10. Kavanaugh

10

KAVANAUGH

I was fucking up left and right. Though I was here again with Isla, we weren’t really together. Our one night of passion was just that. There was nothing I could say or do to make her trust me right now, and it was eating at my soul.

I wanted to blame the senator for everything, but deep down, I knew I was the one who made those decisions. The blame fell on my shoulders, and there was no going back in time to fix it. I had to push forward and figure out a way to build her faith in me again.

Slamming my fist into the punching bag in the training center, I worked out my frustrations the only way I knew how. Things in my life were going just fine until the senator stepped back into my life. I always knew if I ever let him back in, it would ruin everything. And here I was, trying to make a decision that could fuck up every aspect of my life no matter what I chose.

“Whoa, chill out,” Eli said, grabbing the bag as I hit it particularly hard. “What’s eating at you?”

“What isn’t?” I grumbled, tearing the velcro on my glove and slipping it off. I grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat from my face. Fuck, I had been at it for two hours and still hadn’t exhausted myself.

“I take it this is about the senator.”

I shook my head, downing a bottle of water. “Isla.”

His eyebrows bounced slightly. “Well, it had to be one of them. What did you do this time?”

I sighed, taking a seat on the bench. “Apparently, talking to another woman is bad.”

He snorted, sitting down beside me. “I could have told you that.”

“I was being sarcastic,” I said, shooting him an incredulous look.

“Yeah, well, you should think again. Who did you talk to?”

“Olivia,” I muttered. “Isla said there were other ways to cheat on someone without kissing and touching. I didn’t realize talking was considered cheating.”

“Well, normally I wouldn’t say it is, but you are engaged?—”

“Fake engaged,” I corrected.

“And that sort of thing—being engaged, but sleeping with another woman—does tend to bother your current girlfriend.”

“It was just talking! We were just trying to get to know each other so we could make it believable.”

He chuckled at me. “And that right there is your problem. You made it believable. And if it’s believable to the rest of the world, she has to wonder if it could be real.”

“But it wasn’t real. She has to know I would never cheat on her. And talking…hell, it was just that. I talked to Olivia. It was for the job. If I was protecting her, would I not stand too close or not talk to her in case it appeared to be cheating?”

He held up his hand. “Hey, I never said it was logical, but you have to look at this from the female point of view.”

I sighed heavily. “Why do men always have to think about how women will react to certain things? Seriously, why can’t they use their brains and say, Hey, Kavanaugh probably needs to talk to this woman so he can make this believable and end it sooner rather than later. Is that really too much to ask?”

“Do you really want an answer to that?”

“Yes!” I shouted, tossing up my hands. “This is a no-brainer.”

“Okay, so let’s flip the script.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Let’s say she’s working on something for her graphic design business and she has a male client. In order to…do graphic design shit, she has to know about the man.”

“Why would she have to know about the man?”

“To properly represent who he is.”

“Why would she need to do that? It’s about the business, not the man.”

“Maybe it’s about the man,” he gritted out. “Maybe the man is the company and you just go with this and not make me explain every last fucking detail to you.”

“Alright, she’s representing the man,” I grumbled.

“And to get to know him, they have to go out for dinner. She needs to dig deep and really find out what makes him tick. And then they go out for drinks afterward. They’re in a booth, talking about shit. She says some things about her life to try to relate to him. Pretty soon, they’re laughing and enjoying themselves.”

“Because he’s a fucking prick and doesn’t know where to draw the line between business and pleasure.”

“But then they leave at the end of the night and they say goodbye. She doesn’t tell you about it, but then two weeks later, you run into him while you’re out together. He makes some joke about something that happened while they were getting drinks, and now you’re pissed. Why?”

Did he have to make it that fucking obvious? Yes, I understood his point. That didn’t mean I had to like it. “There’s a difference.”

“Yeah, and that would be that he’s a client and you’re pretending this woman is your fiancée. Big fucking difference.”

“Fine. You’re right and I’m an asshole.”

“You got that right.”

