Chapter 26 Poor Choices
POOR CHOICES
“Morning, Kenzie.”
“Morning, Mary,” she said when she walked into the building over a week later.
It was her first time coming in alone and she was proud of herself.
She got up early, drove Nelson’s car to the subway station and parked, got on the right one, got off, walked to the building and here she was.
He was in California and had flown there with West, Braylon, Rowan and Saylor. She liked Rowan’s girlfriend a lot.
Guess they’d been to North Carolina first to see Talia’s baby, then came here and were heading home.
The amount of traveling this family did for each other just blew her mind.
For someone who’d only left the state of Utah twice in her life, and the first time she ended up married to a stranger, the thought of jumping on planes for a weekend was unfathomable.
She walked down the hall to the law department, went to her desk and put her things down, then got to work.
Two hours later, she stood and walked to the bathroom. In the hall she passed Lily.
“Hi,” Lily said. “How are things going?”
She looked around, but didn’t see anyone. It was getting harder and harder to avoid her sister-in-law and husband in the building.
Nelson almost always found his way down here to at least glance at her and then talk to Braylon.
It was obvious to her what he was doing and she was positive others had noticed it too.
Then Lily stopped in a few times a week to get Braylon for lunch or have lunch with him.
“Good,” she said. “How about with you?”
She’d found out over the weekend that Lily was pregnant and out of her first trimester, due in October. Guess they’d waited to say it when more family was around this past weekend, but she didn’t know if anyone at work knew yet.
Babies were blooming in the Carlisle clan.
“Feeling great,” Lily said. “Not too overwhelmed with things?”
“Nah.” She’d been texting Lily more than Abby. It didn’t feel right to text the wife of the head of the family. At least to her.
Though talking to her boss’s wife on the side might be strange to many too.
Her life never used to be this complicated.
“If you want to get lunch later, we can,” Lily said. “Or dinner tonight. I’m always lonely when Braylon is gone.”
Dinner would be great, but she wasn’t about to risk navigating the subway home alone later at night. Nor would she have asked Lily to go closer to her house. Could she use West’s driver? She’d been told she could, but there was no way in heck she was asking.
“Lunch sounds good. If you want to leave the building for it.”
“Sure,” Lily said. “I’ll text you when I’m ready.”
She didn’t have to explain that she had wanted no one to see them together in the cafeteria. Lily would understand anyway.
After using the restroom, she returned to her office.
“Trying to suck up to the boss’s wife?”
“What?” she asked.
There was Noelle. An attorney in the office. Someone here a few years.
“I saw you talking to Lily in the hallway. Kind of funny that you’ve only been here a few weeks and you’re getting close to Braylon’s wife.”
She didn’t owe any explanations to anyone. “We were only chatting. She wanted to know how I was doing. She’s nice.”
“She is,” Noelle said. “Not that she checks in with me. Or did when I started. I also noticed that Braylon comes around more with you too. Nelson has been stopping in when you’re working. It has me wondering if there is something going on between you two.”
“With who?” she asked.
She wouldn’t crack.
Her palms might be damp. Her heart was definitely thumping. And she was positive her ears were ringing.
But would she let anyone know she was internally coming apart at being caught?
Heck no!
“Nelson and you,” Noelle said. “He comes down and walks around, waves at you and smiles more.”
She knew someone was going to catch on, but the last thing she needed was anyone to know she had a connection to the Carlisle family.
“I think you’re seeing more than is there.”
It wasn’t really a lie. Not in her mind.
“If you say so,” Noelle said. “I get it. I wouldn’t want anyone to know I was dating a member of the family.” Noelle smirked. “People would judge you more. Look at you longer. Talk about you behind their backs. It’s a cutthroat world in here. No one wants the knife held to them.”
She didn’t think what Noelle was saying was the truth, but since she was part of the family, could be she wasn’t seeing it fully.
Or were they shielding her?
Nah, she didn’t think that was happening.
It wasn’t as if West was coming down to see her. Or talk to her. She’d passed him once in the hall and he said hi to her as if she were another employee.
Did he wink and smirk after when no one was looking?
Yeah, he had. She found it sweet in an odd way. Not something she would have thought of after her first meeting with West back in Vegas.
“That’s right,” she said. “I’m here to do a job and nothing else.”
Noelle leaned against the half wall separating her from the other law clerks. “I find it odd that you’re only working part time. Someone said you’re not taking the bar until February.”
“I missed the cutoff to take it in July,” she said. Not a lie and she didn’t have to volunteer she was taking it in Utah in July.
“Why not work full time then? You’ve got time to study. Unless you don’t think you’ll pass. It’s not cheap to live around here. You never said where you were living.”
“And she doesn’t need to,” Vanessa, West’s assistant, said. “Don’t you have work to do?”
Noelle pushed off the wall. “Just having a friendly conversation. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Nope. I know what I need and Brian can give it to me,” Vanessa said.
West’s assistant moved past them both and carried on as if she hadn’t just saved her.
Did Vanessa know who she was in relation to West? She’d never asked who knew what.
She supposed there had to be several here that could know the situation.
When she went to lunch with Lily, she’d get that information without throwing a coworker under the bus. The last thing she needed was to start trouble.
But trouble seemed to follow her around like a dark ominous cloud ready to rain on any bit of sunshine that wanted to peek through later that night.
Her phone was ringing on the kitchen counter. She was making a salad, something light. She’d had a bigger lunch with Lily earlier.
“Hi, Mom,” she said. “Is everything okay?”
She’d done nothing more than text with her mother since her move almost three weeks ago.
The weekly conversations with both of her parents were a thing of the past.
They were still upset with her and there wasn’t much she could do to change that.
