"It’s not about selling you out. It's about
keeping you al…Goddammit, Derek," Kyle growled as he slammed the
door of the refrigerator shut. I swung around to meet his glare.
"You think you could buy some fucking milk?" He looked me up and
down and winced. "Or maybe some food? You are starving yourself.
Don't you look in the goddamn mirror anymore?" he hissed. "You're
bones are jutting out…everywhere."
"Sorry, mister fucking money bags," I snapped
as I poured some water into a mug along with a spoon of instant
coffee. "We're not all flush with cash, asshole. We normal folk
don't have a spare couple million in our change jar." Handing him a
cup of black coffee, I glared at him. "Guess you're gonna have to
slum it with me today. It's this or go back to your mansion, trust
fund baby." I felt like an asshole the minute the words had slipped
out of my mouth.
It was below the belt and I knew it.
Kyle froze, his face remained impassive, but
the hurt in his eyes made me want to slam my head against the wall.
He clicked his tongue as he stared at me. "Trust fund baby," he
mused in a quiet voice–in an eerily quiet voice. He tilted his head
to one side and folded his arms over his chest. "You can throw
whatever shit you want at me," he said in a soft tone of voice.
"Blame me. Take all your goddamn issues out on me. Punch my face in
and hate me for everything if it makes you feel better," he said,
his voice growing thicker, huskier. "But don't ever call me
that
again."
I shook my head. I was disgusted with myself.
"Dude, I'm…"
"You don't have the slightest clue of what it
feels to
slum
it, Derek," Kyle choked out. He was right. I
didn't. I didn't know what it felt like because he was carrying me.
"You have no clue," was all he said before turning around and
walking out of the room. The front door slammed and I sagged
against the counter.
Well, I'd done it this time.
I'd pushed away the only friend I had
left…The only friend who mattered to me.
Rubbing my hands over my face, I willed
myself to calm down and breathe, but it wasn’t happening.
I was screwed…
The front door slammed again and Kyle stormed
back into the kitchen. "Goddammit to hell," he roared, kicking the
refrigerator door on his way over to where I was standing.
Grabbing me by the shirt, he glared down at
me, his eyes full of trepidation. "I won't call them. But if you
even think about hurting yourself," he whispered. "I will
personally drive you to closest hospital and sign you in. Is that
clear?"
"Clear," I whispered as I shoved his hands
away and pushed him back. We both stood frozen, chests heaving,
eyes locked on one another, until both of us lunged forward
simultaneously and hugged it out quickly.
"You good?" Kyle asked gruffly as he pushed
me away and stepped back.
I sighed heavily. "I will be. Are you?"
"I will be," he said with a smirk as he
sauntered off in the direction of the living room. "When I kick
your ass on FIFA."
"Oh, man," I chuckled as I trailed after him.
Kyle couldn’t play Xbox to save his life. "Lead the way."
****
Chapter 14
Boy's
gonna shine
Lee
I often thought back to the days when I
didn't have a cell phone. Those were simpler times. If someone
wanted to speak to me they could seek me out and if I didn't want
to speak to them I could close my front door. I glared at the
screen of my phone as it flashed the word
Home
over and
over. My heart felt like it was being squeezed inside of my chest.
It was almost as if the man could put his fist through the phone
and into my rib cage. The fear, even from a phone call, caused my
hands to sweat and I held the phone a little tighter for fear of
dropping it.
The way I saw it I had two choices. Answer my
father and listen to his demands and threats, or ignore him and
wait in fear until his patience ran out and he came looking for me.
It was easier to ignore my mother. She wouldn't come for me, not
like daddy would.
I knew he would.
There was an altercation between Kyle and my
father when I was in hospital. Kyle told me that he arrived into my
hospital room, while I was in theater, drunk as a skunk and
slurring abusive threats and demands. Kyle had him sent him on his
way with a return ticket to Louisiana, but I figured that was more
for Tracy's benefit than mine. She didn't want my father to know
where she was and Kyle was more than obliging when it came to
her…
However Daddy had returned the day before I
was discharged and demanded that I come back home to Montgomery
with Hope. When I refused and told him I wasn't leaving Kyle, he
had flipped out and accused me of abandoning him. I had quickly
figured out he'd read the papers and discovered the vastness of
Kyle's wealth. I think daddy always knew Kyle had money, but when
we had spoken on the phone I never mentioned anything about his
wealth–or the fact that I was having his baby.
