Chapter 11
Aleck frowned at the text he’d just received from Kenna.
Kenna: We need to talk.
The joke was that if a woman ever said that to a man, it didn’t mean anything good. But it was one hundred percent true. And Aleck had a feeling he knew what she wanted to talk about.
He mentally kicked himself. He should’ve told her that he lived at Coral Springs on Sunday. He’d been enjoying the day too much to bring it up, to possibly ruin the mood—and her perception of him.
He hadn’t thought much about her hanging out with Elodie and Lexie, but he probably should’ve warned the two women that he hadn’t told Kenna about his money, and maybe asked them if they could please not say anything until he had a chance to tell her himself.
But he hadn’t. Kenna had spent the afternoon with Elodie and Lexie—and now she had a “need” to talk. It was likely they’d spilled the beans. He’d asked Kenna to promise she’d talk to him if she heard anything she didn’t like, and it looked like she was at least keeping that promise.
He quickly sent a text back.
Aleck: Of course. Anytime. I’m home and not busy.
He’d prefer to get this over with. To apologize and grovel if he had to.
Kenna: Okay.
She didn’t say when she’d call, but Aleck didn’t press.
He paced back and forth with his phone in his hand, trying to think of the best way to explain his reasoning behind not telling her he lived at Coral Springs.
To tell her that he had a healthy seven figures in his bank account.
It was almost amusing that Kenna was pissed that he had money.
Most women would be thrilled. But not his Kenna.
His Kenna.
Shit. Was she still his?
“Come on, call,” he muttered. He wanted this done. He hated that she was upset.
Aleck stopped pacing and chuckled. Not because something was funny, but because he didn’t even know if she was upset. He was working himself into a frenzy. For all he knew, Kenna wanted to talk about something else.
No. He knew deep down, his money was causing problems for her.
Maybe he’d subconsciously hoped Elodie and Lexie would let something slip, so he didn’t have to figure out a way to bring it up.
Either way, he hated the feeling of dread that had settled deep within him.
Kenna made him wait for another half an hour before his phone finally rang.
“Kenna,” he said as he answered the phone.
“Hi.”
Her voice was flat and didn’t have the welcoming tone it usually did when she called.
“You said to talk to you if I ever heard something I didn’t like about you,” Kenna said, not beating around the bush. “You live in Coral Springs.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Aleck said without prevarication.
“You’re rich,” Kenna added.
“Technically, my parents are rich. But yes, I have access to a very comfortable trust fund and have a healthy amount of money in my bank account.”
Kenna didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Aleck was afraid to say anything else that would exacerbate the situation.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Say something when we pulled into the Coral Springs parking lot on Sunday? You had plenty of time to let me know that you lived there and it wouldn’t be an issue getting onto the private beach.”
The hurt in her voice killed him. Aleck hated having this conversation over the phone, but he wasn’t about to ask her to wait until the weekend. “I should’ve.”
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“I don’t really have a good excuse,” Aleck told her.
“But my bank account isn’t something I go around talking about to people I just met.
I only use the money my parents put aside for me very rarely.
Yes, I live in a penthouse at Coral Springs.
My parents bought the place a few years ago as a vacation home.
When I got stationed here, they gave it to me.
I tried to protest, but it was pointless.
I’m paying them back for it…out of my Navy salary, not the trust fund. ”
Aleck took a deep breath and kept going.
Kenna hadn’t hung up on him or interrupted, he wanted to think those were both good signs, but the truth was he had no idea.
She could be waiting until he was all the way done explaining before telling him she never wanted to see him again. The thought made him talk faster.
“You accused me of being a snob that first night we met, and while that stung, you weren’t exactly wrong.
My parents did their best to make me work for what I wanted, but holidays were always awesome.
I usually got exactly what I wanted. Birthdays too.
And yes, I got a car when I turned sixteen.
I’ve never really wanted for anything. So yeah, it was hard for me to understand why you were satisfied with a waitress’s salary.
