Chapter 20
Lies
Kian
When the doorbell pulled him from sleep that morning and he realized Katelyn was still there next to him, that they’d fallen asleep together and remained that way, his first desire was to get up and make them a cup of coffee. Maybe toast.
It had been four long years since he’d eaten breakfast. His desire for the simple domestic act astounded him. He wanted to brew a pot of coffee and drink it with Katelyn. He wanted to sit next to her and take in the musky scent of her fresh from a long sleep. He wanted to sit and stare at her tousled, knotted hair, her sleep filled eyes with the dark smudges beneath, her cheek with the sheet crease on it… he wanted it all.
What he didn’t want was to be alone. It was odd, considering how hard he’d worked towards it for so long. He’d shut himself down. Isolated himself. Blocked off and cut off the good parts of himself. Then he’d met her and in a week she’d undone most of the damage he’d done to himself. She couldn’t undo the grief, but she made him want to be more than what he was. For her.
He’d felt that way back at the shop without knowing it. After he’d chased her away, he knew it was one of the worst mistakes of his current life. That panic, hard and crushing, drove him forward. He didn’t exactly know what it was, but he knew now.
Which made her walking out that front door even harder to bear. Of all the mornings Savannah could have picked to come have a chat about her break up with Mike and how much she missed him, she’d had to pick that one. He’d sent her on his way as quickly as he could, promising to meet with her later. After Katelyn walked into the room, Savannah pretty much clammed up anyway. He’d managed to hurt both of them without trying to at all. He must have a talent for it.
Kian stepped up onto Katelyn’s front and rang her doorbell, intent on explaining. He closed his eyes and waited. The image of Crystal’s face swam behind closed eyes. She wasn’t lifeless this time, as she always was. No, he remembered her the way she was alive. Laughing, chasing their son around the back yard, blowing out candles with him on his birthday cake when he couldn’t quite get them all, cheering him on at his first t-ball game. He saw the sparkle of her eyes on their wedding day, the way her face lit up when she told him she was pregnant. God, she’d scared the hell out of him that day. Bringing a life into the world was a huge responsibility.
One he’d give anything to have back.
“Please answer the door.” His whispered words hung in the air.
His hand balled into a fist at his side. He waited for Katelyn to open the damn door. He wanted to step inside her house and lose himself in her eyes, her hands, the way she touched him, cleansed him, healed him without even knowing she was doing it. It was astounding to believe someone who had been in his life for so short an amount of time was the one who could finally get through to him. She cut through layers and layers of hardness and pain, right to his heart, like she’d known him for decades. He craved her easy love, her sweet peace that she still had, even after she’d been hurt. He thought he was being strong by shutting down and shutting everyone and everything out. What a load of bullshit. She was the strong one. It took a person of steel to feel everything and come through the other side with a gentle spirit.
“Okay. You’re not going to open the door.” It figured. He’d seen the look of devastated betrayal in her eyes right before she’d slipped out of his house. He didn’t truly want to do it, to invade her privacy, but he had to. He couldn’t stay away.
He reached out and gripped the cool metal door handle. His large bulk cast a shadow across the door as he pushed it open. How apt.
“Katelyn?” He called her name, not wanting to alarm her. He’d already done enough damage.
She appeared in the short hall, eyes wild, all the tenderness and yearning he’d seen the night before banished. “Get out. You have no right to come in here.”
“I wanted to explain. Please, just hear me out.”
Her head whipped back and forth wildly. “No. There isn’t anything you can say.”
Kian took a deep breath to dispense the rising sense of injustice that stirred his anger. He reminded himself that she’d only known him a week. Of course it was natural that she only think the worst. “She’s my business partner’s daughter. She’s dating a guy at the shop. He’s a good friend and she wanted to talk to me about it. I’ve known her since she was fourteen. Her father and I are quite close. She wanted to get some perspective.”
“At five in the fucking morning?”
He actually liked the way she cursed. It only added to the fiery personality he’d guessed at. “She works at seven so she needed to come early.”
“She couldn’t have come after?”
“I’m not the easiest guy to track down. I’m usually at the shop until late and sometimes I- disappear after. Go for a drink or whatever. She’s come early before, to deliver messages from her father. Invites to dinner and what not…”
“What’s wrong with a phone?”
