Unwanted Heat

Nicholas

The pictures tell me everything she didn’t about the night she left him. He squeezed her neck so tightly that each finger left a bruise on her soft, fair skin. Her eye is swollen shut from where, I can only assume, he punched her. Her lip is split and her ribs are a nasty shade of black and red. On her back, I can see old bruises starting to fade, evidence of just how he thought he could take his anger and frustration out on her. My stomach turns just looking at these pictures-I don’t know that I will ever be able to close my eyes and not see Kenzie’s bruised and bloodied body.

Needing to do something other than stare at these photos, I take out my phone and start to search the bastard’s father. In my business, I have many friends in high places, several of which are involved in politics. With the information we now have about his son, a meeting with Mr. Westbrook will guarantee his son either ceases all contact with Kenzie and the press immediately or I will find a way to ruin his political career. A couple phone calls will be all it takes to end his career.

However, my plan is short lived when the first article that appears on google related to the senator is a link to his obituary.

“FUCK!” this explain everything: with the fucker’s father dead, Kenzie’s threat to publicly ruin him means nothing now. “What’s wrong?” Kenzie asks softly.

“Jon Michael Westbrook Senior is dead.”

“Noooooooo,” her voice tells me she is thinking the same thing I am.

“Carter-”

“I’m on it, sir. I’m going to get Brian and Asher on this; give me a few hours and we will know everything there is to know about this fuc- er, low life, and his father.”

“I want his finances pulled apart… both of their finances. Get Donnelly on it-make sure he leaves nothing unturned. I don’t care the cost. Get someone closer to Westbrook. I don’t want to take any chance that he slips away because we’re covertly watching him.”

“If he’s the one feeding the press information, we need to assume he’s working with someone,” I explain. “He has to have a partner, close to New York, to keep all these tabs on us. Someone who… knows both of us -there’s no way he’s working alone.”

“Yes, sir. All security codes at all of your properties are being changed immediately, and we will remain at the highest level of security. There will be at least two CPOs assigned to each of you at all times when you leave the building. Someone will remain here at all times even when you both need to leave-although I highly recommend against it. Until we have the threat secured, it would be best if you both would remain here.”

“We need figure this out, Carter. I refuse to have my life turned upside down because of this fucker.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll update you as soon as we have more information. Kenzie… thank you for… sharing this with me. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

“I… I really hope it’s not him, that he isn’t behind this,” I watch a shiver go through Kenzie’s body as she considers the possibility.

“If he is, we will get him,” Carter says firmly. “Whoever did this won’t have a chance to hurt either of you.”

When he leaves the room, Kenzie’s eyes remain fixed to the floor, and I can practically hear her thoughts. I know she’s blaming herself for this, but she couldn’t be more wrong. Even if her ex was the one who is feeding the press information about us, it wouldn’t be her fault.

“Come here, baby,” I need to do something, I can’t just let her sit there blaming herself. I don’t say anything, instead I gently wrap my arms around her waist and urge her to sit on my lap.

“It’s not your fault,” I whisper and wrap my arms around her.

“I’m sorry, so sorry-”

“Stop, this is NOT your fault. I won’t let you blame yourself for

that fucker’s actions.”

“But-”

“No, Kenzie. If he is the one behind this, he will pay; I’ll make sure of it. If he turns out to be the one behind some of the news articles, that’s on him. You did everything possible to keep him out of your life-you didn’t ask him to come after you.”

“I know, I just feel like I brought him into your life. If I never-”

“Stop right there. You need to stop blaming yourself, baby. This isn’t your fault. You wouldn’t let me blame myself if the person behind this was tied to me somehow. I won’t let you do the same thing. All that matters is that we’ve identified that bastard as a suspect, so now we will have even more eyes on him. I’m so glad you remembered that his company was behind the advertising for Eurotek. Without that, we wouldn’t have known to look at him closer.”

“I’m surprised I remembered that at all; but we were there celebrating because this was a very large client for the advertising company. I remember thinking that he would be furious because when they named the key people involved in the project, his name was left out. He had put in many late nights working on the project so even I was surprised that his name wasn’t mentioned.”

“Is that what caused…?”

“It’s hard to say. He wasn’t mad in that moment, but he became furious when he stepped away from the table to get a drink and I started talking to the vice president of his company. Even though what we were talking about what was on the list of allowed topics-”

“Allowed topics?” Seriously? He told her what she could talk to people about? Who the fuck does something like that?

“I told you he had rules: how much I could drink, what I could drink, what I would wear and even what I could talk about when we were at his business functions. He said that everything I did and said, reflected on him and in turn his father, so it was important that I avoided any controversial topics or areas that I knew nothing about,” she sighs heavily against me. “I know it sounds stupid, but at the time, how he said it, made perfect sense. I didn’t realize just how much I was allowing him to control my life. Looking back, I don’t know how I didn’t realize it in that moment.”

“Sometimes you only see what you want to see,” I may not have been in the same situation, but I know there were many things that I didn’t see when I was with her, that I realized after the fact.

