Have you had those moments of mind-numbing pain? When the world suddenly stopped turning? The ground was suddenly gone under your feet and you felt as if you were floating in the air? When everything came crashing down to your face with a big, loud bang?
Then when the world started moving again, it spun ten times faster and everything around you seemed magnified? The sounds were so much louder, things were so much bigger, everything felt cramped and crowded, you couldn’t breathe, and you felt the urge to scream.
Well, that was exactly how I felt right now.
I was locked in Nick’s embrace. I was hearing him say I love you over and over again instead of answering my question.
I used almost all my strength to push Nick away from me. He staggered backward but took another step forward to retrieve me into his arms. But I held my hands up and said, “Stop!” in a raised voice. “Answer the damn question, Nick. Is. It. True?”
Nick took a deep breath. And then he nodded. “Yes. I met your father first, before I met you. Back then, nothing was more important to me than saving this diner. Your father was convinced I could do this job. I accepted blindly! I haven’t met you yet. I had no idea who you were. And I had no clue I was going to fall hard for you after I met you.”
“Oh my god, Nick,” Margaret whispered behind him in shock.
“I swear to God, kitten. Soon after I got to know you, I went straight to your father to tell him that the deal was off. I would find another way to buy back the diner because what he asked of me was not possible.”
He turned to my father angrily. “I told you I wasn’t going to do it. I told you the deal was off! I even told you to leave your daughter alone, let her be. Let her live her life and find her happiness without you meddling! I told you I’m not going to pursue her for your benefit!”
My father nodded. “And I heard every word you said back then in my office. But when you said those words, I knew exactly that you would be pursuing her for your own benefit. You see, Mr. Atkins, you underestimated me. Before I asked you to go after my daughter, I had my contacts dig deep into you. I had to know all your secrets, all the skeletons in your closet. Before I told you the terms of the game, I already knew who you were. And I knew you weren’t a quitter. You’re a man with conviction, passion, wits, and courage. You never quit on a challenge. But barely two weeks into your task, you came to my office telling me you want out. No negotiations. No considerations. It made me wonder why.
“When you told me to stay the hell away from my daughter’s life, I knew. You were falling for her. And I knew you would try to make her fall in love with you the way that you already were in love with her. Well, that worked just fine for me, too. After all, I liked what I saw in my investigators’ reports about you. So, our deal was never off, son.”
I stared at my father, unable to believe what I just heard. Then a memory hit me. “Oh my God, you tried to have me raped!” Then I turned to Nick, with tears rolling down my cheeks. Nick instantly knew what was going on in my mind.
“Fuck, no!” he said, taking a step toward me but stopping in between because I held my hand up to stop him. He shook his head. “Please, if you don’t want to believe anything else, it’s okay, but please believe that I have nothing to do with that, kitten. I would never do that to you or to any other person. Come on! You know me. You know what I’m capable of and what I’m not. I’m not a monster, kitten. You should at least know that.”
When I continued to stare back at him without so much as a change in expression, Nick turned to my father. “You tried to have your daughter raped! When I told you the deal was off, that I wasn’t going to help you, you sent the wolves to go after her!”
My father shook his head. “No, no. I would never have my own flesh and blood be raped. I’m a manipulative man but I’m not a criminal. Mackenzie and I may not have the best relationship but she’s still my daughter. That man was never sent out to successfully carry out the deed. It was all a play. His part was to scare Mackenzie enough that she would run out of the house just in time for you to find her.”
“How? How did you know that Nick was going to find me? Unless he was part of the act as well!” I asked my father and then I glared at Nick. “You! You were in on it!”
Nick shook his head, “No, no! I swear to God, kitten! I could die now and I would still insist on my truth! The deal was already off! I had nothing to do with your father then.”
“Then how come you were there? At the right place at the right time!? Was that simply a coincidence!”
“That’s all me, child,” my father replied for him. “I told you. I got far in this business because I have the talent for persuasion, and if that does not work, I result to manipulation. Yes, Nick was manipulated into being at the right place, at the right time.”
“How is that even possible?” I asked.
“I called him. I sounded worried and panicked about you. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. Your boyfriend has an irritable habit of doing what he could to make the world a safer place to live in. I stationed people to have an eyeball on him. I had him followed. And as soon as we were sure he was headed to our house’s direction, I called in the hit—well, I mean, the staged hit.
“I had to make sure that you were chased out of the house in that very small window of time that we had. And I had to make sure Mr. Atkins knew that I was the one putting your life in danger. Because if he did, I knew there was no way he would let you out of his sight. He would insist you live in his house. That would give him homecourt advantage to do what he needed to do. I knew he’d try his damn best to charm you. Since he was doing it for himself, he would do a far better job at it than originally planned. Just the same, he was doing exactly what I wanted him to do—he was turning my princess charming into the lady I dreamed she would be. Worked well for me, too.”
“You bastard!” Nick snarled at him. His face was red with wrath, and he looked as if he was trying his best not to pounce on my father. “That guy you hired looked as if he was going to finish the job! To stage your drama, you let a man strip your daughter naked and beat her black and blue?! She had nightmares for weeks! She was so scared that she wasn’t safe anywhere—not even in her own dreams! She suffered from PTSD! You were lucky that her mind was strong. She recovered from it quickly.”
He clenched his fists and took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. Then he added, “I don’t care what you do to me. But you have no right to do this to her! You’re done breaking her spirit. Now, you’re breaking her heart! What kind of a father are you?”
My father sighed. “I know. I’m the kind that you should protect her from. And I’m glad you did. You were the man I thought you were after all. And if I die now, I’ll be happy because I know that with you around, my daughter and my company are both in good hands,” my father said. He looked at me with sadness in his eyes. “I love my daughter. It’s just that, when I see her, I see the woman who stole the love of my life away from me. It was too difficult for me to get over that.”
Tears ran down my cheeks. I stared at my father with a blank expression on my face. “I would never forgive you for that. I’ve always needed a father. But you took that away from me. You made it your mission to remove the part of Isabella in me, even if it meant you breaking my body, mind, spirit, and heart.” Tears rolled down my cheeks and I felt my heart slowly beginning to form ice around it to protect myself from the pain that this betrayal was causing me.
I turned to Nick. “I would never forgive you for scheming with my father. Regardless of whether you knew me then or not. Even if you fell for me afterward. It didn’t change the fact that you thought I was some sort of card game you challenged yourself on mastering. I thought you were the only guy I met that I could trust because your intentions were pure, and you have no hidden agenda. How wrong I was.”
Tears sprang to Nick’s eyes. He shook his head and looked at me pleadingly. “No, kitten. I loved you. I’m sorry if it looked as though you were a conquest. I’m ashamed of that. I wasn’t thinking. But everything else I said, everything I did, they were all because I really loved you. I would do anything for your forgiveness.”
I raised my chin and stared at him angrily. “Just like you would do anything to save this diner.” Nick looked away from me, shame and guilt occupying his face once again.
To my father, I said, “I hope you’re happy now. You got what you wanted. You have turned me into the girl you have always wanted your daughter to be. But this does not change anything between us.”
I turned to Margaret to give her a small nod. She smiled at me apologetically. Then I walked away to the parking lot. I had no idea where I was going. I just knew that my world was crumbling and I was crashing to the ground head first. For the first time in weeks, I had no idea what I was going to do, or where I was going.
I took several deep breaths.
Think, Mackenzie. One step at a time. One thing at a time.
Okay, first thing I needed to do was to get out of here. I took the first empty cab that stopped by in front of me.
Second thing: Get out of Nick’s house.
I told the driver to head to Nick’s house and then I texted Terry to meet me there in an hour. I needed to pack my things.
After five minutes, my phone rang. I looked at the screen and saw Nick’s picture on it. