It strikes me that not only is he a fat fucking liar, but a moronic one at that if he thinks I can’t see through his bullshit. Gone is my control over my life, gone is the sense of security I steadily cultivated for years, and in its place is so much anger, so much hurt and shame for not seeing who this man is…
“You went into the bank and stole my money.”
I say it as he winds down and smiles at me, patting my hand with a gentle stroke that makes my skin crawl. I give two figs for his shock or the way he rears back when I glare at him, my head so full of steam I feel ready to explode with it.
He recovers slowly after a long silence and failed attempts to excuse himself before slumping in his chair and looking up at me with misty eyes.
“Kinsley, I-I just couldn’t cover the bills so I, uh, I just took a little to keep things going. I didn’t want you to find out just before the wedding,” he croaks.
“Forty-five thousand dollars? You needed forty-five thousand dollars to cover a four-thousand-two-hundred-fifty-six-dollar-and-seventy-three-cent debt accumulation?” I ask snidely, slamming my hand down to the table before rising to tower over him.
“Ki—”
“You liar! You’re a thief and a liar, and I want you out of my Goddamn house right now. Leave, Jon! I may have forgiven the lies and the debt and helped with those, and I may have forgiven you that absolute break of trust you just dealt me, but I won’t ever forgive you for stealing from me.”
I’m shaking with humiliated anger as the ramifications of this hit me all at once. I have no money. I’m three weeks away from a wedding that will never happen now and—
“Honey, don’t do this.”
He rises too and tries to take my hand, but I pull away with a firm shake of my head and storm to the sink, my body vibrating with betrayal.
“Get out.”
“Kinsley, come on. Please just listen to me. I know this seems bad, but we can get through this. I made a mistake.”
He’s sweating, I see, as I turn to face him, his skin an ugly pale green that makes me sick just to look at. I know why he’s backtracking and trying to smooth this over so quickly, and I don’t give a damn.
“Yes, you did. You broke a trust I had in you. I warned you, Jon. I told you when we got together that if you ever lied to me, this wouldn’t work. I want you out of here right now. I’ll call the planners to send out apologies, but I’m afraid the wedding is off.”
“No—”
“Yes. I’m done. I believed your crap last month when the phone stopped working and you said it was a connection error. I believed you when you changed carriers because our other one wasn’t responding to your emails for a call out. I believed every little lie you’ve fed me for months because I trusted that you were the partner with whom I could live my life without chaos and lies. You are not that man.”
He barely catches his ring when I toss it at him and try to walk past him. A mistake on my part because the minute I get near him, he snaps and lashes out, slapping me so hard I feel my head ring as I fall against the fridge.
“No! This is a mistake, Kinsley. You don’t understand; we have to get married!”
My cheek hurts, the whole left side of my face throbbing as I pull myself up and face him, cradling my face. Part of me is stunned by his behavior, but I quickly shake off the shock when he reaches for me again, this time with so much malice on his face I feel myself quake inside.
Years of Lex’s little training sessions kick in when he comes within reach, and I feel myself go on autopilot as I strike out and slam my palm against his cheek, sending him reeling.
“Get the fuck out of my house!”
“You don’t understand. I need you,” he cries, regaining his feet with an effort as I step closer to the kitchen knives and face him, a little fear hitting me then.
Jon is not a small man. He’s six foot of lean male, who may not be all that buff but is way stronger than I am any day of the week. He’s never been violent with me, but from the look on his face when I sneer, he could very easily do a lot more to me than slap me around a little.
“I don’t need you. I am warning you. You get the hell out of here right now, or I’ll call Lex, and you know exactly what will happen to you if my brother sees my face.”
He goes even paler and seems ready to argue again but steps back quickly when I reach for my phone where I tossed it earlier when I got home.
He leaves with a violent curse and slams the front door so hard I jump before crumpling into a heap on the kitchen floor. Misery engulfs me, and for the first time in a long time, I stop fighting the leash I have on myself and give in to the sobs that rack me.
All those plans I made…gone. There’s no way in hell I would ever marry a man who lies and steals from me, and what’s more, I would never let him near me now that I know he’s capable of hitting me.
This day…
Chapter Three
King
The worst part of knowing that Kinsley is getting married isn’t the thought of never having her, it’s knowing that she’s making the worst mistake of her life, marrying a guy Lex can’t stand and would dearly love to make disappear without a trace.
“I’m telling you, King man, she’s making a huge mistake here. Kinsley…she’s stubborn, and you know how she is with that fucking planning shit of hers.”
I keep drinking and watching Cleo flit around the bar, as Jericho watches her and growls at anyone who so much as breathes on her delicate skin. The man is obsessed with his wife, something I never would have seen coming or even believed without seeing that man fall before my very eyes.
Me, I don’t do relationships if I can help them, not since I went to war and saw the shit that human beings will do to even those that they love. People are fucked up, and I’d rather die alone than give a woman that much power over me.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Lenny, Cleo, and Evie. Those females are great, but they lead their men around by the ball sacks—and that just ain’t me. Never has been and never will be.
