RUSH (Montgomery Men Book 1) (19 page)

They’d distracted me so much, I hadn’t noticed until now that my other brother, Beckett, was missing. “Where’s Beck?” I asked no one in particular.

My mother turned to face me with a look of confusion, as if she too had just realized he was nowhere to be found. She looked at my father as if hoping he knew the answer.

“He called about an hour ago and said he had something at work he needed to follow up on. Sounded important,” my father explained.

Beckett was a go-hard, give-it-your-all kind of guy, which suited his job as a private detective. It was also one of the biggest reasons he chose to remain a bachelor. His life just didn’t have room in it right now for a permanent female companion. But that didn’t stop my mother being pushy.

Beckett didn’t join us as the evening proceeded smoothly. I loved watching Kiera and my mother together. My mom was generally a happy person with an amazing personality, but Kiera’s presence seemed to bring out her happiness even further. And my sweet girl was more relaxed than I’d ever seen her. Her laughter wasn’t high and nervous, but the deep, truly amused kind that made her throw her head back and cover her stomach with her hand. At one point she laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes.

I wasn’t even jealous that Knox had been the one to make her laugh that hard. I was too mesmerized by her joy to care who brought it to the surface.

As the night went on, I fell just a little harder for the mysterious woman. I knew Kiera still held so much inside. I wanted more nights and days like this one, and more things that I’d never wanted before. And I wanted all those things with her.

As the night came to an end and Kiera and I stood at the door saying our good-byes, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out and saw a message from Beckett.

Beckett: We need to talk, bro. If your woman is who I think she is, you were right, she is hiding behind a false identity. Meet me at the office, I’ll be here.

KINSLEY

SOMETHING WASN’T RIGHT.

When I told Ash I had an amazing night with his family, he just gave me a blank stare. We drove back to the city in silence, and the dismissive way he answered me when I asked if he wanted to go to my place or his made me nauseous. I’d just assumed we would stay together, as we had almost every night since we’d made things official. But tonight I felt like he couldn’t wait to get rid of me.

He’d seemed fine the entire evening as he joked around with his father and brother and showered affection on his mother. But now it was as if the entire evening hadn’t happened.

Turning in the seat enough that I could see his reaction, I asked the question I’d been wanting to ask since we left his parents’. “Did I do something wrong?” I wanted to be angry with the way his mood had shifted, but fear was overriding my irritation.

He pulled to a stop just outside my apartment and didn’t even place the car in Park as he looked over at me. “I’m just tired, Kiera,” he said, leaning his head back against the headrest of the driver’s seat. He may have been looking at me, but he didn’t see me. His eyes were blank of all emotion, as if he was in a daze.

“I’ve gotten used to you sleeping by my side,” I confessed, feeling my throat burn. I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted him here with me, happy and smiling.

“I know” was all he offered me before tracing my lower lip with his thumb. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the gesture felt like more than just a simple good-bye.

“Good night, Kiera.”

His dismissal hurt more than I’d anticipated. It wasn’t like him not to walk me upstairs and make sure I was safely inside. It wasn’t like him not to kiss me good-bye and make promises to see me tomorrow.

But instead of questioning him further, I exited his car and stood just inside the entrance of my apartment building, watching as Ashton sped off without hesitation. The longer I stood there, the more I regretted not demanded that he tell me what in the hell had come over him. I didn’t deserve his brush-off.

I had no idea how much time passed after he drove away, but people passed me as I stood there. A few asked if I was okay, yet all I could offer was a nod. When I did find the strength to move my legs, my movements were robotic.

When I reached my apartment door, I couldn’t remember how I got there. Everything was a blur; all I kept seeing was the dismissive look on his face just before I climbed out of his car.

I couldn’t sleep that night as my mind came up with reason after reason for his behavior, each one worse than before.

I couldn’t sleep, and the hours passed by torturously slow as I sat on my couch staring at the television, unable to focus on what was playing. At one point I’d grown irritated with the happy demeanor of the characters and pressed Mute on the controller. Soon, I just turned it off.

Once again I found myself staring off into the darkness, with what felt like a permanent knot lodged deep in my stomach.

I jumped when a loud knock ricocheted throughout my apartment, and looked at the clock on the wall in my kitchen. It was a few minutes after two in the morning.

I moved quietly toward my front door and looked through the peephole to find Ashton standing on the other side.

