Chapter 19 Kayla
KAYLA
My hair smells like grease from the cafe, my uniform needs a wash, and my hands are cracked from scrubbing dishes. But I don’t have the energy or the motivation to look after myself anymore.
It’s been four days since I walked out of Seth’s place. Four long days of feeling like my chest has been split open and my heart yanked out.
Now that I’ve gotten over the shock of it, the lies and the betrayal, I miss him like crazy. It feels like a piece of me has been sliced off and cast into the ocean. I’m adrift without him. My life doesn’t make sense anymore.
I came to Temptation Bay to find myself, but all I found was loneliness.
When I was with Seth, I thought maybe I could follow my dreams and be a nurse. He even helped me download the application for college. But now that all seems stupid, like I should just go back home and do whatever Dad wants me to do.
The only reason I’m still here is because Mira is going into labor any day, and I don’t want to let her down.
I turn the key to lock up the cafe, clutching a bag of breadcrumbs in my hand.
I haven’t fed the seagulls for a few days, and I wonder if Mr. Red misses me or if he’s found some other food source.
There’s a gaggle of birds further along the waterfront, and I wonder if it’s Mr. Red and his flock.
I set off along the waterfront, my eyes squinting in the sunlight. The sound of the waves crashing on the beach, a sound I used to find calming, only rubs away at my soul. I feel empty, like I’m going through the motions of living without really living.
As I get further along the waterfront, I notice the birds swarming around someone on a bench. They must have found an alternate food source. My heart jumps to life thinking it might be Seth.
I squint into the sun but can’t see the lone figure on the park bench properly.
It won’t be him, I tell myself. I told him he was a creep. I told him I never wanted to see him again. But now I’m not sure if that’s true.
As I approach the bench, the figure turns, and I forget to breathe. It’s Seth.
His hair is a shaggy mess, and there’s a dark shadow where he hasn’t shaved. But he still takes my breath away, despite everything.
I stop where I am, and we stare at each other for a moment.
“Did your cameras tell you I’d be here?”
He winces at my harsh tone, and I almost feel sorry for him. Almost, but not quite.
“No. I haven’t watched you through a camera since that first night we spent together.”
If I’m supposed to be comforted by that, I’m not.
“But you did watch me?”
He hangs his head, and I feel a bit bad for him, like I’m being too harsh. Afterall, it was my father who employed him.
Seth raises his head and looks me in the eye. I thought I’d see shame on his face, but instead he looks defiant.
“Kayla. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I did.”
“Spying on me, you mean?”
He holds up a hand. “Let me finish and then you can judge me.”
I put my hands on my hips. I’ve already judged him, but I’m willing to listen. I can’t imagine what he could say that would make me trust him again, but God dammit, I want him to try.
“I don’t regret anything.”
My eyebrows shoot up my forehead. It’s not the apology I was expecting.
“I don’t regret taking the job because from the moment I saw your photo, you woke something in me.
I’ve never felt like that before, Kayla.
I was intrigued by you. I had to find out all about you.
I had to know you. No woman has awakened that in me before.
No one before you, Kayla. And when I saw you, that was it.
I knew you’d be mine. You became my obsession. ”
His words make my skin prickle. He’s so sincere, so intense. It’s hypnotizing, what he’s saying. Because I know it’s true.
“I don’t regret hacking into your TV. It fed my obsession.
It allowed me to observe you, to start to get to know you.
It fed this obsession for you that was growing in my soul and eating me from the inside.
I knew it had to stop. I tried turning the screens off.
But you haunted my dreams. Your image, the softness of your skin, the way you laughed, your easy smile. ”
Seth stands up and continues speaking, his eyes never leaving mine. As he speaks, I find it harder and harder to breathe under his intensity, the yearning in my heart for him intensifying with every word.
“I don’t regret engineering a meeting with you because I didn’t know how else to talk to you, Kayla.
I had to find out if my obsession was founded on anything more than your heart-stopping beauty.
I had to get to know you, to find out if you were who my heart told me you were, who my heart knew you were from the moment I saw your picture.
I had to know if you were my soul mate, the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. ”
Seth slides down on one knee, his bad knee bent in a way that I know must hurt him, but he doesn’t show any pain.
He pulls a ring out of his pocket and holds it out to me.
“My heart knew it since the moment I first saw you, but after getting to know you, my soul knows it too. I love you, Kayla, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”
I’m so surprised that I forget to breathe. I try to take in his words, his declaration of love that fills my heart and opens my chest.
All the pain from the last few days leaves my body, and I feel hope and warmth and love.
Seth’s words are like a balm to my hurting soul. The obsession makes sense. And it makes me hot to know that this man was so obsessed he broke his own moral code, that he craved me so badly he did whatever it took to get into my life.
It’s crazy. I know it’s crazy, but the way we met, the things he did, don’t seem so bad to me now.
Seth’s looking at me with a hopeful look in his eyes. There’s pain there too.
“Oh, shoot. Your leg.”
I put my hand on his arm to pull him to his feet, but he shakes his head. “Not until you give me an answer.”
The answer’s easy. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, you crazy man. I’ll marry you.”
Seth beams as he slips the ring onto my finger, and only then does he pull himself onto his feet. He grits his teeth, trying not to let me see, but I know how much trouble his injury gives him.
“I’ve missed you,” I say.
He pulls me toward him and runs his strong hands up my back and buries them in my hair.
“I’ve missed you too.”
As his lips meet mine, my heart feels full. The emptiness from the last few days is gone. I feel whole again. I feel safe.
I know that Seth did what he did to get close to me, and that’s the kind of love I want, the obsessive kind that grabs you by the soul and doesn’t let you go.
I tip the last of my bread onto the ground, and as the seagulls fight over it, we kiss long and hard.
My heart is full. It may be an unconventional way to meet, but it’s what we have, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.