“Lex, just let this shit go. I called her just like you asked, but she told me to fuck off. Not in so many words, but I got the message. Leave her be. This is her choice.”
The words taste like ash in my mouth even as I say them because, yeah, I hate the thought of her marrying some douchebag just to fill another one of her life’s goals.
That’s Kins though. She gets these ideas in her little head and doesn’t lose focus until she accomplishes them. Everything in her life is planned down to the minute, even her meals as far as Lex tells it, and she’s just…
Stubborn as a fucking mule when she thinks things aren’t hers to control. That is one of the many reasons I never let myself go after the feisty little vixen, no matter how attracted I was to her once she reached legal age and blossomed.
Besides having my ass kicked by my best friend for going near his barely-legal sister, I happened to be in a relationship at the time, and though not happy, I’d been convinced that if I just tried hard enough I’d make things work.
Brenda hadn’t felt that same way though, and we’d parted on somewhat amicable terms, though I still felt guilty for the way things ended. They wouldn’t have, I admit to myself, if I had just been able to ignore the attraction I felt for Kinsley.
Brenda noticed my lack of interest—no matter how hard I tried to mask it—and called it quits not long after Kinsley fled from me and went back to college. That was six years ago, and though it pains me to even think of it, I have to admit that I feel guilty about what happened with Kinsley because I know she would never have ended up with this fucker if not for the way I rejected her when she made advances.
I still remember every detail of that summer: we were so close, getting to know each other for the first time since I’d fled the Jacobs’ place after seeing her and knowing that I wanted her.
She was just a teenager at the time, and I knew just looking at her was wrong. So, I left and never reciprocated when she sent me
letters along with Lex, or gave me those care packages.
Most of them ended up in other guys’ possession because I know myself; I would have started feeling things I had no right feeling for her if I’d taken just one thing from her.
I spent two years running from that, only to come home with Lex that one leave period stateside when he refused to let me go it alone. Once I saw her again, it was done. The passion I’d felt for Brenda had disappeared a quick death, and I’d been locked onto Kinsley like a heat-seeking missile on its target.
I was so locked on, in fact, that when she kissed me, I kissed her back. It took everything in me to push her away, and fuck me, I almost blew it and just took her when she bared her body to me, showing me every inch of the perfection I’d been waiting for since first laying eyes on her.
She’s the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, ever met, in my life and still is to this day. But she’s not for me. Kinsley is the commitment kind of gal, and I just don’t do that shit, not after enduring my entire childhood stuck with parents who made the word divorce seem like a blissful dream instead of every kid’s nightmare.
I don’t believe in marriage. I’ve seen firsthand what it can do to two sane, rational people, and I will never let myself get locked down into something I know could turn on a dime.
So, I let that ship sail, regretfully, and moved on.
Kinsley and I are pretty savvy to things and have been for six years now after she ran out of my room, crying, and never came back. The few times I spent Christmas with the Jacobs clan, she made her excuses and spent the holiday with her fiancé’s family.
We haven’t spoken or seen each other once since that day I almost took her, and as far as I’m concerned, that is a blessing. Kinsley doesn’t want a thing to do with me, and who can blame her? And, fuck me, I can’t ever see her again, or I’d do something we’d both regret, and I know it.
“King, for Christ’s sake, man! You think I don’t know you’ve had a boner for my little sister since she was in braces? I saw the sparks flying between you two. Just do me this one favor, man, and I swear I won’t ever bother you again,” he says desperately, his light blue eyes pleading with me.
I snort, as I lean back in the booth and shake my head.
“Favor? Lexington, man, you’re asking me to seduce your little sister to stop her wedding. Are you finally on the cuckoo train? I can’t fucking do that! She loves her fiancé.”
It burns like acid just saying the words, but I get them out somehow and force myself not to care or think about hearing her husky voice just this afternoon.
“Goddammit, she doesn’t love him, King. She can’t. I’ve met the man, and he’s a worthless turd. Kinsley’s just comfortable with him because he doesn’t upset her perfect little life or make waves when she makes decisions. You know her. She likes to be in control, and so she chose one of the most useless dicks around because he lets her be in charge.”
I laugh a little at that because it’s true. Kinsley is a woman who has always been a force to be reckoned with. She likes her life scheduled and planned down to the letter, and God help a soul if they ever mess with those plans.
Lex once tried to derail her summer plans, and she socked him so hard he wore a shiner for three days. The woman is calm as a brook when she’s feeling the ordered structure she surrounds herself with, but mess with that, and she becomes a rabid little thing with no control whatsoever.
The summer Lex and I went to visit his family, I listened to her rhapsodize about her plans one day: shopping for this little dress she had her eye on in the window of her favorite shop, lunch at the diner down the street, and then a chocolate latte frozen yogurt.
Everything went smooth as silk as Lex and I drove her around to get her stuff done, so well in fact, that by the time we got to the frozen yogurt place, I was willing to bet that little Miss Kinsley was the sweetest woman in creation.
Until the teenager behind the counter told her they were all out of her flavor. It was the worst and most adorable thing I have ever witnessed when that woman went into a fit of chaotic hysteria.