“But I still say I’m in the right. She should know me better than that.”

He clapped me on the shoulder, lowering his voice. “Word to the wise. If you want to keep your balls intact, try not to be such an asshole.”

“That’s terrible advice.”

“It’s the only advice I have for you. You fucked up. Not her. Don’t try to put this on her shoulders.”

“Then tell me this, oh wise one. How am I supposed to earn back her trust? It was unintentionally broken.”

“It was totally intentionally broken. We fucking told you not to keep this shit from her.”

“You also agreed with me.”

“Hey, this is your problem. Not mine.”

Figures he would back out when I flipped the script on him. “The point is, she used to trust me. One wrong move and I’m suddenly a piece of shit.”

“Well, that’s the thing about trust. It’s easily given until you prove you can’t handle it.”

Eli and his big phrases and bullshit advice. “You know, one of these days it’s going to be me telling you how much you fucked up.”

“I’ve already fucked up and learned my lesson.”

“And what did you do about it?”

He grinned, then leaned in close. “Beg. Get down on your fucking knees and beg.” He shrugged and started to walk away. “If that doesn’t work, we can always take her to a museum.”

“Why a museum?” I called out.

“Because when she sees how pathetic you are when I toss a mummy at you, she won’t be able to be angry!”

I grimaced, not liking the sound of that at all. “Beg it is.”

I sat swinging on Isla’s porch in the dark, still arguing with myself about what was the right thing to do. Despite Cash being a total dick, I knew the pain of not being able to do a damn thing to quell the rage growing inside. I had escaped to the military, but Cash…he’d already been there and done that. His only outlet for his rage was revenge.

But at what cost?

The question played on repeat in my head as I stared into the darkness, searching for answers. So much was at risk, and if I did what I knew Cash would want, that would mean putting myself in the spotlight and going back to the fake life I hated.

The door creaked open and Isla stepped out, wrapping her sweater around her chest as she stepped outside. “What are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

With her hair pulled back in a ponytail, only a few strands of red curly hair peeked out, blowing in the slight breeze. She sat beside me, pulling her feet up and resting her head on her knees as she looked at me.

“Have you decided?”

I shook my head, staring into her beautiful green eyes. But they weren’t as full of life as they once were, and it wasn’t because she had woken up in the middle of the night. Yes, she was tired, but this was from weeks of not sleeping well. I hadn’t seen it at first. I’d taken her word for it when she said she was okay, but slowly, I saw the fear shining bright when she woke up in the middle of the night. She always said she was fine, and I chose to believe her.

But shadows didn’t lie. The deep bruising around her eyes from nights on end of terrible sleep was proof enough. Lingering fear edged into her eyes every now and then, and it was there now. She’d woken again from a nightmare, but I wasn’t there because I was out here, having a moral dilemma instead of taking care of the one person who needed me most right now.

How could I leave her? This wasn’t my battle, no matter how much Cash was my family. I had to look out for Isla because she was the most important person in my life at the moment. She was hurting, and if I chose to take on this mission, it would mean putting her in constant danger. How much longer before she broke? And would I be there to pick up the pieces, or would the job keep me from helping her through it?

I shook my head, decision made. Brushing my fingers through the escaped tendrils of hair, I tucked them behind her ear and smiled. “Let’s go to bed.”

She bit her lip, fear worming its way into her eyes again.

“Isla, you know you can talk to me, right?”

“Of course,” she said, plastering a smile on her face.

“You’re not okay, are you?”

She opened her mouth to argue, but she must have seen it on my face—the worry, the shame in myself for not being here. She took my hand in hers and glanced down at our linked fingers. “I’m trying to be.”

Fuck, that just about broke my heart. I pulled her into my arms with a heavy sigh, sliding my hand up and down her back. I was so fucking stupid for not seeing it sooner. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.”

“Yes, I do,” I said fiercely. “This is all my fault. If I had just been here?—”

“Stop,” she said instantly, pulling back from me. “We’re not going to do this. It’s over.”

