Chapter Eleven
Ben stood outside the locker rooms feeling oddly comfortable in leathers when Cooper McKay walked out.
The American wore leathers similar to his, but the wide smile on his face was different. He held out a hand. “Hey, my man. How did your afternoon go?”
He shook the man’s hand. It was odd to be friendly with him since for so long Cooper had been the man between Ben and what he wanted. Except he hadn’t ever been that. It had all been an act. That made it awkward, too. The trouble was this man was important to Kenzie.
They all were, and he was kind of pissed at her family.
“We had a nice rest. I know the plane was comfy but Kenzie didn’t sleep well, so she needed that nap before tonight.” She hadn’t slept on the plane because she’d worried he was cold to her.
How could he explain that he had to be cold or he would be over-the-top hot? She was the only thing in the world he was passionate about, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
He wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be one more thing Manny took from him in the brutalist way.
Cooper stepped back. “I’m glad to hear it. I got the feeling Kenz was going to be a handful, but she seemed nice and sweet at dinner. I was surprised. She can be way dramatic.”
He was sure Cooper meant it as masculine bonding. “And your wife can be violent. Kenzie is fine. She’s exactly the right amount of dramatic.”
Cooper stopped and his brows rose. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
He was sure Cooper was a good guy and that all of this was a dynamic that played out with people who’d known each other since they were babies.
But he hadn’t. He was an outsider, and that meant he saw things the rest of them didn’t.
“I’m sure you didn’t. I’m sure you all tease Kenzie for being too much and think it’s okay because she laughs along.
I actually took some advice from the big guy.
You know, the one who hates me. He said I don’t know her.
I know whoever the hell Kara represented, but I don’t know Kenz.
I’m fixing that. I spent the afternoon learning about her childhood and what it was like to grow up in her family.
Now I’m figuring out how to be a good Dom.
Not an overall good Dom. Her good Dom. Don’t fucking call her overdramatic where I can hear it. Am I clear?”
Cooper nodded, and there was a certain look of respect in his eyes.
“Understood. You’re the first one of her boyfriends I’ve met who wasn’t willing to joke about her…
quirks. They’re adorable, by the way. I’ve always considered her a sister, and she’s one of my favorites. We joke around all the time.”
“I think she feels the ridicule more than you know.”
Cooper seemed startled. “There’s no ridicule. I tease her but I love her.”
“I don’t think that’s how she experiences it.
” One of the things he’d gotten from this afternoon was that Kenzie often felt left out of a world that seemed to revolve around her siblings.
She hadn’t said it in so many words, but he’d been able to read between the lines.
Tasha was adopted. Kala had a brain that worked differently, and she struggled to fit in.
Seth was a handful, and Travis was the baby.
And Kenzie was a ball of sunshine so no one worried about her.
“I think she feels like she’s in her siblings’ shadows.
She was the happy one so she was also the forgettable one. ”
“No one forgot Kenzie. And Kala went through a lot,” Cooper began. “The world wasn’t made for her.”
This had been going through his head for hours.
While she’d slept he’d tried to really see her.
As she was now. As she’d been then. Some things only added up when he plugged her twin into the equation.
“The world wasn’t made for Kala so Kenzie gave up her world to make her twin comfortable.
That woman in there should have been a cheerleader, prom queen, student body president.
She should have a whole yearbook full of her, and yet she dimmed herself so her sister never felt like she was outshining her. ”
Cooper’s jaw tightened. “Kala never asked for that.”
Ben wasn’t backing down. He signed a contract with Kenzie earlier.
It was a basic contract, but protection was in there.
On both sides. He meant to honor his. Even if what he was protecting her from was her family.
“She didn’t have to. Kenzie loves her so she sacrifices, and I would bet she never would complain. ”
“It sounds like she’s been complaining to you,” Cooper countered. “Don’t think Kala hasn’t sacrificed plenty for her twin. There is nothing in the world my wife wants more than for her sister to be happy.”
“Just not with me.” Oh, he’d thought a lot about this since the moment Kala had walked into that bedroom in Nepal and he’d been forced to confront the fact that he’d been an idiot.
