Page 26 of Impossible Bachelor (Bachelor Tower 2)
“You cooked?”
“Yes,” Penny says tentatively. She’s too smart to be lured in by what might sound, to a less astute person, like the start of a compliment. She knows better.
“With all Dalton’s money could you not afford a chef?” She folds her hands neatly together as though she doesn’t want to touch anything in the apartment by accident.
I see my first opening to do my job. “You’ll love it, Mom. Penny is a great cook. How did that meeting with the board go? Did they budge on the new employee health benefit initiative?”
“They did.” My mother lights with pride. “I had to twist some arms and make some threats, but they couldn’t argue with math. You bring them the numbers, and they have no choice but to listen.”
“Good to see you again, Elizabeth,” Ben chimes in.
“We’ve met?” A fun game my mother likes to play. Amnesia for the sake of keeping people humble.
“The other day outside Kylie’s office.” Ben flashes her his signature smile. I used to wonder if it could possibly be sincere, but I now know it is. He genuinely likes people and continues to like them until they give him a reason not to. Sometimes past that point as well.
“Right.” She eyes him and squints as she appraises him. “I didn’t recognize you with decent clothes on.”
I did notice Ben dressed sharply tonight. My mother and her feedback has that effect on people. No. Ben looks unaffected by her perusal of him. He chose his attire—for me? Because he knows tonight is important to me.
I want to tell him not to change a single thing about himself for her sake. Ben looks great in jeans, and he’s successful without the flash. He has every right to hold his head up and be proud of who he is.
I take his hand in mine and give it a squeeze. It doesn’t convey all I’m thinking, but from the smile he shines down at me, it gets some of it across.
“Can I get you a drink, Mom?” Penny asks dutifully.
“I’m actually not able to stay for dinner. I’ll have a glass of champagne, but I have a conference call with Taiwan in forty-five minutes.” She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “Oh, stop. It was last minute. If I could have chosen a better time I would have. If anyone should understand, I’d think it would be you, Kylie. You’ve always been smart enough to put your business first.”
There was a time when I agreed with her. Penny’s feelings, the men with us, even how I felt would all have come second in my mind to a business opportunity. Business is the rock a person builds their life upon. Everything else is layered on top of it. That’s what I used to think, anyway.
I look at Ben. He works, but his work isn’t who he is. If he stopped writing programs today, he would probably have the same friends and be the center of his sisters’ attention.
Who would I be without my business? Before this year I would have said nothing. I’m not so sure that’s true anymore. I’d still have Ben, Penny, and Dalton.
“Actually, Mom, I think you should postpone the call. Penny went to a lot of trouble to make a meal for us.”
Our mother turns to Penny. “If I leave you’re going to make a big deal out of this?”
“Of course not,” Penny assures her.
This is why I’m here. “Which doesn’t mean it won’t be a big deal, Mom; it means she will be too nice to say anything.”
“Well, thank you for translating my own daughter to me,” our mother says in a cold voice.
“Why are you here, Mom? You said you want to see Penny. I know you love her. She needs to see proof of it, though. She needs you to say it, to show it, or at least to stay long enough to eat the meal she cooked for you.”
My declaration is followed by a long silence.
Our mother looks from me to Penny. Her eyes narrow. “When I accepted your invitation, I had no idea our entire relationship hinged on this one meal. So glad to hear that nothing I’ve done for you up to this point has proven that I love you. What a nice kick in the ass that is.”
“Mom,” Penny rushes to reassure her, then meets my gaze. She looks torn between appeasing our mother and sticking up for me. “I love you. That’s it. You don’t have to stay for dinner. I get that you’re busy.”
“Thank you.” Our mother walks over to the counter, downs a flute of champagne. “I’ll call you both next week.” She stops in front of me. “I don’t know what is going on with you, Kylie, but you have me worried.” She strolls out of the apartment like she’s just brokered peace in the Middle East. Her head is high. Her back arrow straight.
Dalton closes the door and the room falls completely silent. We look around at each other as though we’re waiting for some kind of sign. It comes in the way of the blaring smoke alarm.
“The food.” Penny darts to the kitchen and screams. “Fire. It’s the bacon grease.”
“Shit.” Dalton scrambles to the kitchen and pushes Penny back.
“I have an extinguisher in my apartment!” I pull out my key and rush to my kitchen, Ben close on my heels. I forget about the large, ridiculous looking wall that is filled with pictures and notes about the men I intend to destroy. There’s no time to think about it.