I quickly unlocked each lock, and when I yanked open the door, my stomach dropped. In all the time I’d known him, I’d never seen him look more unsettling. I couldn’t decide what upset me more, the angry look in his eyes or the way his nostrils flared with each breath like he was having a hard time controlling himself.

“All of it was lies,” he said as he held up an envelope. “From the very beginning you’ve lied to me, and for what? So I would fall in love with some illusion you created?”

He took a deep breath and stormed into my apartment. “What kind of fucking game are you playing, Kiera? Kinsley? Whatever the hell your name is.”

At the mention of my real name, I swear my heart skipped a beat. I tried to interrupt him, but he held his hand up and shook his head angrily. Seething, he pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes tightly.

“I’m sorry—”

He moved toward me so fast that I jumped backward, bumping against the arm of the couch and almost falling to the floor.

“Just forget it.” The angry look on his face had been replaced with one of pure disgust. “Save the explanations because it doesn’t fucking matter. It’ll just be more lies. I don’t care why you chose to play me like some fool. All I care about now is that you get the hell out of my life.”

He flipped the envelope at me and the items inside slid out. The papers fluttered toward the floor like leaves falling from a tree being pushed around by a gust of wind. As they came to rest at my feet, they felt like a metaphor for the pieces of my now-shattered heart.

There were so many pictures from my past: photos of me and Jase at our wedding, and some of us in college when we were in love. I looked happy in them, which must have made the story I’d told him about being in an abusive relationship hard to believe. There was also a copy of our marriage certificate, my birth certificate, and my diploma all in the name of Kinsley Palmer and later Kinsley Hellman. The stories I’d told of my mother living back in Buffalo Grove with my father were all lies, and the big, bold letters confirming her death were just another indication of that. Her death certificate was mixed in the mess of other papers, as if it was screaming out at me in disappointment.

But the item that hit me the hardest was the one with my father’s name. Without a second thought, I lowered myself to the floor and began moving the other papers aside to reach it.

I lifted up the copy of my father’s death certificate and stared at it blankly. Until that moment I’d never seen it in black and white. It was a confirmation of his death, finalizing the fact that I would never again see his face or hear his voice. I’d never be able to hug him close and tell him just how much I loved him and always would. I couldn’t cry on his shoulder and confess all my wrongs as he assured me everything would be okay.

Because none of this was okay.

Jase had made sure nothing would ever be okay again.

I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach, and suddenly I was finding it hard to breathe. I was spiraling out of control, and no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I felt like I was drowning.

I looked up through tear-filled eyes at a man who only a few days ago vowed he would never hurt me. Who had promised to protect me.

That man wasn’t the one staring back at me now. I’d already lost him.

“It’s not what you think,” I whispered as the first tear fell.

He stepped backward, looking down at me as he retreated. “No,” he replied. “It’s worse.”

I had the fleeting urge to grab hold of him and beg him to stay so I could explain, but I was too lost in my own sadness to act on it.

I sat on the floor of my apartment in a mess of papers and heartbreak as he walked away.

ASHTON

I’D PAUSED MORE THAN ONCE
as I walked toward the car idling alongside the curb in front of her building. I wanted to go back and hear what the hell had possessed her to lie to me the way she had.

But then I remembered the conversation with my brother. No matter how hard I tried to stop it, it played on repeat over and fucking over in my head.

“Is this your girl?” Beckett asked as he held up what looked like a missing-person flyer.

My heart felt like it had been ripped from my chest as the gorgeous woman I knew as Kiera Masterson stared back at me. She had the same cheekbones and smile and the same blue, mesmerizing eyes. The same eyes she tried to hide using the shit excuse of just wanting a change. The only difference was that the woman in the photo had flowing, blond hair instead of brown and her name wasn’t Kiera, it was Kinsley Hellman.

“She’s married, Ash, to some big-shot. Apparently he reported her missing over six months ago.” Beckett began laying the pictures he’d found on the desk that separated us, and I couldn’t look away. “There’s more.”

Wasn’t what he’d already shown me enough?

“She’s not from Chicago, she’s from Miami. Her parents are both deceased. The mother died when Kinsley was six years old, but her father passed about nine months ago.” I looked up at Beckett, and he passed me copies of the death certificates of Arthur and Francine Palmer.