“We’re fine. How about you?”
“Hanging in there. I had to work today and will again tomorrow. I really like my job.”
“How are things with Nelson?”
Her mother’s voice was off to her. Controlled. Tight. As if there were words that were fighting to scream out, but her mother never screamed a day in her life.
Or maybe Kenzie was more on edge after her conversation with Noelle, Vanessa interrupting it, and then Lily verifying that it’s possible Vanessa could know who Kenzie was. Even that Nelson might have wanted her checked on with him gone.
The last one got her back up. That her husband would stoop low enough to have his brother’s assistant walk down and see if she was fine.
She’d wanted to know if Lily was tasked with checking in on her, but since they’d met in the hallway on a bathroom break, there was no way that was planned.
Lily even confessed she was lonely when Braylon was on the road. They’d all be home later tonight.
“They’re good,” she said. “Better than I could have hoped.” Silence followed her after that statement. “Mom, are you there?”
“Why didn’t you tell us who your husband was?”
Oh great. Just one more thing to be dumped on her.
“You met Nelson. What are you talking about?”
“That he’s so wealthy,” her mother said. “His brother is a billionaire. Kenzie, money is evil.”
Which might be why her father didn’t tell her mother about the debt he had on the farm. And if she had to listen to this crap her father was going to get an earful too. She couldn’t take this much longer.
“Oh my God! Do you ever hear yourself?”
“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“Mom,” she said. “You say debt is horrible. Money is needed not to have debt. And it’s not my money, and no one in his family is evil. You don’t even know them.”
“I know my daughter and it appears you’ve gotten yourself into some kind of mess and now they are holding you there to not make a bad name for them.”
She threw her hands in the air. Sometimes her mother’s ideas came so far out of left field they might as well be from another planet.
“Mom. I’m not going to argue with you. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Not even what you’re thinking. It’s ludicrous.
No one is using anyone. No one is blackmailing anyone.
Guilt, yep, that’s there. You put it on me.
Remember? You’re the one who got upset over the prospect of divorce.
So if you want to put the blame on anyone, look in that mirror of yours. ”
“Don’t you dare put your horrible decisions and actions on my shoulders to atone for your poor choices.”
“I’m not atoning for anything,” she said. “Where is this all coming from? How did you find out?”
“I found out because I told someone that you were married when they asked why you moved away. They wanted to know your husband’s name and looked him up and asked if it was him.”
Her mother would never think to do that. “I don’t know why you had to volunteer my life to anyone,” she said.
She hadn’t even told Bethany she was married to Nelson. Just that she was moving here to give it a chance.
Though their marriage was legally binding, neither of them looked at it as the reason for her to be here.
At least she didn’t think he was.
It was more about getting to know each other more.
This was one of those things where marriage came first.
Could love follow?
She liked to think so. She definitely wanted it.
Sometimes she wondered if she was halfway there, already falling for her husband.
When he walked into a room, her vision sharpened, her pulse quickened, her breath caught, and her fingers itched to touch him. Anywhere, everywhere. To strip away his clothes and press her lips to his skin. Wherever he’d let her, and most times, he encouraged it.
But it wasn’t only about sex. There was feeling in it, emotions in every kiss and lingering touch. Tenderness she hadn’t seen coming. And if she was honest… maybe even love that she wanted to have.
Did he feel the same?
She didn’t know.
What she knew was that he wanted it as much as her.
In everything he did, whether it was being overprotective and a little overbearing, or pulling her close at night and holding her as if nothing could touch her. He made her feel safe, made her believe she had this because he was there.
No one had ever stood beside her like that. Not in her entire life.
“I’m not hiding or lying about why you moved,” her mother said. Her voice was stronger than normal and she heard a noise in the background. She’d bet anything her father had put her up to this.
“You don’t have to hide or lie. But you don’t have to give every detail either,” she said. “Because you know as well as I do, there is still a lot in the air. So now you’ve made it known I was married and if it doesn’t work, you’re going to have to admit I divorced.”
There was a sharp gasp on the other end. She rarely talked back to her mother, but she didn’t need another layer of guilt pressing down on her, not when she was already struggling to keep her balance under the weight she carried.
“You know better than to disrespect me that way,” her mother said.
She sucked her lips in with a breath and closed her eyes.
“Mom. You mean well. You always did and always do. I know Dad is there and putting the pressure on you to have this conversation with me. I hope to heck it’s not another form of guilt for me to stay married regardless of my feelings.
” When silence greeted that statement, she knew her answer.
“Next time you want to talk, can you do it when Dad isn’t around? ”
“That might be best,” her mother said. “I need to go now.”
“Yep, you do, but you can put Dad on now.”
More silence greeted her. She fully expected her mother to say no.
“Kenzie,” her father said.
“Is Mom close by?” she asked.
“No. She went into the kitchen.”
“Good. Listen. I’m done with being made to feel guilty over what is going on in my life, especially when I’ve been honest about it. But you haven’t been honest with Mom so you should stop putting her up to things.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw the documents in your office. The mortgage you took on the farm. Why you did is your reason, but I know Mom isn’t aware of it.”
There was heavy breathing as if her father wanted to shout at her, but he wouldn’t and have her mother ask what was going on.
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I wasn’t looking for anything other than tape and found it. My point is, stop telling me all my decisions are wrong when you’re keeping secrets from your wife.”
Just like that, the phone disconnected.
She couldn’t be like her mother following along and doing what was told of her out of respect when it wasn’t what she felt or wanted.
And she wouldn’t be her father and keep things from her husband either.
Life was different now.
She wanted to be happy. She wanted her husband to feel that way also.
Compromise was important, but self-sacrifice could bite her butt!