To this day, I will never forget the way she started twitching, her little hands balling into fists when he told her to chill out and choose something else. If not for Lex smiling widely with a shake of his head and moving us both back out of the line of fire, I’d have been covered in yogurt when she lunged at that boy.
Jesus, that woman is a handful. That boy didn’t stand a chance, and I doubt he ever looked at another tub of frozen dessert the same way after she tried to drown him in the stuff.
It took both Lex and me to drag her off the poor snot, our laughter so loud and hard we almost couldn’t drag her free.
Her response?
It served him right for telling her to chill her crazy flow. According to Kins, she’s not crazy, just set on what she wants, and if some little snot can’t understand that…
“She’s not someone to mess with when she’s got her sights set on a goal.”
Lex chortles at that and laughs outright for a long moment.
“Remember when her history teacher tried rescheduling that test she studied so damn hard for?”
I laugh too because, though we were not stateside, I’d heard their mama relate it to him when he took her call.
“It was a professor and, if I recall, the dean had to intervene when the man wanted to press charges against her.”
We keep laughing because, yeah, that one was for the books. Kinsley got so pissed at having her day upended that she tracked that man down at his house, walked in without so much as an invitation, and refused to leave until he let her take that test.
In the end, she got to take it just so the man and his family could eat dinner in peace, and the dean was so amused by her ambition that he laughed and told her professor to mind his step with the little up and comer.
See, Kins is a rare individual. They had her tested when she was about nine and found that while she’s not genius, she is a little higher than most.
What she lacks in natural ability, she works hard at to the point that she graduated college at twenty, law school a year later, and became a partner at her firm a year after that. The woman is a dynamo, one who lives for order and is my exact opposite in temperament.
Me, I’ve lived as a soldier for so long, with so much structure, that the moment I retired, I just stopped even trying. The freedom of longer hair, a messy bed, and un-ironed clothes is my Nirvana, something that would drive that woman crazy.
For a moment, one brief flash in time, I wonder how two people so different would live together. I’d probably have her raging in less than a day with my slovenly ways, and she’d drive me nuts scuttling around tidying the place with a scowl and her sharp little tongue directed my way.
It’d never work.
“Lex, drop this, okay? If I’d known why you wanted me to call Kinsley, I would never have agreed.”
My ass. I almost bit my tongue when I tripped reaching for the phone the minute he said she needed me and wanted to talk. For a second, I thought she’d been having cold feet about her wedding.
Illogical, but a man is still a man, and I’ve been pining for that woman and wondering what I missed out on for years.
“Exactly. King, dude, just…just listen, okay? I don’t trust that little shit. I’m not asking you to actually…just, I need help, man, and you’re the only man Kins has ever looked at in any way that is…is…”
“Not a good idea, and we both know it, Lex. I could go over there and talk to her and maybe, yeah, I could do something that would make her call off the wedding, but to what end? Kinsley and I are like oil and water, bro. We’d never make it together, and the truth is I don’t want to.”
“Why? You think my little sister isn’t good enough for your ass?” he snarls.
“No, I think she’s too good, as in she deserves someone who’ll stay with her and you know I won’t. I don’t do marriage, so even if I wanted her, which I don’t, what do I
really have to offer?”
Lex sighs at that, and instead of the anger I expected at my bluntness, he just relaxes back into the booth with a snarl.
“It beats the hell out of her with that little shithead, man. Jesus, you should see that little slime trail, King. I don’t even know how…how…”
I’m spared his awkward fumbling when his phone rings, and I hear his growl before he starts yelling in a furious whisper of hisses and curses.
“That little fuck. No, Mama, I won’t. He must have done something to push her that far. No. Goddammit. I’m sorry. Yeah. But…fine, Mama, I won’t. I promise. Tell her to call me though.”
He ends the call shortly and sits, glaring at nothing in particular in a way that lets me know the man is pissed the hell off. I don’t say a thing, instead preferring to do what I have been doing for the last few weeks.
I think of the Designer of the Year Ball and the monumental clusterfuck that was. I still can’t make a lick of sense of that shit, and even after we managed to get things in control again, albeit with enough bullets to make the Army proud, we’re still reeling.
About eight weeks ago, when our buddy Blaze’s woman was awarded some design honor or some shit at this fancy award thing for designers, a group of…
I can’t call them terrorists since they weren’t, as we’d first expected. They were just a bunch of idiots who took money to come after Nick Storm, our boss.
Only one of those yahoos survived the mess when the rest of us opened fire, but it was enough for us to piece some of it together. Someone paid thugs with nothing to lose to come after our guy, and while I don’t think whoever it was believed that a highly-trained man like Nick would be killed that easily, I do believe it was a warning—a message, if you will.
I’m not surprised by it since we made a lot of enemies while we were in the service. What does make me stop to think, though, is the fact that this is going down now, after he took an assignment to escort a very prominent senator into a country that we’re currently not too happy with.
THE WATCHERS: 6 Military Romance Bundle Page 47