Chapter Fifteen
McKenna didn’t want to feel sympathy for Beckett. Damn him. She’d never met a guy who was so devoted to his family in her entire life. It spoke volumes about who he was as a person. But all that was overshadowed by the fact that he’d slept with her while not having any intention of sticking around.
And that spoke volumes about her.
Can’t you get it into your head? You’ll never be good enough for these guys. Gage knew it. And now Beckett knows it. So why don’t you?
The drumbeat of her heart rang loud in her ears. What was wrong with her? What part of her was so broken that she couldn’t read people properly? That she couldn’t see the oncoming headlights of humiliation until it was too late?
His brows furrowed, an adorable crease forming between them. “I wish things were different.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh right, so now you’re going to say I’m beautiful and wonderful and I deserve a man who’ll treat me right. And you wish that man could be you, but it can’t.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed, but he said nothing.
“It’s easy to say that shit when you don’t have to back it up. Which, ultimately, tells me it means nothing.” Tears threatened and she willed herself not to cry with every ounce of control in her body. She would not let him see how much he’d hurt her. “But don’t worry, it’s not like you promised me anything to get me into bed. I don’t blame you for that. I blame me.”
“McKenna—”
“I went willingly, thinking that you showed up at my door because you felt that stupid little spark that I had. I didn’t ask questions, and I ignored that voice in my head telling me to watch out. I should have listened,” she charged on, letting the words erupt because if she didn’t let them flow, her tears would instead. She needed to cling to anger or else she’d start to feel something else. The snap of rejection, renewed like an old wound cut open again. “But I don’t blame you, really. You were clear from the start that you wanted her back and I should have known you wouldn’t change your mind even though I thought we had something.”
“We did have something,” he said, the words low and gravelly. Not his usual calm and even tone.
“No, we didn’t. Because if you really believed that, then you wouldn’t be going back to her.”
“I told you why it has to be this way.” He raked a hand through his hair.
“Do you care about her?” She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to hear him say yes or no. Each one was fraught with its own issues, and neither was a solution.
“Of course I care about her. We were supposed to be getting married.” He shook his head. “It’s different.”
“How is it different? Do you care about me, too? Or did you sleep with me because I was there?”
The muscle in Beckett’s jaw ticked. “I slept with you because I wanted to, because…I felt a connection.”
So he’d felt it, too. Her chest clenched. It seemed that even when she managed to find a decent guy, she couldn’t make it work. Something always went wrong.
“But that’s not enough.” She looked at the floor, the hot prickles at the backs of her eyes getting stronger. Overpowering her.
He cursed under his breath. “The timing…”
“There’s always something.” She lifted her head, looking him straight in the eye. “You know, that night I first came to your apartment I had decided to swear off men. Temporarily, anyway.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Well, I had. Reason being that I make bad decisions for myself.” She let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “I was determined not to let anyone else tell me I’m not good enough. But here we are.”
“I am not telling you that.” He reached out to her, but she stepped back and he dropped his arm back down by his side. “This has nothing to do with what kind of person you are.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me I am good enough, then?” she said, sarcasm weighing her words down.
“No one should have to tell you that, McKenna,” he said. “You should know it.”
He may as well have slapped her across the face for how badly the words stung. The entire mess had been created because she hadn’t believed in herself. If she’d started working on her freelance business when she should have, then she wouldn’t have needed Beckett’s help to secure an important wedding. And she wouldn’t have bent her own rules and slept with him, knowing that he was trying to get Sherri back.
Low self-esteem was the key ingredient in all her failings. But not for much longer.
“You know, I should thank you, Beckett.” She noticed that she was still clutching the wooden spoon and headed over to the pot to stir her curry. No sense letting her dinner burn because of him. “This has been an important learning experience. And you’re right, I shouldn’t need someone to tell me I’m good enough. I’m not going to seek validation from other people anymore.”
He continued to watch her, his assessing gaze fixed on her face. What was he thinking? Did he regret coming here? Would he be sorry that he walked away?