“Her father doesn’t exactly work that way.”
“Why? What is it you’re partners in together?” She sneered like she already knew the answer. Her palm raised up, front facing out. “Wait. Don’t answer that. I don’t even want to know. I can only imagine-”
“We own a club. I’m a silent partner. It’s an investment.”
“What kind of club? A strip club? With drugged up girls and even worse clients?”
The thought stung. He knew she was angry, but her accusations cut him. “Of course not. It’s a legit club, the kind anyone would go out to on a Friday night.”
She shook her head again. Her lips thinned out into a hard line. She wrapped her arms around her chest, bracing herself against him. “Liar. I don’t have any faith in anything you say. I looked you up. Did you know that? I couldn’t find anything about you owning a club.”
“Because silent partners are silent.”
“No, because you’re full of shit. You know what, I don’t actually care who that woman was or what she means to you. I could tell from the look on her face that it’s more than what you’re letting on. She looked at me like I was the intruder. Like it was me who was stealing you away from her. You said I was the only one you’d been with all these years… what a joke! Do you tell that sob story to every single woman you meet? Is that how you get them to sleep with you? I should never have believed a thing you ever said.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “No. just go. You’re a liar. I can’t believe I actually fell for your bullshit. It must be really funny, to find someone like me, someone you can already tell is vulnerable and is easy prey and swoop in. If you just wanted to fuck me, you could have said that.”
A stabbing pain ripped through his chest, threatening to tear him apart at the seams. He’d told her about the accident because he’d tried to get her to understand. He never expected she’d use it against him, or worst of all, not believe him.
“I’m not lying,” Kian said as calmly as he could. Even he could hear the pain in his voice. Her anger and disbelief in him hurt far worse than it should after such a short period of time. “I’ve been more honest with you than I’ve been with anyone in a long time. I’ve been more honest with you than I’ve been with myself.”
“Even that is probably a lie.”
He took a deep breath and just then, right when he was about to look away, he saw the pain flicker through Katelyn’s eyes and realized she likely didn’t mean most of what she was saying. She was lashing out because she felt hurt and betrayed. Hopefully she’d come around, even if not in that moment.
“Alright. I can tell you’re not going to listen to anything else, so I’ll just go. Nothing I say is going to make you believe me right now. Please, don’t listen to what I said back at the shop. I don’t want you to stay away. I… I heard once that you should hold the people who mean something to you close. I tried that and I lost. Big time. I never wanted to do it again, until I met you.”
“Just line after line,” Katelyn huffed angrily.
“I would never betray your trust, Katelyn. Never. You have my word.” Kian swore that oath to her like it should mean something, but clearly, it fell far short.
“And that means exactly nothing,” she hissed. “Please, just go. I don’t want to see you again. You warned me to stay away and I didn’t listen. I’m the one to blame. So just go and leave me alone.”
“I’ll go,” Kian promised. His hand unclenched at his side. He stepped forward, reached out and tucked a strand of that honeyed hair tenderly behind her ear. She froze at the contact, the feather light brush of his hand. “Don’t shut down because of this. If I’ve learned anything at all, it’s that feeling isn’t the hard part. Learning to let others feel for you is the most difficult. It takes a hell of a lot of honesty to get to that point.”
She took a faltering step back, her face caving in on itself, her eyes so very wounded. A shimmer of unshed tears floated on the light blue surface. She could have given him one last parting shot. He would have deserved it, at least to some degree, for being such an asshole at the shop. He’d tried to push her away and just when he was ready to let her in, whatever that actually meant, he was shut down.
It figured.
He turned slowly and let himself out the front door. Outside the sun had finally claimed its place high in the sky, chasing away the gray light of early dawn. Yes, it fucking figures. Just when everything in his life was starting to go right, something he never thought he’d say again, it all came crashing down.
Maybe he was meant to live alone. He’d thought so, after the accident. He’d made it that way for himself. He’d been content in his loneliness before. Dwelled in it, made it his home.
Just when he didn’t want to, just when he was ready to reach out and break through that mist of pain, to break the shackles that held him captive, he was thrust back there, back into that cage.
How very ironic. But then again, irony had always been his old best friend.