Chapter Thirteen #3
She pulled the robe around her body and gathered her corset and thong. “Of course they are. I’m sorry. I got carried away. I won’t say them again if they bother you.”
She wouldn’t. Kenzie was a giving woman, but he got the feeling she was one of those women who gave and gave and gave until she was done. She wouldn’t beg for his love. She’d shown him. She’d told him. It was up to him to accept it or not.
He grabbed his leathers, ignoring his cell for the moment.
This was a conversation they needed to have.
He wished they weren’t having it now. Wished he’d handled this in a way that left them cuddled up in bed.
“Baby, I’m fucking this up. I need you to understand how much it means to me that you care about me.
If you want to call it love, I’ll get used to the words. I’ll figure out a way to say them.”
Her head shook, and he would bet money she was fighting back tears. “I don’t want you to give me words you don’t mean. But I would like to know where you see this going if we’re not in love.”
Not in love. He didn’t actually like the sound of that, but there was a part of him whispering.
His parents “loved” him until he was inconvenient.
Deanna “loved” him until she found someone who could give her more.
Manny was supposed to be his best friend.
How many times had Manny said he “loved” him like a brother?
His brain buzzed with warning alarms.
This was a woman who read romance novels like they were her lifeline.
She talked about epic love and swooned over weddings.
He would lose her over this. Why hadn’t he fucking said the words?
They didn’t have to mean anything. Hell, he didn’t like rom coms and yet he sat there and watched them to make her happy.
She had zero interest in what she called sportsball, but she laid with her head in his lap while she read a book and he watched the Blue Jays play so he could stroke her hair and have her close. Couldn’t he say a couple of dumb words?
She took a long breath and put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it now. We’re just having fun.”
Not what he’d told her. He gripped her wrist, unwilling to let her walk out.
Not like this. He needed to get her back in bed.
He was good in bed. Fucking terrible at this.
“We agreed we were serious. When we met that day at Top, we agreed we would give this thing a try. Are you threatening to leave me over a few words? I didn’t once say we were just having fun. ”
“And when this mission is over?” Kenzie asked, and now the tears filled her eyes. Her blue eyes that kicked him in the gut every time he looked at her.
The cell buzzed. A text. He ignored it. If it was Joseph, he could talk to Tim. “I don’t know. We both go back to work and see each other when we can. We work together a lot.”
“We work together when it comes to Huisman,” she said.
“If we take down Huisman, I think you’ll find there’s not a lot of work for us to do.
What if I decided to work less? With my sister moving into a supervisory position, I was thinking it might be time to look at the private sector.
Maybe it’s time to open an office in Toronto.
My dad always wanted one in New York, but this could be better. ”
Kenzie in Toronto? He liked the idea, but what would they do?
What would he do? He’d joined CSIS to take down Manny.
What would he do when the job was done? Would the job ever be done?
Could he marry Kenzie and have kids, because that woman would probably want kids.
He didn’t have anything to offer kids. He couldn’t bring his family into it because he would never trust them again.
He could still hear his father telling him to look them up once he’d solved the problem and maybe they could talk then.
He would never speak with them again, much less introduce them to children he loved so they could fuck them over, too.
Why was she pushing this? He wasn’t ready for any of this. “I think you should hold off on making decisions like that. You like the job too much. We can work things out. We’ll be good.”
If they weren’t living together, they wouldn’t have to deal with the whole kids and marriage thing.
He could still be her Dom. They could meet up and play and spend long weekends together.
He wasn’t sure he would be a good husband.
She deserved a good husband. She deserved the kind of life her parents had, and he wasn’t sure he could give that to her.
Certainly not until they handled Emmanuel Huisman.
She pulled away, and this time he let her. “All right, Ben. I’m going to clean up and I’m going to stay with Lucy tonight. I need to think.”
So she was going to punish him. A hint of bitterness crept through his fear. This suddenly felt like manipulation. “So the princess doesn’t get the words she wants and I get cut out.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Ben, I’m emotional. I’m trying to keep it together, and I’ve attempted to avoid this conversation several times now because I don’t want to say something I don’t mean. If you had let me have a couple of minutes, I might have been able to pull myself together.”
