasted so damn sweet! “What happened? Why did you need to borrow…?”
“I was alone.” She still had the same annoyed voice, trying to contain herself while she most certainly wanted to yell at me. “I was raising a boy by myself, in an apartment in the heart of a rich city. What do you expect?”
“What about your tips?”
“How do you know I get tips?” She was appalled. “Even if I do, I barely get more than twenty creolles, because I would not let them touch me.”
“Well, someone did try and touch you tonight because of money.”
“I thought there were two of them tonight.” She raised one brow at me.
She was always good at mocking me. “I kissed you. I didn’t try to touch you. I would have pulled back if you had pushed me away.”
She flushed, a delicate shade of pink painting her silky skin. Oh, you are fucking beautiful when you do that!
“Why didn’t you just ask Mother and Father for money?”
“I couldn’t.” She wasn’t looking at me again. It was the same hiding mechanism she had used as a teenage girl. When there were things she didn’t want to discuss with Seth, she would look away and their conversation would stop. She couldn’t do that with me. I would not allow it. Not that I didn’t respect her privacy. I wanted to know more about what happened to her during the six years since she left Bovaghn and moved to Brizhania.
“What, you think you could go on and raise your kid on your own?” It wasn’t impossible, just very difficult, even for her. She had been able to live by herself, not depending on anyone, for many years in college.
“Yes. From years of working hard just to put food on the table, I believed that I could raise him alone.” Her answer was quick and firm. Yet her voice changed as soon as it was her son she was talking about. “As I look at Sean while he sleeps…”
“You have kept him away from the life he deserved,” I said. That was one point she would not be able to get away from.
“Yes.” Her head was bowed as she admitted the mistake she had made when she ran away from us and put off all our efforts to help her and her son. “Sean is with your family now.”
“As are you.”
She didn’t say anything to that. She smiled and changed the subject. “You were away for a long time. Where have you been?”
“Europe. I was studying.”
“Hmmm. That must be really nice…to graduate twice.”
I chuckled. “Well, beats the shit out of my brain.”
She chuckled, too. At least she tried to relax now. “Yes, I could imagine. You were never the type to take studies seriously, or anything else for that matter.”
“You were dead serious about everything. You exhausted yourself too often,” I told her as I managed to stifle my need to be angry at how she had let work drain the best of her.
“It couldn’t be helped.” She shook her head. “Like I said, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Make me.”
She let out a sigh of impatience, groaning quietly as she tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. “Why are you here, Scott? Why do you suddenly care so much?”
“You were my brother’s girlfriend.” It was half the truth. Seth did ask me to take care of her, and the other half…I just wanted to.
“Nonetheless, you shouldn’t care so much. I can take care of myself.”
“That wasn’t true at your boss’ son’s office.” Perhaps that was why she looked terrified of the idea of returning there. Back at the dog park, when she realized she was going back to Brizhania, she had looked bothered. I wanted to know why, so I followed her.
“I could have kicked his groin. I could have taken him…” She was still the stubborn, independent woman I knew.
“Yes, and if you did not succeed he would have taken you,” I replied, taking a sip of my wine. “Instead of arguing with me, couldn’t you, at least, thank me?”
She swallowed hard, her pride getting in
the way of what I wanted to hear. “Thank you. I will pay you back.”
“Five thousand creolles is more than three months of your salary,” I told her. I had no intention of asking her to repay it. She had suffered enough.
“Yes. I can live with that.”
I bet she could. She had lived pay check to pay check all her life, working hard, only to find herself still owing people. “You start tomorrow.”
When our food arrived, her mood changed. She became calmer and her expression became lighter. She drew food slowly into her mouth, like she was deep in thought. She chewed too slowly to even be enjoying what she was eating.
I was staring at her lips too intensely to be enjoying mine. Her lips were so wonderful to kiss and I would gladly do it again and again and again, until satisfaction came to me, which, I think, never would.
* * * *
“Mommy!” Sean was still up when we got home. It was almost midnight and Kelsey had a mixed expression on her face, half-scolding and half-happy, to find her son up past his bedtime.
“He wouldn’t go to bed without seeing you.” Mother was walking calmly behind Sean, with a smile on her face. “What took you so long?”
Kelsey shot me an accusing look before picking up Sean. “I had trouble resigning from my jobs.” Carrying her son, she said, “I will tuck Sean into bed, Mother.”
“Go ahead,” Mother told her and kissed Sean’s head, which now lay on Kelsey’s shoulder, his eyes drooping slowly. When she had gone, Mother smiled at me. “That was interesting. I didn’t know you would follow her to Brizhania.”
“I wanted to see if she was going to leave her jobs,” I lied. I couldn’t tell her about Jake Frost. I most certainly would not tell her about the kiss. Not yet, at least.
“Did she?” She and I went to the bar and fixed ourselves a drink. Mother was always eager to hang out with me, even as she was harder on Seth and me than Father.
“Yes,” I said, taking from her my glass of whisky. “I believe she is planning to stay here with us.”
Mother shrugged her shoulders. “That is what your father and I want. I never had a daughter and since she could be considered your brother’s widow, she is qualified to be. Besides, I have nothing to worry about that girl. She is not the type of person to be interested in money.”
“Yes, I think we already established that.”
“The hard way. I guess the only thing I could hold against her is the fact that she denied my grandson the luxurious life of his birth-right for six years. Then again, it is something admirable,” Mother said. “My grandson knows the value of money. Your father and I took him to the mall today to buy him some clothes. After some lunch, I gave him one hundred creolles so he could go and buy any toy he liked. He insisted on buying a coin bank instead, so he could save money in case he gets sick again, he said.”
“Again?” I narrowed my eyes.
“Apparently, when he was younger, he was in the hospital for a long time. He said he couldn’t stop sneezing and coughing.”