“I’m sorry that this”—she gestured to them both—“doesn’t fit in with your circumstances. But I really hope you don’t make her miserable so you can look after your family. Because she’s a person, too. And, like me, she deserves more than some guy who’s only with her for superficial reasons.”
For a moment, his emotions—shock, regret, anger—were brilliantly clear in his face. It reflected in the flare of his nostrils, in the tensing of his jaw, in the flicker of his gaze to the floor and back. But, like with most things that Beckett felt, it slipped back below the surface in an instant.
“I appreciate you giving me the heads up instead of ghosting me,” she said, her anger receding. Something deeper and darker had bubbled up, and she didn’t want him to see it. “But I think you should leave now.”
“McKenna…” He sighed, his fist clenching and releasing by his side. “I’m sorry.”
No, that’s not what she needed to hear. Because no other guy had ever made an apology for his actions, and not once had she cared. She’d always picked herself up and dusted herself off—angry, but never vulnerable. Never hollowed out and aching and so freaking sad.
Why now? You weren’t even dating. You didn’t have anything with him. One night? It’s nothing.
Maybe that’s why it was worse. Because it felt like they’d become friends.
“Please, just go.” Her voice had taken on that strangled sound. That uneven, crackly, pre-crying sound. “I don’t have anything else to say.”
She turned around and promised herself that she wouldn’t move until she heard the door close. The sound came without any footsteps preceding it. Like he’d vanished into thin air. Even then she counted to three before the tears fell.
…
After messing up his chat with McKenna, Beckett felt like a caged animal for days. He paced back and forth across his living room—unable to work, unable to move on. It was like mental quicksand. Even the few times he’d picked up his phone to call Sherri, he couldn’t seem to make his fingers work.
But Kayla’s rehearsal dinner was fast approaching, and he still hadn’t told his family that they’d broken up. Which meant the time for fixing his mess of a life was now. He hurried down Clarendon Street toward the Wooden Llama, Sherri’s café of choice. It was less than a block from her office, and if he knew his ex like he thought he did, then she’d be there at three on the dot ordering a flat white.
He got there early, bought her coffee and his. Like clockwork, she walked through the doors a moment later. Her eyes widened when they settled on him, and Beckett held out the paper cup—stamped with the café’s signature llama head.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, a half smile forming on her lips.
He hadn’t been sure what reaction he’d get turning up like this, but Sherri loved romantic comedies. And the guy always seemed to show up in the right place at the right time at the end of those. Given her sweet expression, it looked like his gamble had paid off.
But instead of feeling any gratitude toward his fortune, or any sense of happiness or relief at seeing her again, his stomach sank. Every cell in his body told him to get up and walk out of that café. Had he been subconsciously hoping that she’d turn him away so he could be absolved of this decision?
“I wanted to talk,” he said.
God. That phrase was becoming his go-to lately…who the hell had he become?
“Wow. Okay.” They took a seat at a small round table in the corner of the café.
Sherri shrugged out of her trench coat and hung it neatly on the back of her chair. She had her hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail and wore natural makeup, as she always did. Even her perfume was the same—something soft and lemon-y. Familiar.
But that familiarity only served to exacerbate the unease growing unwieldy in his stomach. The feeling of wrongness consumed him, confusing him. It occurred to him how different she and McKenna were. Both beautiful women, in their own way. But he felt none of the spark with Sherri that he did with McKenna. None of that sizzle and zing that had captured him and confounded him from the moment she’d entered his apartment to claim a wayward box of sex toys.
The memory was like a knife to his gut.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your coffee time,” he said.
“Not at all.” She sipped her drink, looking at him expectantly. “This is a very pleasant surprise.”
This was what she’d wanted all along, for him to step outside his usual way of doing things. To surprise her. To want to talk.
It occurred to him that all that behavior had started when he’d met McKenna. In the short time they’d become friends—or however he was supposed to label it—he’d changed. Work had taken a back seat, and he’d made time for other things. A date, communication, kissing. Sex.