I pull the extinguisher down from the top of the fridge and throw it to Ben. He darts out of my apartment and back to Dalton and Penny. A moment later the commotion settles, and Ben is back in my doorway. “Can I come in?”
“I should probably go back. Check on Penny.” I keep the door mostly closed. There’s a chance he didn’t notice anything. Really, I should have taken my vision board down. Probably never should have put it up in the first place. First rule of never getting caught—don’t fucking map out what you’re doing. Shit.
Ben puts his hand on the door. “The fire is out. Not too much damage. Just the stove really.” He pushes the door open an inch more. “We need to talk.”
Fuck.
I take a step forward with every intention of closing the door behind me. “Okay.”
He pushes on the door more firmly. “Kylie, I saw something on your wall that I need to see again.”
My hand clenches on the door. “No. No, you don’t.”
“What are you doing, Kylie? What are we doing?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I thought we had something good going—something important. How important can I be to you if you won’t let me in your apartment?”
I don’t consider myself a nervous person, but I’m shaking in my shoes. I’m cursing myself for letting him get so close that I’m afraid of losing him. Once he sees the board, really sees it, he’ll see how very different we really are.
And then he’ll leave me.
He’ll leave because the truth is I am too much like my mother for anyone to love. It’s going to hurt like a bitch to lose him, but maybe it’s best if it happens like this.
I let the door swing open. He walks past me to the wall and spends a few minutes studying it.
“I can explain.” I can’t but that seems like the right thing to say.
“What is this, Kylie?”
I could lie. I should lie. He wants to know me? Really know me? Well, here I am. “It’s my vision board.”
“For?”
“For people in the building who may be a threat.”
He studies it again. “There are pinholes over there. Who did you take down?”
“Judge Snyder.”
“What did he do to deserve his place on your wall?”
“He wanted me out,” I say hoarsely. Once I might have said it proudly, but I can’t—not while looking into the eyes of a man who would never have done the same. Not since I was a child have I allowed myself to wish my life had been different, that I was different.
Part of me wants to go back to being blissfully unaware of how low I’ve sunk. Part of me wants to beg Ben to show me how to come back from this.
His attention is back on the wall. “All those women who came forward, did you make that happen?”
“They were telling the truth. I d
idn’t ask anyone to lie. I just put the wheels in motion. He’s a bad man who deserves whatever he has coming.”
“And all this other information? What will you do with it?” He gestures to notes beside some of the names.
“It’s not over with here. I know it seems like it settled down but I have reason to believe some of these people are targeting Dalton. I won’t let them hurt my sister or the man she loves.”
“At what cost?”
“Any cost necessary.”
He runs a hand through his dark hair. I’ve said the one thing he was hoping I wouldn’t. I’ve admitted that not even losing him would stop me. That used to be true. Now? Now I don’t know.
“You’re doing this all by yourself? All the time we’ve spent together you never thought to loop me in or ask my opinion.”
“I didn’t want you to have to get involved.”
“So you were protecting me?”
I lower my eyes. Lying would make all of this easier, but he deserves the truth. “No, myself. I didn’t want you to see this side of me.”
He pockets his hands and rocks back on his heels, staring at the wall like something new will appear there. “Who’s next?”
I swallow hard. “Luther is still screwing with Dalton, or at least I think so. I found a link to an account of his that’s been funneling money to the Caribbean. Not for tax evasion. It’s some kind of payment for someone. Someone he’s trying to keep quiet I’m sure.”
“I don’t know what Luther is or isn’t up to, but this is wrong, Kylie. Luther Green is a jerk, and maybe he’s the one trying to disrupt Dalton’s work, but Dalton can handle it. Luther has thousands of people in his company. What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not.”
He shakes his head. “This is—intense.”
He’s pulling away from me. It’s there in his eyes. This is too much for him. I’m too much. I’ve seen the same look in my father’s eyes whenever he spoke of my mother. No matter what Ben might feel for me—it’s not enough.
My pride kicks in. “I’m intense.”
Sarcasm is the wrong move now, but I’ve reached into my bag of tricks reserved for when I’m most afraid. Right now, I’m terrified. I can see the look in Ben’s eyes, and I know what he wants from me. He wants some kind of explanation that makes this look less psycho scary and dark than it is. I wish there were one.
“What happens when someone realizes you’ve been targeting the tenants here? You’re crossing people who have endless resources to come back at you.”
“I have it under control.”