“Does he know which hospital?”
Mother almost laughed at me. “You can’t expect a boy to answer that.”
Could that be the reason she had to borrow a large sum of money from her boss? If it was the reason behind her borrowing that kind of money, why did she have to hide it?
“Oh, I bought Kelsey some clothes, just like you asked.” Mother broke into my thoughts. “I placed them in her room.” She paused. “I didn’t think you’d care enough to ask me to buy her some.”
“She has no appropriate clothes for work. You know that.”
“Well, you can’t blame her. She spends all her money on her son.” She paused again. “Why do you tease her?”
“What do you mean?” I froze. I kissed her, too.
“I meant what I asked, son.” She was up to something. I couldn’t be mistaken.
“I tease her because she was my brother’s girlfriend.” There were more reasons I could not explain to her. How would it sound to my mother if I told her I desired Kelsey?
“Still, why do you tease her?”
I shook my head. Mother always tried to force information out of me. I stood and kissed her cheek. “I will see you tomorrow.”
She let out a quiet laugh. It was as if she thought she already got me. “Keep your dinner plans open. We might visit Nielsen Povenmier. He’s been asking for Kelsey since the moment he learned she had moved here.”
“What does he want?” I placed my hands into my pockets.
Mother shrugged her shoulders as she crossed her legs, finding a comfortable position to stay longer. “Well, he was the reason Kelsey got into college. He is like…a godfather to her. It is only natural that he wants to see her.” She paused. “Your class president, Carter Povenmier, he will be there tomorrow. Perhaps you two could reminisce.”
I let out a choked laugh. “There is nothing to reminisce about. He and I barely spoke to each other.” She wouldn’t want to know how I despised know-it-alls like that man.
“Well, you can start somewhere now. He seemed rather excited that the family is coming over with Kelsey and her son.” Mother was casual about it.
I smelled something cooking.
Chapter Six
Scott’s Unlikely Rage
Kelsey was a vision of beauty. She looked so damn untouchable and so damn unreachable when she entered my office that afternoon. She had finished her briefing with Father’s secretary and I had finished my lunch meeting with Father and the Board.
She was beautiful in her cream blazer, which failed in its attempt to cover the upper mound of her beautiful breasts beneath her red blouse. Her skirt was short, putting attention to how her legs were the perfect shape and length. Her skin glistened like silk, from her thighs down to her ankles. Her high heeled shoes were as red as her delicious lips. Her hair was tied up in a knot—revealing her soft, luscious neck—with tendrils around her face.
I cleared my throat and turned my gaze away from her. I was stiffening. Fuck! It was my first day on the job and I would definitely not make any scandal while here. I would not hear the end of it from Father and then I would not last the year. Besides, I didn’t want to involve her in any of my scandals, since she had made it perfectly clear that she would leave if she found me an unfit boss.
She should have been mine ages ago and her return to my life was poetic justice. There should be nothing wrong if I tried catching her now, making sure she fell for my traps. That should be interesting. That should make my stay worthwhile.
“Good afternoon, Mister Grimaldi.” She was looking straight at me as she walked into my office, folders in her hand. “Here are some files you might want to look at.”
“What are these?” I asked, eyes on the files, still not looking at her.
“It’s a list of all your employees in each production team,” she said. She wanted me to get to know all of them. Typical. She had a heart and that would be her downfall. It had brought her down when Seth died.
I gave her a wry smile. “Thank you, but there is a certain list I want you to bring me.” She tilted her head to listen carefully and it gave me a certain amount of pleasure. She would do whatever I wanted, I saw. “I need a list of all drugs that have been produced by this company in the past ten years. Ask all team heads to give me their productivity reports for the past five years by five p.m. tomorrow.”
She smiled at me again. It wasn’t warm. It was proud. “Here. I’ve already made a list of all your products for the past fifteen years.” She handed me a different folder.
I nodded. “Not bad for a first day.” Not bad at all. I could really use a woman like her. Both at my desk and in my bed. Shit! No.
“I have a debt to pay.” She was taking things seriously again. I would bet all my money she would drag herself to the pits of exhaust
ion just to pay the money back to me.
I didn’t tell her I didn’t want her to pay it back. She would use it to try and be smart with me again, and then I would ache to put her in her place. I pretended to ignore her, but she remained standing in front of me, distracting me from work.
“Is there anything else you want?” she asked, forcing me to look at her.
“No. Is there anything you want?”
Not responding, she turned on her heel and went out the door, leaving me aroused. I loosened my tie and tried to forget about her and get on with my work.
Time wore on and she managed to pass the afternoon without disrupting me. She remained at her desk outside my office, casually speaking with a few people who took interest in her and the new boss. Fuck it! I had to control myself twice from rushing out of the room, my blood boiling each time it was a man talking with her. When it was almost time to leave, she knocked lightly on the door and poked her head in to see if I was anywhere near to finishing.
“Almost. Come in.”
She walked with slow strides, as if casually moving closer to a friend, but I would never be one. I never was. “We’ll have dinner with the Povenmier’s,” she said.
Blast, I forgot about that!
I shot her a glance to check what she was wearing. I didn’t want her anywhere near Carter wearing a suit like that. Carter may be a decent man, but a man nonetheless. No man should be a match for her charms…except me. “Are we to go straight from here?”
“No. I have to go and attend to Sean first. Besides, I’m going to change.”
I kept my eyes on my computer screen but looked past my report, imagining what she would wear. Heaven forbid! I would rip her clothes right off her body if she decided to wear those fucking cotton dresses. “I hope you are not wearing one of your cute little cotton dresses.”
“No. Mother bought me a cocktail dress.” Great. When I didn’t make any comment nor any move to leave, she asked, “Are you staying?”