Incredible, mind-bending, insatiable sex.
He shook his head. Cutting ties with McKenna should have put a stop to his thoughts about her, but instead it had the opposite result. It was like he’d unplugged something in his brain and now there was a constant stream of her filling his head.
“Did you have something you wanted to say to me, Beck?” Sherri asked softly.
What the hell was he doing? This wasn’t who he was, who he was raised to be. He didn’t use people. Leading Sherri on now would make him no better than Greg—a thief, a liar. A selfish asshole who was happy to stomp over those he should have cared about if it got him what he wanted.
“I’m sorry for how we ended things,” Beckett said. He wrapped his hands around his cup, willing the warmth to unfreeze his brain. “I didn’t give you the time you deserved when we were together.”
She nodded, her hand reaching up to smooth her already perfect hair. “You do love your work.”
“I do.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Well, I did.”
He’d treated WealthHack like it was the only thing that mattered for so long. It was the key to solving his problems, for creating security. But he knew now that security wasn’t as guaranteed as he’d once thought. His mother had enough money for two years of rent, and now it was gone. Security could vanish at any time.
Just like control.
He couldn’t dictate his mother’s life so it would fit into his idea of an “end state.” He couldn’t tell her how to spend the money or whether she needed to ask for her job back or whether she should let Greg back into her life. That was him imposing his values on her.
“I told my father not to withdraw his money, for what it’s worth. I know how much you had riding on it.” She sighed. “But you know what parents are like.”
“I do.” He nodded. “And this break has given me a lot of time to think about other things.”
“Like what?”
“Like how much you deserve to be with someone who truly gets you.”
She tilted her head, her nose wrinkled. “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“Just that I’m sorry, and that I hope you find a man who worships the ground you walk on.”
“Oh. Right.” She blinked, her large brown eyes reflecting his own shock back at him. “You met someone, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Do you love her?” Sherri’s voice was tight, but she always had a good poker face when she felt she needed it. Like him.
“I don’t know. It’s early, but…” He paused. “It feels right.”
The words should have shocked him, but voicing them aloud only confirmed what he already knew. He wanted McKenna. He wanted more. He wanted this perfect, emotionally messy, frighteningly satisfying thing that they had. This thing that wasn’t yet formed, that couldn’t be explained, that he didn’t quite understand. All he knew was that she’d renewed his interest in life and it was all because she’d allowed him to be who he was.
“I don’t know what to say.” Sherri shook her head. “I guess I’ve known that something wasn’t right for a long time. I kept hanging on for some reason, hoping things might change…and it looks like they did, but not how I wanted them to.”
She pushed up from the table and pulled her jacket off the chair, hugging it to her chest. For a moment, he thought she might cry. But she looked as confused as he felt. Neither one of them said a word, because there wasn’t really anything left to say. Their relationship had finished some time ago, only neither of them had been willing to admit it.
She walked out from behind the table and dropped her hand to his shoulder for a second, before leaving the café. Beckett stayed glued to his chair, the reality of what had happened swirling around him. When all was said and done, he couldn’t go backward. That was the old Beckett, the one who relished the security of sameness.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped at the screen. If he was going to move forward, he needed a new direction. A compromise.
M.K. Technologies wasn’t going to die. Not today. But perhaps playing a smaller role in WealthHack long term would mean room in his life for other things. Like the woman who’d taught him to make space.
…
McKenna had understood the term “butterflies in your stomach before,” but she was convinced that Mothra had taken up residence in hers. Vintage horror movie references aside, she was pretty darn excited about Kayla’s wedding. Even with the deep cloud of funk that had been following her around ever since Beckett broke off their relationship before it had even started.
While her love life might be as sorry as ever, business was booming. McKenna had done Kayla and her mother’s makeup for the rehearsal dinner that’d taken place three nights ago. It was similar to the bridal makeup, but a little more nighttime glam since it wasn’t such a formal event. And when Kayla’s Instagram picture had been picked up by a local society blog, there had been questions abounding on who had done her makeup.
Since then, the contact form on McKenna’s new website—the one that made her throat constrict every time she looked at it because it made her think of Beckett—had been blowing up with enquiries. She already had a three-event job booked, plus an opportunity to do some live demos at an upcoming bridal expo. She’d done that before as part of the CAM-Ready team…but this was different. This time it would be all about her business.
Trying not to hyperventilate with excitement, McKenna continued disinfecting her brushes with a quick-dry spray cleaner so she could get onto Kayla’s makeup. The bridesmaids were done and they looked gorgeous, if she did say so herself. The group of three women were busy taking selfies and admiring one another’s final looks not far from where Kayla climbed up onto the stool.
“The girls look wonderful,” she said. “I really loved the way you were able to tweak the look to make it personal for each one of them.”
“All part of the job.” McKenna wiped a powder brush against a piece of paper towel, swirling it around until all the product was removed. “They’re unique women, so I can’t take the same approach for each face.”
“Did you see how many comments I got on the photo you took of me the other night?” Kayla grinned. “I made sure to tag you.”
“Yes, I’ve had a ton of requests come in. You’re my most successful face to date,” McKenna said, laying the brush down.
“Maybe I should add it to my LinkedIn profile.” Kayla held her hands up to her cheeks. “Mrs. Kayla Corbett, most successful face.”
“It has quite a ring to it.”
McKenna scanned the mass of product covering Minnie Walsh’s table. It felt a little strange knowing that she was in Beckett’s mother’s home. It’d been difficult not to stop and stare at the photos on the mantel. But she’d stolen a quick glance when the girls had gone outside to have a break from sitting still. The photos showed a serious boy, gangly and tall, with an awful bowl cut that so many kids had back then. But his face had been strikingly handsome even from a young age. Those vivid blue eyes pierced right through her from the faded photo paper.
Even back then it looked as though his mother and sister were the cheeky ones, while he stood by them. Proud. Strong. Silent. Her throat tightened.
Stop thinking about him. The decision has been made and you didn’t make the cut. End. Of. Story.
McKenna warmed a drop of primer between her fingers and then pressed it into Kayla’s skin. “How are you feeling about today? Any butterflies?”
“I guess I should be nervous, but I feel surprisingly calm.” She closed her eyes while McKenna prepped her skin. “I spent a lot of time pulling together all the details so everything would be perfect, but I had a bit of an epiphany at the rehearsal.”
“Really?” McKenna pumped the foundation out onto her palette and mixed a drop of pearlescent liquid into it.
“I don’t know how much Beckett has told you about our family, but my dad has never really been on the scene.” She sighed. “He came back recently and I had visions of him walking me down the aisle. It’s what I’ve wanted ever since I was a little girl. But I think I’ve finally accepted that he doesn’t want to be part of my life.”
Her heart constricted. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Kayla shook her head. “Don’t be. It was one of those things I needed to learn, you know? I had to stop wishing that this absent man would come back into my life when I was already surrounded by people who love me. Beckett’s giving me away.”
“He’ll love that.” McKenna blinked back the swelling emotion. Now was not the time to get misty eyed about the guy who’d dumped her.
Taking a stippling brush, she dipped it into a contour cream and set to work carving out the hollow under Kayla’s cheekbones. The effect would look amazing in photos, enhancing her already lovely bone structure.
That’s right. Concentrate on the makeup, that’s what you’re focused on now.
But no amount of willing would stop Beckett from invading her thoughts. Every time she left her apartment she wondered if she’d see him. Every time she got into the elevator she remembered the time he’d comforted her in the dark. And every time she bought something online she double-checked her address to make sure she wasn’t typing his.
Why couldn’t she get it into her head that it was over?
Maybe because you’ve never fallen hard like that before. It felt different with him because you wanted it to go somewhere. You resisted because you knew he could hurt you…and he did.
Him leaving wasn’t just a dent to her pride like with all the others. It was a dent to her soul.
“So you’re going to stay at the venue until after the first dance, right?” Kayla asked.
“Yep. I’ll be in the dressing room so you and the girls can come in for a touch up between the photos.” She glanced critically at the area along Kayla’s jawline and continued to blend with her brush. “That offer goes for your mother and the mother of the groom as well. I can do lipstick touch-ups and blot anyone who’s looking a little shiny.”
“Well,” Kayla said with a cheeky grin. “I won’t need you while the photos are being taken, and we’re having the staff serve cocktails and canapes in the ballroom to keep the guests entertained. You’re more than welcome to grab a drink and something to eat.”
“That’s very kind, but I’m driving.”
She wouldn’t be drinking on the job, since she’d borrowed her brother’s car to get to and from Kayla’s mother’s house and the wedding venue. Totally worth it since Kayla was paying her double to be onsite for a few hours. But that meant no drinks for her.
“Oh, well, make sure you have something to eat. Beckett will be there after we’re done with the family shots.”
McKenna swallowed. “I’ll be sure to say hi.”
Great. The last thing she wanted was to run into Beckett and Sherri. They’d probably be acting all loved up and McKenna really didn’t want to blow this important job by accidentally crying in front of everyone. Good thing she’d packed a few muesli bars and an apple into her bag. No way in hell would she be venturing out and risk bumping into them.
“Well, since he’s going stag I’m sure he’d enjoy the company.” Kayla had her eyes closed since McKenna had started work on her brows, but her lip twitched.
“Going stag?” The drumbeat of McKenna’s heart filled her ears with an unrelenting beat. “Like alone?”
“Yeah. Since he and his fiancée broke up, she’s not coming to the wedding.”
Did she mean that Beckett had simply told her about the breakup that happened weeks ago? Or had something happened since?
McKenna pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and forced herself to concentrate on creating the perfect arch at Kayla’s brow. A small angle brush and some dark powder created hair-like strokes, filling in gaps and ensuring they would look perfect for the camera.
Don’t get excited. This doesn’t change anything.
“It was rough for him. But I think it’s for the best; they weren’t very well suited.”
“I’m sure he’s very upset,” McKenna said diplomatically.
“Maybe this is overstepping, but I think you two would be great together.”
She raised a brow. “And I think you might be the first bride ever to play matchmaker at her own wedding.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m serious.”
“How do you know I don’t have a boyfriend, already?” She shot her client a mock stern look. “Now, close your eyes so I can do your eyeshadow primer.”
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Well, no. I don’t.”
Kayla’s smug silence made McKenna shake her head. Had Beckett mentioned that they’d kissed…that they done more? Surely not. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d kiss and tell. But Kayla’s confidence rattled her.
“When did he break up with Sherri?” she asked.
“Recently. Like last week.” Kayla sighed. “I’m sad for him, of course. But I think everyone saw it coming before he did.”
“Right.” She willed herself not to engage further but the questions in her head were like flies buzzing, getting louder and louder and one slipped out. “What about his app?”
“He’s seeking alternate funding.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Really?”
“Yep. Since it’s officially over, he’s gone somewhere else. It’ll be better that way, less personal stuff to get in the way of business.” Kayla cracked an eye open. “But you should talk to him about it.”
She raised a brow. “About his business?”
“About anything.” The bride-to-be grinned. “I know he’d be happy to hear from you.”
McKenna busied herself with inspecting the face chart she’d drawn up at Kayla’s trial, pretending to concentrate on reviewing her work. But the fact was, her head and heart and stomach were on a roller-coaster ride. The soaring feeling interrupted by drastic drops as she tried to figure out what this meant.
If Beckett and Sherri were officially over, where did that leave her? Kayla could simply be meddling, having no idea that what she was suggesting was old news. All of this could mean nothing.
Or, it could mean everything.