SEAL'd Perfection The Complete Collection: A Navy SEAL Romance (18 page)

Copyright © 2015 KB Winters

Published By: BookBoyfriends Publishing LLC

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination and have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 KB Winters

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

The hallways were dark, and although they appeared deserted, I couldn’t be sure, not without slipping my night vision goggles into place. I paused, bracing against a wall, the sound of my heart throwing itself against the wall of my chest, the only thing I could hear. My radio was dead…somehow…and I had no idea where the rest of my team was. If they were even still alive…

I shook my head, banishing the dark thought. I couldn’t panic. I had to stick to the plan. That was the only way to get out of the bunker alive. I slid my night vision on, and with the press of a button, the shadows around me were brought to life. After a quick sweep, I allowed myself a breath of relief, as my instinct was confirmed. There wasn’t anyone else around. I waited a beat, pressed against the wall, to get myself back under control and figure out my next move.

I leveled my gun, and was about to step around the corner, when a huge explosion rocked the room around me, and I dropped to the ground, my pulse instantly blasting through the roof again.

“Jace!”

I jerked around at the faraway sound of my name.

“Jace! Help!”

Ice slid through my veins. Kat. The voice crying for help was Kat.

She was in trouble. I had to get to her!

I started running, ignoring my shaky legs, and the way the room tilted slightly to the right. Hell, the floor could fall out from under me entirely and I’d find a way to get to her. I had to.

It was my fault she was in danger.

My fault.

All.

My.

Fucking.

Fault.

Suddenly, my legs gave out, and I was sliding, down into a deep pit that had opened beneath me as I’d been running. I dug my fingers into the grooves on the stone floor, thrashing my legs to get a holding with my feet. I looked up, rocks and debris raining down on me. Kat! She was there, just above me, her slender fingers reaching down for my hand. I shook my head, knowing that if I grabbed her, she wouldn’t be able to lift me and we’d both fall into the pit.

“No, Kat! Go back. Get out of here. Leave me!”

She shook her head, her eyes ablaze as she stared down at me, waving her hand towards me. “I’m not leaving you. Grab my hand!”

Her words ripped through me, giving me everything I’d ever wanted, but the flash of joy was quickly extinguished, knowing what I had to do.

“I can’t…I’m sorry.”

I let go.

“Kat!” I screamed into the dark. My arms flung about wildly, hitting the wall, my legs pumped, trying to wedge into a foothold, anything to keep me with her. I had to get back.

Another sound rang out above me, a loud beeping—my thoughts that had been crystal clear moments before, dissolved into fuzz at the introduction of the new sound.

What is that?
I opened my eyes, and was in the dark again. It took me a solid minute of thrashing to realize that I was in bed, tangled in sweat coated sheets, panting like I’d just run a marathon.

“Fuck,” I gasped, pressing my hands over my face. The nightmare rolled off of me in waves as the terror from the dream shifted to despair over the reality that had spurred it in the first place. In less than twenty-four hours, the world around me had become just as nasty and terrifying as my worst day overseas. At least when I was suited up, weapon in hand, I felt I could do my job and be of some use. As it was now…

There wasn’t anything I could do.

Not one fucking thing.

I collapsed back into bed, not daring to look at the clock on the table beside me. I knew it would’ve hardly moved since the last time I’d been ripped from some variance of the same nightmare. In each one, I was chasing Kat, or she was chasing me, and no matter what, I couldn’t get to her and she couldn’t get to me, as though there was some sort of invisible force between us. It didn’t take a shrink to figure out what the root of it was, Kat had lost her baby boy, and it was my fault. The minute that social worker had stepped onto Kat’s porch, our relationship had been severed, and I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which we would ever be able to find a way to repair it again.

It was over.

I untangled myself from the sheets and stumbled to the bathroom, barely making it two steps in, before I hurled over the edge of the sink. When my stomach settled, I rinsed out my mouth with ice cold water, and splashed another handful onto my face. I didn’t bother drying off. I braced my arms on the sink, my head hanging down, unable to look at my reflection in the mirror.
What the fucking hell am I gonna do?

No answers came, and I eventually went back to bed and flopped down hard on the mattress. I raked my hands through my hair, slicking it back, away from my face, as I stared up at the ceiling.

I couldn’t keep my mind from pinging back to the only question ringing around inside my mind.
What the hell am I gonna do?

* * * *

“Jace? I have a question, just one small, simple question,” John snarled at me over the production notes. My mind had been blanked out as I’d stared off into space, my lack of sleep overriding all other needs. “Why are you even here? Does any of this fucking matter to you?”

I ignored the fact that technically that was two separate questions, and took in a steady breath to keep from punching him in the mouth. As the weeks of filming dragged on, it was becoming harder and harder not to physically assault John, the director of my reality show,
Inked by Jace
, but with the lack of sleep, everything I was feeling and thinking became compounded, and nearly impossible not to go ballistic on the pinhead, asshole who found himself to be God’s gift to the era of reality TV.

As much as I hated to admit it, I had acknowledged that he had a valid question. I hadn’t cared much about the show since the beginning, which had started about six months after I opened my first shop. The paycheck and exposure had really been the ammo behind me even signing the contracts. However, after everything, I’d relocated and started fresh, not anticipating that the show would want to follow and that I’d be released from the contract to do the second season.

Obviously that hadn’t gone as planned,
I thought, grimacing over my computer screen at John who was staring down his nose and clipboard at me from the other side. “If you dig hard enough through your email files, I’m sure you’ll find the document that answers that question,” I replied, referring to the digital copies of the production contract I’d signed well over a year ago.