Daddy discovered my new family when Kyle had
flown him to Colorado to be tested for a kidney. I was pretty
ashamed to admit, even to myself, that I was glad I was in a coma
and in the safety of a hospital when Kyle dropped that
bombshell…
When I refused to go home with him, he had
plenty to say on the matter. I couldn't count the number of times
he had called me a slut before slapping my face. It wasn't a hard
slap, but Kyle happened to walk into the room as it happened and
went berserk. I'd never seen him lose control like that. He was
spitting and snarling and the speed of his fists had been a blur in
my vision. Both of them had ended up being escorted from the
hospital grounds.
When Kyle finally coaxed his way back in,
four hours later, he had a black eye and a busted lip. Kyle had
promised me that daddy was out of our lives. He told me daddy
wouldn't be back, but I wasn't that naïve. Kyle had money,
a
lot
of money, and my father was an opportunist. He would be
back. I had no doubt about it. I could feel trouble brewing and I
was quickly learning that things never sailed smoothly for us.
"You gonna answer that, Hun?" Linda asked,
startling me from my reverie. Hope and I were sitting in Kyle's
office with Linda, having been dragged out of bed at six o clock in
the morning by a very agitated Kyle, and driven to the hotel to
'hang out with' a very unwell looking Linda. Seriously, the woman
looked like death warmed up. I actually thought she needed a doctor
more than company. Kyle hadn't seemed to notice, but I had. I'd
asked her several times in the past few hours if she was feeling
okay, but she kept avoiding answering my question so I dropped it.
I knew what it felt like when people nagged and I didn't want to
make her feel uncomfortable…
Kyle had some important meeting in Denver
with his father and according to Kyle, I distracted him from
business... I didn’t understand him. Not one bit. I'd been doing
well, spending a few hours every day with the past couple of weeks,
on my own at the house with my baby. I hadn’t broken any of his
rules and I never went outside. If he didn’t want us to be in the
house without him then he should have kept us in the hotel. It made
no sense…or maybe it made too much sense and I was afraid to delve
into the reasons why Kyle was keeping us tucked away. Every time I
thought about his possible motives, one name popped into my
head.
Rachel…
"No," I mumbled as I sent the call to
voicemail before switching it off and forcing my fear to the back
of my mind. "It's not important."
"She's getting so big, Lee," Linda cooed as
she gazed lovingly at Hope, who was sleeping in her stroller next
to my chair. "It's frightening how much she looks like Kyle."
"Yeah," I said as I smiled down at my
daughter. "Just as long as she doesn't get his attitude. I don't
think I'm ready for a female version of Kyle. Can you imagine
trying to make her listen to me when she's a teenager?"
"You have no idea," Linda chuckled as she sat
back in her chair. "Boy's like a wrecking ball. You'll have your
work cut out for you if she has his pigheadedness. I went gray
within the first month of knowing him."
"What was he like when he was younger?" I
asked, curious to hear more about Kyle as a teenager. Linda had
been the one who'd taken care of him when he moved in with his
grandfather. Kyle adored her.
"He was horrible." Linda smiled fondly which
was a contradiction to her words. "Rude, hormonal, wild and
headstrong. He never listened to a word Frank or I said. A typical
moody teenager."
"Wow," I muttered unsure of what to say. I
wasn't like that as a teenager. I wouldn't have dared. Oh god…I
glanced nervously down at Hope which caused Linda to laugh.
"Relax, Hun," she laughed. "If she has a
tenth of Kyle's determination running through her veins she'll be
okay. Why do you think Frank left everything to Kyle?"
"Kyle told me his grandfather left him the
hotels out of guilt," I mumbled. "You know…because of how his
father abandoned him."