“He accused me of flirting with him, saying that I was going after him because he obviously earned much more than Richard did. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. We were talking about gardening as he had struggled with deer, he knew I liked to garden as we had discussed it at previous events. Richard was furious, I guess, because the guy’s wife was at home with their sick kid, which I guess for some reason made him think that I was trying to go after him. He said I let him stare at my chest without doing anything, but the truth was there was nothing I could do. He picked out my dress for that night, as he always did, which was cut very low in the front. He hadn’t left out a wrap for me to wear, so it wasn’t like I could cover myself up. I didn’t think he was staring at my chest, but he could have been… it’s not like it could be avoided.”

“Even if the guy had been gawking at your chest all fucking night, that bastard shouldn’t have taken it out on you,” I can’t believe that fucker would beat her like he did for any reason, let alone because a coworker looked at her chest. Hell, I was furious when I saw Donnelly gawking at her ass the day she met with him, but it never even occurred to me to think she was flirting with him. My anger that day was directed at him, never at her- he was the one staring at her ass.

“You’re right, but it never stopped him. He always took his anger out on me, even when I had nothing to do with why he was angry or frustrated. I thought that part of my life was behind me; I didn’t think I would have to deal with him ever again.”

“You won’t, Carter is going to get to the bottom of this and I promise you he will never hurt you again. He will never come near you; I will keep you safe.”

“I know you will,” she whispers as she glances up at me with her eyes full of an emotion I can’t place. Needing to feel her, I weave my fingers through her hair and bring her closer to me. My lips immediately find her soft ones, as my other hand roams her beautiful body. After everything that just happened, after everything that I just saw, I need to feel and be closer to her. I have to remind myself to be gentle with her as I fight the urge to pull her tighter, closer to me. She shifts, turning her body so she can wrap her arms around my neck. The softest moan escapes from her as my tongue caresses her lips. I will never understand how that bastard could hurt my Kenzie…

My Kenzie.

“I love you,” I whisper against her lips.

“I love you too.”

She cuddles into my chest, her arms wrapping around my stomach as mine wrap around her back. Even though I don’t fully understand why, it seems she needs this as much as I do right now. Or maybe she just senses what I need. Whatever the reason, having her in my lap against me is exactly what I need right now.

After dinner, we cuddle on the couch watching some romantic comedy movie, that Kenzie exclaimed is her favorite the moment she saw it in the selection of movies available. With her head on a pillow on my lap, I can’t help but think how lucky I am to have this beautiful woman in my life. Never would I have thought this is what I would be doing with a woman, yet right now there is nowhere else I would rather be. If Kenzie hadn’t come into my life, I would likely be sitting in my office either at PFS or here working well into the night. Or maybe I would be at The Blue Moon, fucking some woman who meant nothing to me. I never realized how empty my life was before, how alone I really was.

“Baby? Do you want to go to bed?” I ask as I see her eyes start to close.

“I hadn’t realized how tired I was until I laid down,” she admits.

“We can finish this movie tomorrow if you want.”

“Are you going to the office in the morning?”

“No. Carter said it would be best if we both stayed here as much as possible, so I’m going to be working from home for at least the foreseeable future.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Don’t,” I quickly interrupt knowing what she was going to blame herself. “I have everything I need to work here and Melody can have a messenger bring over anything important.”

“You sure it won’t make more work for her?”

“Not at all,” I chuckle when she yawns again. “I had thought about letting you fall asleep here on the couch, but I knew it wouldn’t be very comfortable.”

“I’d much rather sleep in our bed,” Kenzie says as she slowly gets up from the couch.This content provided by N(o)velDrama].[Org.

I gasp in surprise-for the first time, she has referred to it as our bed, until now it’s always been my bed. When she looks at me, I quickly fake a yawn, letting her think that’s what she heard. I know how important it is for her to feel like she has something of her own, something that isn’t mine, so I hope by her referring to it that way she is thinking of it truly as our bed and not mine any longer. I could be reading too much into her choice of words, but I hope I’m not. We’ve done things completely backwards, but I’m hoping she’s starting to feel like this place is her home. For me, once we returned from Fiji, my bed became our bed; I can’t imagine her sleeping anywhere else. But I know for her, things aren’t that black and white. I learned that when she thought I would kick her out of the condo downstairs the moment we ended our arrangement. She saw that as my apartment, even after I told her she could stay as long as she needed to.

“Are you coming to bed?” Kenzie comes out of the bathroom after changing into her pajamas and finds me still standing next to our bed.

I quickly wash up and throw on a pair of shorts to sleep in before heading back to the bedroom where Kenzie is already lying in bed waiting for me. I quickly turn off the light and climb into bed, sliding right next to her. She sighs as soon as my arms wrap around her and inches back towards me so her body is flush against mine. Within minutes of the light turning off, she has fallen asleep but I on the other hand can’t seem to find sleep.

Every time I close my eyes, I see those pictures of what that bastard did to her. I see the imprints of his fingers around her neck and her eye that was swollen so badly that you can’t see the beautiful brown that lights up when she smiles. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to get those images out of my head. Normally when I can’t sleep, I would end up in my office working, but right now I’m content to lay here and watch her sleep. The only thing that makes me feel remotely better about this whole situation is knowing that the fucker who did this to her, will never hurt her again.