“Oh!” John raised his eyebrows in mock realization. “Well that’s great! If I have your signature, then that means you do what I say, and right now, that means you need to get your ass back to work so my crew have something more interesting to shoot than you sitting here with your thumb up your ass, doing nothing!”

I slammed the lid of the laptop down. I’d spent the better part of the morning investigating custody lawyers. In my quest to help Kat, I’d decided that other than be there when she needed to talk, the only other thing I could do was find her a kick ass lawyer who would tear her ex-husband a new one in court and make him question ever threatening her again. It was the least I could do. Actually…it was the
only
thing. Since the whole scene with the social worker and Jax getting taken away to live with his father and stepmom full time, Kat had shut down, refusing—or, unable—to talk to me. I’d held onto her while she’d lost control, finding myself at a complete loss of words to comfort her as she crumpled to the floor. After her eyes ran out of tears, she went into her bathroom and when I’d offered to stay with her, she told me in a muffled voice from the other side of the door that she needed to be alone. I’d hated every step towards her front door and down her steps, but I’d done as she wanted and left her alone.

And it was killing me inside.

“Listen to me, John,” I started, standing from my chair so that I was eye to eye with him. “Just because I signed those contracts does not mean that I’m your puppet or pet. This is
not
one of those, you say jump, I ask how high, kinda deals. Got it? This show is
my
show, to use as a platform to highlight and promote my business. Like it or not, it’s not always inking hot, half naked chicks or whatever it is that you’re looking for. I don’t know if you noticed, but the shop’s empty. There’s nothing for you to film, so if I were you, I’d back the hell off and let me do my thing.”

John’s eyes narrowed into slits, the dark center of his pupil filling the whole space, giving him a snake-like appearance. “I’m going to give the crew the rest of the day off, when we come back tomorrow, there better be some asses in those seats,” he stated, pointing at the black leather couches in the front of the shop. “You don’t want to cross me, Jace. I’ve been going easy on you this whole time, but I’m done catering. You step one more toe out of line and I’ll be making a call up the chain to the studio execs who sign your paychecks, and I really don’t think you can afford a breach of contract suit.”

He stared me down for a minute, waiting for a reply, but I wasn’t about to give him some kind of “yes, sir” bullshit, and after a pause, he spun on his heel, barked some orders to the crew, and followed them out of the shop as they scrambled to get their gear together.

When the front door swung shut and I was left in silence, I sank back into my desk chair and propped my face in my hands, staring down at the closed laptop. Adrenaline flooded my veins as my brain hurled unspoken retorts around in my mind, picturing John’s smug face as he pulled the one card I knew I didn’t have a defense against. He was right. I couldn’t afford a lawsuit. My business in Chicago had been off the charts, and in a short amount of time, I’d banked away a substantial amount of money, but I couldn’t afford to blow that on the legal fees it would take to fight off a huge entertainment studio. Besides, I would risk losing out on the long term profits generated by the show going into syndication next year, the advertising kickbacks for sponsorships and product placements inside the show, not to mention the insane amount of
Ink by Jace
merchandise that was sold by the truckload ever since the show kicked off. If I was going to keep my piece of the pie, I had to play nice with John, and go along with whatever scheme he came up with to keep ratings boosted.

I groaned and rubbed my temples with my thumbs for a minute, releasing some of the tension that had built up, wondering how my entire world had flipped upside down in the space of three hours.

When my headache began to ebb away, I got up from behind the desk and went to grab my leather jacket.

After all, I had the rest of the day, and if there was only one thing that could take my mind off all the shit raining down around me…

A long, hard ride.

“Honey, are you okay? It’s the second day in a row that you’ve called out sick,” Patrice said, as though I needed a reminded of just how much of a train wreck I’d been the past two days. “Do you need me to bring you anything?”

I sucked in a silent breath, willing myself not to break down into tears for the tenth time since I’d climbed out of bed that morning. “I’m sure I’ll be okay. I just need another day. Thanks.”

“Okay,” Patrice replied, her tone telling me she didn’t believe a word I was saying. “Well, if you change your mind, remember, I don’t live that far away, I can stop by.”

“I’ll call,” I said, hanging up before the tears that had built up finally pushed past and streaked down my cheeks. My body wracked with an uncontrollable sob and I let myself fall against the kitchen counter, laying my face against the smooth laminate surface. Everything hurt. Every inch, every cell, every thought, even the hair on my head. It ached with each breath and thought. It was like waking up with a nasty flu, my mind was foggy and slow to process anything because it was too tangled up with replaying the horror of watching my baby being taken away from me. My muscles were too weak to do much of anything. My appetite was gone, and even though my mouth was dry, I couldn’t bring myself to drink anything because I knew I’d just throw it up again.

I lost my baby,
I told myself for the ten millionth time.
I lost my baby
.

I was lying against the counter, trying to dig deep enough to find the strength to put together a plan, but unable to think clearly enough to even know where to start, when there was a knock at the door. The sound triggered another replaying of the memory of opening the door to find a social worked on my welcome mat. I groaned out another sob and seconds later, heard the door open.

“Katherine?” Hilda’s voice flooded the home with warmth and I opened my eyes, still unable to push off the counter. I watched as she rounded the corner into the kitchen. As soon as she saw me, lying bent over the counter, she gasped and quickly flung her hand to cover her gaping mouth. “Katherine, dear!”

Hilda rushed to my side, setting down a square casserole dish on the table, and helped me straighten, placing a warm, soothing hand on my lower back. She led me to a chair and began to stroke my messy hair, smoothing it over my shoulder. At her soft touch, the tears I’d been holding back sprung loose and I leaned over the table, burying my face in my hands as my body wracked with each wave of pain. “You’ll get him back, Katherine,” Hilda assured me, continuing to stroke my hair.