It might be over, but the pain was still lingering, and it was my fault for not being here—for lying to her and making things more difficult than they had to be.

“I’m not taking the offer.”

Her face was a mixture of confusion and relief. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to. I’m needed here and?—”

“No, stop this right now,” she snapped. “You will not turn down jobs because you feel you have to babysit me. I’m okay. Yeah, things freak me out from time to time, but I will be fine.”

“Isla—”

“Kavanaugh, I couldn’t handle it if you stopped your life for me. I saw it in your eyes. You want to do this.”

“If you would just?—”

“No, I’m not just going to. You’ll tell me some bullshit about needing to stay and protect me. Well, I’m telling you right now, if you don’t take this job because of me, we’re over.”

Geez, the woman wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. “Okay.”

“I swear to God, if you—” A cute little line appeared between her eyes as she frowned at me. “What?”

“I said okay.”

“Okay, you’re taking the job?”

“No, okay, I’m not not taking the job because of you.”

“You’re not not?”

“Exactly. Isla, as much as I want to keep you safe, my decision isn’t just about you. There are other women and children around here to think about. And the town…so many people would get dragged into this mess. So, no. I’m not taking the job, and yes, there is a tiny hint of you in that decision, but it’s more than that.”

“So, you’re not taking the job.”

“Not even a little.”

Her lips pulled to the side as she thought it over. Damn, this woman was going to bust my balls for the next five years over this decision. Why couldn’t she just let it go? Probably for the same reasons she didn’t want to forgive me just yet.

And speaking of that…

I got down on my knees in front of her, grinning when I saw the sheer panic filling her eyes. “Isla?—”

“What…what are you doing?”

“I know I fucked up and I broke your trust?—”

She jolted to her feet, backing up into the swing. “Kavanaugh, this is so not a good idea.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“I think I do,” she said, the panic growing to unfathomable degrees.

It was fucking cute, and since she was all about jumping to conclusions tonight, I’d let her dig herself a deeper hole just for the hell of it.

“Isla, since I’ve known you?—”

“But you don’t really know me. Not anymore.”

“I know you well enough, and I know that I’m fucking pissed at myself for not trusting you with what was going on.”

She turned and strode to the end of the porch, but there was no escape for her. Only a railing blocked her path. She spun, her eyes flared in desperation. “I can’t marry you!”

My lips tilted up as I slowly got to my feet. “I wasn’t asking you to marry me.”

Her mouth dropped open, then she snapped it shut, cocking her head at me. “And why the hell not? I’m a good catch.”

“Right, but there’s sort of a problem I have.”

She crossed her arms over her chest in anger. “Yeah? And what’s that?”

“You’re not a bigamist, and while I would really love to kill your husband and end things sooner rather than later, I get the feeling you wouldn’t be too happy about that.”

Again, her jaw dropped open. “Well…then what did you want to tell me?”

“I wanted to apologize and beg you profusely to forgive me for being such a fucking jackass. You see, I’m not used to having a woman in my life, and when I thought there was even a chance you would walk away if you knew what the senator was doing, I panicked and did everything possible to make sure I didn’t lose you. And that was the wrong fucking choice, and I know now how much I hurt you. It’s going to take time for you to put your faith in me again. To look at me like you used to.” I shrugged lightly. “Maybe you’ll never look at me like that again. But I hope someday you do because I can guarantee there will be a time when I’ll want to ask you to be my wife. And I’d really fucking like it if you said yes.”

She stared at me in complete shock. She let out a little squeak that only prompted a shrug from me.

“But I can try the whole proposal thing on one knee if you’d prefer that.”

I tried my best not to laugh as she struggled to swallow. Mortification crept over her face, but it wasn’t long before she pursed her lips. “Well, I suppose the apology will have to do. Maybe next time you should bring Jujyfruits.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I chuckled. “So…bed?”

“Well, I’m not going to wait out here all night for you to make me a bigamist.”

She stormed past me, but didn’t hide her smile fast enough. Yeah, I was getting back on her good side.