When it’s clear I’ve got something to say, Kayden leaves the doorway and sits back down.
“You’ve seriously got to be freaking kidding me. This is the part where you tell me you’re joking. That you aren’t secretly the world’s biggest stalker. That you didn’t buy a company just to get back at me. That you didn’t buy a freaking property next to mine to throw it in my face just because you can.”
Kayden sits there passively. He doesn’t have the expression on his face that most rich assholes have. His look doesn’t say, Believe me, I have enough money to do whatever the heck I want when I want to. His look doesn’t even say, I have enough money to destroy you for the rest of your life. Nope, not even a little bit of, I’m here for revenge, and you’re going down, Rea James. He just sits there. Calm. Smooth…so freaking smooth—as smooth as peanut butter or a baby’s bottom.
Imagining Kayden with a baby’s bottom instead of a face makes me smile to myself for real until Kayden opens his perfect set of lips and starts saying words—words I can barely believe.
“I’m not kidding. I’m here. We bought the company legally, and I bought the house too. The sale already went through. My dad told me to stop serial dating, stop embarrassing the family, and get my shit together. Well, this is me getting it together. I plan on making this company the next toilet paper empire.”
“Why’d you bother to buy a house when you could have just built a bloody toilet paper castle then?”
Kayden snorts. “Never did lose that wicked sense of humor, I see. You used to cut people to bits with it. Always razor-sharp, weren’t you, Rea?”
My teeth start aching. No, not the one I had just gotten filled but all the rest. FML. If Kayden brings on another trip to the dentist, I’m going to lose it for real. Right. That would be on top of the already huge mountain of problems threatening to consume me.
“We’re not here to talk about the past. Getting your shit together doesn’t involve me.”
“I’m afraid you’re wrong. It certainly does.” Kayden’s eyes narrow. They hone in on me like a missile hell-bent on my ultimate destruction. That is his end game, I’m sure. “I’m just not sure in what capacity because this was a spur of the moment plan. It was something I needed to do. I haven’t filled out the details, even in my own mind.”
My jaw would drop to the floor, but it’s too swollen from the filling to even move an inch. Lucky for me. I guess maybe the dentist could be a good thing after all.
But really, I feel like someone just dared me to walk through a museum carrying an open can of paint. Oh, and they booby-trapped all the rooms, and I’m blindfolded. That’s what this feels like. Like I’m walking into a disaster of the most epic proportions—a costly, epic disaster.
“Thanks for being so blunt,” I say dryly to cover up my intense discomfort.
I’m still so hella shocked by this hellish day and its set of devilish, fiendish, outlandish, hell-frozen-over surprises that my butt is currently frozen in place. I want to leap up and get the hell out of there, but it’s like my pants have been glued down to the chair with industrial strength glue.
“You’re perfectly welcome. You’re handling this remarkably well. I expected you to announce you were going to quit and up and sell your house just to get away from me.”
“Oh really? Well, I hate to disappoint you, but this is my job, and it is my company. I’ve worked my butt off to succeed here. My house is my house, and I’m proud of it. I also worked my ass off for it. You would know nothing about any of that, though, so I don’t expect you to understand why I wouldn’t tuck tail and run just because some Neanderthal storms into town and claims that it’s his.”
“Oh, I know you. I know you wouldn’t run. I was just kidding about that. My real expectation was you’d stand your ground and fight. You were always good at fighting for what you wanted. Not me, though. But then, I guess you didn’t want me. Maybe I should compliment you on that too. The rest of the world would have married me just for the money. You should have. You could have divorced me later and received a massive settlement. Then you wouldn’t have had to work so hard for shit.”
“Argh!” I explode out of the chair.
Kayden always was utterly infuriating. He, like me, was never afraid to speak his mind, and he was always funny. He had this dry sense of humor that could win over just about anyone. He was never afraid to talk about his family or where he came from either. He was one of those rich guys everyone loved to hate just because he was rich, but no one could truly hate Kayden. Not if you knew him. Kayden was just too…too…Kayden. Back then, that was a good thing.