Cooper seemed to try to calm himself. “She doesn’t hate you. Look, there’s some kind of misunderstanding here. I know Kala has a tough exterior, but she wants her sister to get what she desires.”
“Is that why she tried to get me to hate Kara on every level?” He knew he hadn’t imagined it.
“Do you think Kenzie didn’t properly communicate how she felt about me?
Or do you think Kala believed I was nothing more than another one of her sister’s mistakes?
I get it. Kenz had a lot of boyfriends. Couldn’t find one who stuck.
I wonder if that was Kenzie’s fault or her sister’s. ”
It bugged him. The whole dynamic he’d witnessed earlier rankled. Everyone deferred to Kala. It wasn’t a malicious thing, merely the dynamic they’d never quite broken from childhood.
“She would never willingly hurt her sister.”
Ben knew Cooper wasn’t going to see it the way he did, but it was worth a try.
“But she thinks she’s smarter than her sister.
We talk about all the times she was a heinous bitch to me like it was some kind of sitcom running joke.
I was in love with a woman who cared so little for me she left me to die. ”
Cooper huffed like Ben was the overdramatic one now. “She didn’t think you were going to die.”
“She didn’t care.” He’d been there. He’d seen the look in her eyes. It had taken months to get back to where he could work with her.
Of course, then they sent in Kenzie and he was panting after her again, thinking there was something deeply wrong with him.
He’d had fucking therapy sessions about it.
Cooper’s head shook. “You don’t understand her. She didn’t mean anything by it. She’s not good with physical affection from people she’s not close to, so it was her way of keeping you at arm’s length.”
Of course her husband would come up with the best explanation he could. “I was there. I know exactly how she made me feel and I’m still struggling with it because when I look at Kenzie, I can’t help but see Kala’s face sometimes. Looking at me like I’m a bug and she can’t wait to step on me.”
Cooper looked like someone had punched him in the gut. “Fuck. We apparently need to sit down. I’m going to go get my wife and we’ll clear this up.”
He wasn’t going to have some kind of therapy session.
“No need. It’s been made plain to me that we’re not going to get along.
All I’m asking is don’t walk up to me like I’m your friend and we can joke about how silly and childish my woman is.
If you can’t say kind things about her, keep your damn mouth shut. ”
He was well aware it would be far smarter to play nice with Kenzie’s relatives, but he couldn’t right now.
He wasn’t thinking about the mission. He’d spent hours holding her and listening to her and watching her sleep.
When he’d been with her, her head on his chest, her arms around him, he hadn’t thought about that other Kara.
Even though they’d had sex it might have been the only time since he’d discovered her secret that there was no anger in him directed at her.
But there was some anger for her. He wasn’t sure any of them saw how they marginalized Kenzie, but he wasn’t going to do it, and he wasn’t going to joke about it.
“Hi, Ben.” Lou rushed by, her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll be right out, babe.”
TJ strolled up, an indulgent look on his face. “Sorry, she got caught up working with Lucy on the op. They found some stuff about deliveries or something and now Lucy and Sami are heading to Northern France to do surveillance.”
“I thought none of us were going for a few days.” Ben didn’t like plans changing. He didn’t want to get stuck with Oliver. He might kill the fucker.
“Like I said there was some kind of shipment. Apparently Lucy’s been tracking equipment that could be used in producing the anthrax variation, and one of the addresses matched a property on the list from Nepal. They want to check it out. They haven’t left if you want to go with them.”
Hell yeah, he wanted to go with them.
Hey, Kenz, I know we’re in a delicate place but fuck playing. I want to work.
Somehow he didn’t think that would go well for him.
She needed this in a way he was only now starting to understand.
In a club she could shed all the weight she carried on a daily basis.
She could shine all she liked because she kept it there.
She could unleash the part of her that longed to be the center of things, the part she sacrificed because she loved her family.
If she loved him, would she mold herself around him? Would she choose him? He would make her the center of his world, his reason for existing. He could give her that. He didn’t have a family. She had too much family. Could they be enough?
“Hey, we need to talk because Ben is under the mistaken impression that Kala hates him,” Cooper was saying to TJ.
TJ chuckled. “I don’t know if that’s mistaken.”
They started to argue but the door Lou had walked through opened and Kenzie walked out.
Completely naked.