“So now I’m not reacting the way you want.” He knew the words she was saying made sense, but he was getting a restless feeling. This was where everything fell apart. He hadn’t danced to her…
Fuck. He’d hurt her, and he was making it worse. She was literally asking him for a couple of minutes to process the fact that she’d told the man she loved that she loved him and he was never going to return the words.
He backed up. “I’m sorry, Kenzie. I’m acting like an ass because I’m terrified of losing you. Baby, can we get dressed and go back to our flat and talk about this? Please?”
“I need time,” she replied, tears rolling down her cheeks.
She looked so young and hurt, and he’d put that expression on her face.
Another text came through. Damn it. Joseph wouldn’t keep calling unless it was necessary. He didn’t know what else to say so he picked up the cell.
Unknown number.
The room went cold.
Kenzie seemed to sense something had gone wrong. Something else.
Pick up the phone, Benjamin. You won’t like how I express my dissatisfaction that I’m being ignored.
“Is it him?” Kenzie asked, her voice suddenly tense. “I’ll go let Dad and Damon know.”
“Don’t.” He knew the protocols. No one was supposed to talk directly to Manny, but he’d always known he wouldn’t follow that rule. “This is between me and him.”
He stared at the phone like it was a snake waiting to strike. It would ring and he would answer, and maybe this time he could figure out how to take the fucker down. His heart rate ticked up in a way it only did when facing the fucking monster in his life.
“Ben, you need to destroy the cell and I’ll get you another,” Kenzie insisted. “You can’t give him a chance to get into your head. This is what he does. He causes chaos. The only way to stop it is to not play this game with him.”
The cell rang. She didn’t understand Manny. Not the way he did. If he didn’t answer, then he wouldn’t know what was coming his way. Manny would do something and it would be his fault.
“Ben, I am asking you to give me the phone. If you care about me, don’t answer that phone.”
Another manipulation. He slid his finger across the screen. “Hello.”
He turned and heard Kenzie walk to the bathroom. And lock the door behind her. She either didn’t get what was happening or she was trying to control him. Either way, he had to answer that phone.
A deep chuckle came over the line. “Did I interrupt something, Benjamin? How is London treating you?”
Well, he should have known. He turned and looked at the door that separated him from Kenzie. “What do you want, Manny?”
“One would think you don’t like me.”
He wasn’t taking that bait today. He remained silent.
Big Tag was right about a couple of things, and one of them was that Ben let Manny get his goat.
Although the big bastard had said something like Huisman gets your goat and impregnates him in front of you so then you have baby goats and then he takes those too.
Kenzie’s dad had a way with words.
He wasn’t using words on Manny right now. Silence would have to do.
“All right, you’re not in a talkative mood. Tell me, are the girls with you?” Manny asked.
“I’m alone.” He might actually be if Kenzie was that pissed at him. He would make it up to her. He would go directly to her dad after he was done and then they could sit down and talk. “I don’t know where the women of the team are.”
“I was talking about the assassins I sent to kill Mr. Taggart. They didn’t seem to do a good job,” Manny said over the line. “I’ll have to punish them accordingly.”
A cold chill went up his spine. “So you are involved in trafficking little girls.”
Another chuckle. Manny was endlessly amused with the horrors around him.
“There’s no such thing as a little girl.
They’re all born venomous, and you should know.
Benjamin, how many times do you have to learn this lesson?
I assure you those girls, as you call them, have committed more atrocities than you can imagine and they are part of my army, though they believe I’m just a client.
Actually, it was my grandfather who set up the network.
Apparently the medical profession didn’t pay much in the beginning, but he did meet some poor people in the old country who didn’t mind selling their useless daughters. Now I want my naughty girls back.”
Ben remembered how Sosa reacted to Manny’s photograph, and his stomach threatened to revolt. “So now you rape children.”