"And you believe that?" Linda shook her head
and laughed. "Lee, if Frank wanted to stem his guilt he would have
given Kyle what he gave Mike. A nice little apartment and a few
thousand dollars to start him off in life. Frank left everything to
Kyle because he knew Kyle was the best man for the job. Frank
wasn't a fool, Lee. He always knew that David didn't have the head
for business. His mind has always been focused on spending money,
not earning it. Mike didn't have the drive or determination. Kyle
had every single quality Frank felt was needed in his successor. He
was damn proud of that boy."
I gaped in confusion. "But Kyle said…"
"Kyle says a lot of things," Linda said with
a smirk. "A lot of which is bullshit. He sees the world in his own
peculiar way. He drums to his own beat. He always has. That's what
makes him so successful. He's ruthless and soft-hearted all in one.
Do you know in the three years he's been in charge the annual
turnover for sixteen of the hotels has increased by twenty-eight
percent? And thirty seven percent for the other four?"
"No," I whispered and I felt like an idiot
for not knowing any of this. This was the man I was going to marry
and I knew nothing about his professional life.
"He has the same golden touch his grandfather
had," she said in a soft tone. "Frank adored Kyle. We both
did."
"Were you in love with Frank?" I covered my
mouth with my hand in mortification. I shouldn't have asked that,
but I'd always been curious. Kyle had told me that Linda and his
grandfather had raised him together–that his grandfather had been
very fond of his hotel manager. I'd always wondered if they had
been romantically involved.
"I was," Linda said with a fond smile.
"You're the first person to ask me outright."
"But…he was old," I blurted out.
Jeez,
could you be any more blunt, Lee?
Linda laughed. "Just how young do you think I
am?" she asked through a fit of coughing.
"I don't know…" I mumbled as I studied her
face. "Forty-eight. Forty-nine?"
"Ah," Linda grinned. "I knew there was a
reason I like you, Lee Bennett. I'm sixty four years old."
"Wow," I mumbled. "I hope I look like you
when I'm your age." Linda was beautiful. I would have never guessed
she was a day over fifty. Well, maybe today I would. She
looked…below par.
She grinned at me before folding her arm and
resting in the chair. "I first met Frank when I was twenty-five
years old." She smiled at nothing in particular as she carried on.
"I remember the first time I laid eyes on him I was crushed. He was
breath-taking." She smiled knowingly at me. "He was all wild hair,
blue eyes and dimples, hot-tempered…so handsome."
I blushed, feeling a little awkward thinking
about how
hot
Kyle's grandpa was. I squirmed in my chair and
watched as Linda's smiled faltered. She sighed heavily. "Frank was
a mess when we first met," she said heavily. "He was grieving his
wife, Lucy, and struggling to deal with their son's erratic
behavior while running the hotel. It was just this hotel back
then." She leaned forward and stared at me steadily. "And if you
think Kyle is hard work, you should have met his father when he was
a teenager." She shuddered. "David was impossible. Spoilt, entitled
and deliberately cruel. He used to play on the fact that his mother
was dead to get what he wanted."
"So, pretty much the same as he is now?" I
said with a smirk. I couldn't stand Kyle's father. He was horrible.
Even if he hadn't offered me money when I was pregnant to
disappear–something I'd never told Kyle–the way he had treated Kyle
was enough for me to hate him forever…The man made my skin
crawl.
"Pretty much," Linda agreed. "I don't know
where he came from. If you had met Frank when he was alive, you'd
understand what I mean. He was an incredible person, Lee." Linda
smiled dreamily. "The only thing Frank passed down to David was his
looks," she confessed. "Sometimes I wonder how David fathered Kyle
and Michael. They're nothing like him…thank god for that."
"I beg to differ," I muttered. Mike was just
as bad as his father. Derek's face flashed in my mind and I felt
like growling. "Mike is a chip off the old block."
"No," Linda said in a stern tone of voice.
"No, Lee, he's not. He's made a few poor choices, but the boy is
good at heart. You're blinded by loyalty. Michael had it
hard–nothing compared to Kyle–but growing up with David wasn't
exactly a picnic for him," she said. "Kyle had a horrific
introduction to life, but I am so incredibly grateful that David
didn't raise him. He didn't have a chance to sink his claws into
him…David did Kyle a favor by staying away from him."