Chapter Eleven – Kayla #3
He doesn’t know that. How could he?
With how easily he said it, it pretty much confirms my suspicions that he has illegitimate kids out there, somewhere.
He unhurriedly takes his hand off my shoulder and walks to the door, opening it and saying, “That’s all. Have a nice night, Ms. Prim.”
I stand, moving mechanically toward the open door.
I don’t meet Mr. Bentley’s gaze as I pass him, wishing I could be even smaller than I already am as I slip out of that office.
The moment I do, I spot Hayden and the beta receptionist from downstairs chatting a few feet away.
I’m too skeezed out by what just happened, by what Mr. Bentley suggested, that I don’t have it in me to be jealous.
I march right up to them and say, “I’m ready to go home.”
I’m sure the woman says something flirty to Hayden as she leads us back to the private elevator, but I tune her out. I’m so far gone I’m in the middle of a hardcore disassociation episode.
That was wild, wasn’t it? Maybe that’s something rich people do all the time—or maybe Mr. Bentley is just one big asshole who wants to control everything about his son’s life.
If he’s that much of a control freak, of course nothing Bradford could ever do would be enough.
Control freaks are the ones who are disappointed the most in those around them, when their advice and leadership isn’t followed to a T.
Soon enough we’re in Hayden’s truck, and he’s driving me home.
He says something, but I don’t hear him. I don’t jerk back to reality until the moment he touches my arm and pulls me into my body. “Earth to Kayla. You okay in there? I didn’t hear anything in there—” In there, meaning Mr. Bentley’s office?
“Were you even listening, or were you too busy flirting with the receptionist?” I don’t know why I say it. I shouldn’t. Now that I’m back in my own head, I can’t get over how widely she smiled at him, how she kept batting those eyelashes like there was something in her eyes she couldn’t get out.
“Whoa, where’d that come from?”
“Sorry. I don’t know. It was fine. The meeting was… fine.” A little too much at the end there, but fine. I guess. I don’t really want to think about what he suggested or how slimy that hand felt through my shirt when he touched my shoulder.
Almost like he was reminding me of how small I am.
“Hey,” he says, his voice soothing, “you sure you’re okay?”
I turn my head and meet his bright blue eyes. Though he’s driving, he keeps glancing at me. I feel worlds better beneath his stare than Mr. Bentley’s. “Yeah, I’m okay. Mr. Bentley is just… intense.” I cannot tell him what Mr. Bentley suggested I do.
I can’t tell anyone. Definitely not Jeremy. My brother would probably tell me to go for it if it meant a big payday at the end.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
With a sigh, Hayden says, “For a moment there, it sounded like you were a little jealous.”
Right now, I’m too mentally drained to argue with him. Besides, he’s right. I was jealous. If I think about it too much right now, I’ll get jealous all over again. So dumb, considering this man isn’t mine.
“For the record,” he tells me, “I was only using her as a cover. I can talk to someone while paying attention to something else. I was ready to bust through that door at a moment’s notice. Besides, she’s not my type.”
“She was pretty.”
“I guess, but that doesn’t change the fact I’m not interested. You wanna know what my type is?” The way he asks that question, there can only be one answer, and I don’t know if it’s something I’m ready to hear just yet.
Or ever.
Hayden says, “Maybe I’ll leave you guessing. It’s obvious you’re curious. I have to say, I am flattered you’re curious and jealous. It means you care.” The grin he sends my way after that is one goofy ass grin.
“I don’t care” the words slip out of me before I can stop them—or realize how untrue they are. The fact is, I do care. I care a little too much, considering.
“You do.”
I roll my eyes and groan audibly, which makes him chuckle.
“What did the old boss man want to discuss?”
Somehow I should’ve known the conversation wouldn’t end there. Seconds pass as I struggle to think of what to tell him that doesn’t involve the latter half of the conversation. “He asked me how my first week was going, how his son was acting around me.”
“Oh, yeah? And what’d you tell him?”
“I said he was kind of mean at first, but I think he warmed up a little.”
That makes Hayden chuckle. “Bradford warmed up, eh? Maybe he did, and it’s just hard for me to see since his personality is such shit—no offense to our shared boss. He’s… a strange one. I don’t know what to make of him.”
“You two seemed to work pretty well together when I fell.”
He looks as if he mentally debates this with himself before he says, “Yeah, I guess we did. Still don’t know why he had to call me in there—not that I’m complaining.
You know I’d help you anytime you need. It’s like he didn’t want to get his hands dirty or something.
Although, now that I’m thinking about it, when I first met him, I offered him my hand, and he didn’t take it. ”
I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. A refused handshake? Besides being a little rude, I don’t see the big deal about it or why Hayden would bring it up now. “So?”
“So? So nothing. Like I said, I don’t mind helping you whenever you need it. I’m just starting to wonder if, maybe, our shared boss has a thing against touching.”
The image of Bradford’s scarred back rise in my head. In all the times I’ve brought him coffee or been near him… have we ever touched, even accidentally? No, I don’t think so, but again, I don’t think that’s too strange. We were both trying to keep our distance from each other.
Now, the handshake from Hayden when they first met, that one’s a little more odd, and it brings to mind how he dropped the small package of butterfly sutures today when he was handing it to Hayden.
At the time, I didn’t think anything of it.
People drop things all the time. But now… maybe there is more to it.
It’s not like it matters or anything. I don’t plan on seducing Bradford, regardless of what his father suggested, so whether or not he has a touch-phobia doesn’t matter to me.
My and Jeremy’s apartment is on the other side of the city, so it takes a bit for us to get there. When Hayden’s truck pulls into the turnaround, I unbuckle and glance at the man in the driver’s seat.
“Thank you,” I say, “for everything today. I’m…” Oh, boy, this is painful of me to admit, let alone say aloud. “…grateful you were there.”
“Wow,” Hayden says, flashing his perfect teeth in a boyish, dimpled grin. “Be careful. You keep saying things like that, and I might just get used to them.” That smile of his doesn’t fade. It sticks around and makes something in my lower gut warm.
I’m about to get out, but he reaches across the truck to touch my arm, stopping me. “Wait. Before you go, promise me you’ll eat a full meal for dinner tonight?” He’s hesitant when he says it, as if he’s afraid I’m going to either snap at him or run away.
Given where we are, the latter is much more likely.
A part of me wants to say he can’t tell me what to do, but the genuine concern written across his features make that part of me quiet and keep her mouth shut. But, his hand still touches my arm, and it doesn’t look as if he’s going to let me go without me saying something.
“I can’t make a promise like that,” I say, deciding it’s too much to lie to him.
Disappointment flashes across his face, but he takes his hand off my arm and lets me go, so at least there’s that.
I get out of the truck and head to the front doors of the apartment building, all without looking back at him—that is, until I reach the set of doors and happen to glance over my shoulder at him, and I find he’s still sitting there, watching me go.
Hayden gives me a sad smile and a wave, and I bite my bottom lip, barely resisting the urge to wave back at him. Hard as it is, I turn away and head through the glass doors, into the lobby of the building.
My heart stops when I see the person standing a good ten feet away, having witnessed that whole thing through the glass, and my feet grind to a halt.
Jeremy.
And he doesn’t look happy.