But the more I came to know you, the more I got it.
“Life isn’t about money. It’s about relationships.
Connections with people. And you’ve got the unique ability to connect with just about everyone you meet.
It’s a beautiful thing, Kenna. And Sunday, when I picked you up, you were utterly adorable.
So excited about crashing the private beach.
I had no idea you’d picked my condo’s beach to sneak onto until we pulled into the lot.
There was no good way to just blurt out that I lived there.
I mean, I could’ve, and should’ve, but the truth is…
I was nervous. You made your opinion of rich people more than clear, and the kind of people you assumed lived in my complex.
The very last thing I wanted was for you to paint me with the same brush, or break things off because of where I lived. ”
He sighed. “For what it’s worth, I felt guilty all day, and since Sunday, I’ve felt even more like shit for deceiving you.
I was going to tell you this weekend. And I know that’s a convenient thing for me to say now…
but I hope you remember that I invited you to my place for dinner.
I’d hoped even if you were pissed at me, I could woo you with a delicious meal. ”
Aleck stopped and took a deep breath. When Kenna still didn’t say anything, he tentatively said, “Kenna?”
He heard her sigh. “You embarrassed me,” she said quietly. “I can’t help but think that you were laughing at me internally the whole time.”
“Never,” Aleck said emphatically. Then he decided to tell her something he’d never told anyone else—not even his teammates.
Something that had played a huge part in keeping the details of his finances close to the vest. “When I was twenty-five…I met this woman at a bar. She seemed different, not like the other Frog Hogs.”
“Frog Hogs?” Kenna asked.
“Yeah. The generic term is ‘tag chaser,’ women who go after any man in the military. But a Frog Hog is someone who only wants to date the best of the best…a Navy SEAL.”
“Conceited,” Kenna muttered.
But Aleck caught the humor in her tone, and he much preferred that than the humiliation he’d heard earlier.
“We prefer the word ‘confident,’” Aleck said.
He took another deep breath and continued his story.
“Anyway, she was tall, blonde, had a master’s degree, and she was pretty, so I felt proud that she’d singled me out.
I knew about Frog Hogs, of course, but she seemed so different that I ignored the warning signs.
We dated for a few months, and I thought things were going pretty great.
My team hated her though. They didn’t come out and say it, but I could tell.
“We were all out together one night, and she went to the restroom. She was gone a really long time, and I got worried, so I went to check on her. She was drunk, and laughing and talking to a girlfriend really loud in the bathroom. I could hear every word through the door.”
Aleck paused. He hated remembering how he’d felt when he’d stood in the dim hallway in that bar.
“What’d she say?” Kenna asked quietly.
Deciding to treat the conversation like a bandage and just rip it off to get it over with, Aleck continued.
“She was talking about me, and how she was sure I was on the verge of asking her to marry me. Basically said she’d encourage me to go to Vegas and get it done quickly, then it would only be a matter of time before I was killed on some mission.
And as my wife, she’d get not only my life insurance from the Navy, but my trust fund too.
She and her friend actually laughed over that, agreeing that I was a sure thing.
That she wouldn’t have to—in her words—put up with me for long because of my dangerous job. ”
“Holy shit, what a cunt!” Kenna exclaimed.
Aleck couldn’t help but chuckle, more because of Kenna saying “cunt” than anything else.
“I hope you dumped her right then and there,” she continued.
“I did,” Aleck said. “I turned around and left the bar. Didn’t even tell my friends why I was leaving.
I had brought the bitch to the bar, so she had to get a ride home with her friend.
She called me several times but I never spoke to her again.
I texted her that we were done…and that’s it.
It was juvenile, and I should’ve been the bigger person and broken up in person rather than ghosting her, but I just couldn’t. ”
“No, you should not have. She didn’t give a shit about you, so why would you give her the decency of breaking up in person? Fucking bitch.”