Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Vulnerable. She’d always felt vulnerable around those types of men. She’d never considered the fact that there were also those types of women.
Men were vulnerable, too. Men were vulnerable to women who felt entitled to what they wanted, who burned down lives to get it.
Was that voice in her head a product of that world?
She sat down as the first tear started to fall. “I did not deserve what she did to me and neither did he.”
Kai sat as well, reaching out a hand to cover hers. “I am so glad to hear you say that. Let’s talk.”
Ian stood, one big hand slapping his perfectly tight stomach. “My work here is done. It’s pizza time.”
The father figure of her world strode out, and she honored him and herself by finally opening up.
Chapter Thirteen
Kyle looked up from his laptop at the sound of the knock. “Hey.”
MaeBe stood in the doorway, her bag in hand. “Hey. I’m surprised you were in your uncle’s office. I thought you might be downstairs at your desk once you figured out it’s still open. They cleaned it out, but all of your things are in a box. I could get that for you if you like.”
“I didn’t have that much anyway.” He wasn’t like the other bodyguards who had evidence of a life outside of work on their desks. There had been no family photos or bobbleheads of sports figures. None of the Funko pop figurines that decorated MaeBe’s desk. She had tons of tchotchkes around her cubicle office. “My uncle left early to go do something at the club, and I thought I could work in here without the whole world coming up to tell me what an idiot I am.”
He’d snuck into Ian’s office for a couple of reasons, the most important being he knew she’d come looking for him, and he wanted privacy. He wanted to be alone with her for a few minutes.
The conversation he’d had with his mother had played around his brain all day.
He had to shove down his fear and show this woman she could trust him.
“You weren’t an idiot. You were doing what you thought best.” She walked in and sank onto one of the chairs across from the big desk Kyle had been sitting at. “Tell me something. Were you avoiding your old desk because you didn’t want to see your former coworkers? Or was there another reason?”
If she wanted to talk, he could at least be honest. “I was happy here. I liked working here. So much more than I thought I would. So I didn’t want to get comfortable. I didn’t want to sit at that desk and pretend I wouldn’t have to leave it again.”
She seemed to think about that for a moment. “I suppose that’s one of the reasons I’m not sure I want to get close to you again. Even when I know it’s not a forever thing.”
“I would like for it to be. I know you’re not ready to talk about it, but I hope over the course of the next few weeks you’ll feel more comfortable with me. I hope I can make you trust me again.”
“I spent most of the afternoon talking to Kai.” She sighed and sat back. “I know you’re not my father, but I think my relationship with him is affecting how I reacted to you leaving me behind. I knew quickly that you weren’t dead, so I had to try to process all of it in a very short period of time. The fact that Julia was alive and I didn’t understand your relationship with her, the kidnapping, the building blowing up—it was all so much. I didn’t even mourn you. I was in shock and then I realized it was all a trick.”
The fact that she saw the situation that way made his heart ache. “It wasn’t supposed to be a trick on you.”
“It’s hard for me to believe that it didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“I never said that,” Kyle corrected. “It had everything to do with you. If you hadn’t been there, if you hadn’t been in my life, I wouldn’t have done it. If I’d been single, I would have turned to my uncle and put a whole lot of this in his lap. I’m thinking about doing it now. I think the thing I did wrong was I immediately decided to play by her rules. It was an instinct.”
She snorted slightly, the first sign of emotion since she’d walked in. “Yeah, well don’t talk to your uncle or Kai about our instincts. They think we’re all fucked up and in need of therapy.”
“I’ve kind of been in therapy,” he admitted. “It was a weird form of therapy, and I didn’t get it until I figured out that Sandra’s wife, in addition to being incredibly creative with a fryer, is a licensed therapist. And I wondered why my stepdad and uncle thought Sandra’s would be a great place to go. I hate therapists. I hate it when they don’t actually say anything at all and suddenly you’re talking about your childhood trauma. Angie was good at that. She was good at getting me to see I wasn’t fair to you or anyone in my life. I thought I was being unselfish, but I was acting on a selfish impulse. I didn’t want to worry about you. I wanted some distance between us because I was so fucking afraid of being the reason you died.”