Broken (8 page)

“That’s me.”

“I’ve got your phone.”

“My what?” she started to question, before she saw who else was coming to her door.

“Get out of the way and let the man do his job.”

Kyle moved past her taking the man into the apartment with him, leaving her standing there at a loss. “What’s going on?” She followed them inside.

“You’re getting a new phone.”

“I didn’t…”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up? I think I did. Why don’t you go over there and finish doing what it was you were doing until we’re done here?” He was obviously nuts, but true to form she didn’t want to make a scene, not with the technician there, so she went back to her seat and watched as Kyle gave the man orders.

She was to have two phones, one in the bedroom and one out here for when she was working. As soon as the line was hooked up, which took all of ten minutes, he went to the bag she hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying and took out two phones.

“This is so you can have Internet, and this is so I can reach you when I want.” He handed her another little box with an apple on top. “What’s all this?” She looked at it like it was a snake ready to strike. He shook the box. “Take it.” She knew what it was. It was a cellphone like the one he carried. Her back went up again, this time for a different reason.

“I don’t need your charity take it back.”

“Don’t be an ass. When a man takes care of what’s his it’s not charity.” He kept going as if she wasn’t even there.

“What’s his?”
Her voice was a tinny whisper, which she could barely hear over the ringing in her ears. He stopped with a box of something in his hand and looked at her from beneath hooded lids.

“You’re not ready for this conversation. Why don’t you plug that up and I’ll take us out for some lunch? Did you eat?” Totally nuts! She couldn’t keep up with his damn moods.

“No, I’m not hungry.” Her stomach chose that moment to growl and she jumped up from the table to go plug the new phone into the wall to charge. She wasn’t sure what to feel at this point, but she was sure he wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say anyway. Maybe later she could get to the bottom of just what exactly was going on.

No wonder I hadn’t heard him coming, she thought when he led her out to the black truck. If she weren’t so annoyed with him she would’ve taken the time to appreciate the fact that his truck was one of those manly man types, muscle trucks she thinks they were called. But since he was such an asshole jerk she kept her thoughts to herself.

He’d changed his shirt and this one showed even more of the ink on his arm. She tried hard not to look. He was still in a snit when he helped her into the truck; more like lifted her in. And she was surprised when he even took the time to strap her in. She knew he was still in a mood because of the tic in his jaw, and the fact that he almost took the door off its hinges when he slammed it shut.

She was of a mind to open it back up and jump out, but the confusing jerk did the damnedest thing once he climbed in on the driver’s side. He took her hand. Not only that, he kissed her fingers before laying their joined hands to rest on his thigh.

It didn’t enter her head to ask where they were going, until he pulled into the parking lot of the busiest restaurant in town. She felt the bile rise in her throat when she took in the packed space, and almost begged him to take her anywhere but there.

He seemed to somehow be anticipating her and gave her one of his looks before getting out and coming around to her side. This time when he lifted her down, he held on for longer than necessary and just looked down at her. She wondered what he was looking for.

He must’ve found it, because the next thing you know he was kissing her brow and taking her hand to lead her inside. She avoided eye contact with everyone she passed, but she was secretly tickled pink that he was holding her hand. Tongues will wag for sure, but they didn’t need to know that he wasn’t interested in her, or that not too long ago he’d told her he didn’t want this, or her. At least that’s what she’d taken that statement to mean.

The thought kind of took the shine off her newfound pleasure and brought her back down to earth. Her feet stumbled just a little and she was trying to come up with an excuse to turn around and head back out. She didn’t need this kind of embarrassment. Not so soon after the divorce. She was enough of a laughing stock as it is.

“Stop it Kerryanne.” He tugged on her hand and stopped to look down at her.

“Stop what? I wasn’t doing anything.”

“You were thinking. Do me a favor, stop thinking so hard and watch. Try to see what’s in front of you instead of what’s behind.” He continued on taking her along with him.

Who died and made you Dr. Phil? She didn’t dare say it out loud because who the hell knows how he would react? She had another moment of panic when she remembered that this was the place Paul usually chose for lunch on his days off. A quick calculation told her that she might’ve lucked out there.

The place of course was bustling and the nausea came back. If he hadn’t been holding her hand as if he expected her to bolt, she just might’ve. “Well hi Kerryanne, it’s been a while.” The hostess, another school friend, greeted her but the woman’s eyes were glued to Kyle. “Hi Pat, how are you?” He squeezed her hand and pulled her in a little closer to his side. She guessed he’d heard the tremor in her voice.

“You have a table for Clancy?” Pat took a look down at her little book and back up at him. “Yes sir, what are we celebrating?”

“Who says we’re celebrating anything?”

“Well it says here you requested the best table in the house. I just thought…” Kerry almost felt bad for the poor girl. Bad enough he was being a grizzly bear with her, but did he have to give the hostess the freeze as well?

“No celebration, just only the best for my girl.” She wasn’t sure how she made it to the table after that since her head was in the clouds and her feet didn’t touch the ground. The man was at his split personality crap again.

Pat didn’t have much to say after that. But from the way she was in a hurry to get back to her post, Kerry was sure there would be a few phone calls being made in the next few minutes. Her gut started to hurt a little. She wasn’t sure she was ready for this…whatever this was, to make the rounds as yet.

“I have no idea what you like to eat sweetheart. I’ve only fed you Lasagna and breakfast.” His head was down in the menu while he rubbed the fingers of one hand over her palm, which he had yet to let go.

“Soup and salad is good.”

“Is that what you usually eat or is this another one of your deals?”

“What deals?”

“You know, where you think you can tell me what I can and cannot do for you.”

“That doesn’t even make sense, what’re you talking about?” For that she got a look. He’s good at giving out those. This one made her squirm around in her seat.

“Soup and salad is the cheapest thing on the menu. Now I’m no good at this relationship shit, so work with me here. Either you choose something you like, or I’ll choose for you.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that in the last few months of her marriage when her husband did give in to taking her out somewhere, she was usually relegated to getting the cheapest thing on the menu. Apparently, they were saving up for a new car for her.

Which she now knew was a lie. Jen had bitched about the money he was spending on her so he kept it to a bare minimum until they sprung the divorce on her…

“You’re doing that shit again.” Was he a mind reader? How could he always know when Paul slipped into her head? “Look, I’m sorry okay. But I’ve known you all of two minutes, and this…thing that you keep saying I’m doing has been part of my life for most of it. So excuse me, if I still have residual feelings.”

“No.” He all but growled.

“No what?” She frowned across the table.

“No I won’t forgive you if you have residual feelings. I told you, when you’re with me, you don’t even think about that asshole. I didn’t ask for this shit. But now that it’s here, we’re gonna do it my way-and my way does not include another man at the fucking table. Do we understand each other?”

She swallowed and tried to figure out what exactly had happened to her life since the moment they met on that sidewalk. Was that only yesterday? So much had happened so quickly she was hard pressed to keep up. And his attitude wasn’t helping.

He was acting as though they had known each other for a lifetime, and she was failing to keep up with some secret meter in his head. If she were brave, she’d ask him just what it was he wanted from her. But that set look on his face didn’t look too inviting. She thought it best to keep her thoughts to herself and hopefully, whatever was in his ass would crawl out and give her some peace.

Kyle, for his part, didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. All he knew was that he was tied up in too many knots to count. For one-she was getting to him in a big way-and for another-he had no idea what the fuck he was supposed to do with what he was feeling. One day, one fucking day and already she had him bent. There was no guidebook for this shit, he was swimming in uncharted waters and she wasn’t helping with her shit.

Now as he sat there, he was all but breathing fire. She was fucking with his life just by being her and all the while she’s comparing his every move to the man who’d screwed her over. To say he hated that shit is an understatement. He wasn’t about to play second fiddle to a fucking memory.

When Lucille had first told him the story of her divorce, he wasn’t really invested. To him, she was just a pretty face who’d had a rough time of it. Even when he went to her place with dinner and then again for breakfast, he still had no interest in her life beyond the quick fuck he was after, but was sure he’d never get from the small town princess as he’d taken to calling her in his head.

He just didn’t have enough time to wear her down and he needed to be out of here soon. That was yesterday and this morning. Too little time for shit to take such a drastic turn. He thought he was safe.

Then she wrapped her arms around him and held on, like she trusted him to keep her safe. And that look on her face after he’d kissed her that first time. Who the fuck looks like that anymore?

After he’d dropped her off, mad as fuck at her and the rest of the world, he’d gone back home to gramps who’d taken one look at him, shaken his head and hot footed it over to Lucille’s. “Probably going over there to plot my fucking life.” He was pissed as fuck and didn’t know why?

He’d lain across the hammock in the backyard trying to make sense of it all, but kept coming back to the fact that they’d only just met. Still, he couldn’t get the feel of her in his arms out of his head; or that innocent look of pure pleasure on her face from a kiss.

It was only after he’d calmed down a little that he realized his dick was still hard. “What the fuck?” He swung his legs over the side of the hammock with his head in his hands, and it was then he thought he felt his grandma beside him. He wasn’t one for fanciful thinking, but fuck if he didn’t feel her special presence like a soothing balm in the breeze.

It took him a minute to get himself together but the feeling persisted and for some reason he didn’t try to fight it, just went with it.

He was suddenly calm if a little spooked. But that calming presence had an affect on him. He started to think and feel. At first he tried to convince himself that he felt pity for her, for what her ex had done to her. The story Lucille had told him was a horror to be sure, who wouldn’t feel bad?

But he knew he was lying to himself, when her face wouldn’t leave him the fuck alone. He stormed around the backyard cussing up a storm. Like he’d told her, he didn’t want this, wasn’t expecting it that’s for sure.

But then he thought of her all alone in that hovel of an apartment and her little face when he’d dropped her off and it tore at his heart. The heart he’d been accused of not having too many times to count.

It was then he decided that if she were going to fuck with his life then they’d do that shit on his terms. So he decided to come at it the way he did everything. Hard and fast! Take no prisoners.

No one in the little town would believe that the tattooed, bike-riding hedonist as his mom was fond of calling him was actually a high-powered businessman who demolished anything that stood in his way. He liked it that way. Liked giving people the wrong impression so that when he sprung what the fuck he really was on them it was too late.

He was known for his cutthroat ways when dealing with the enemy and that could be anyone from a rival company CEO to a newspaper reporter. He’d spent the better part of the last ten years building up his portfolio to what it was today

and he had the bank account to prove it.

He hated to lose at anything and always took pride in the fact that he never entered the ring unless he had all the ammo he needed to win the battle. But this shit had sideswiped him and he didn’t know the first thing about treading these particular waters.

He wasn’t prepared, hadn’t been looking. He’d let his fucking guard down and look what happened. He was more used to fighting in the boardroom and was always ready to face down the enemy in that arena. It was like breathing to him.

He moved in a world of wheeling and dealing where you had to be constantly on the lookout for the other guy. Competition was tough in the real world, and it’s where he’d lived for the last little while.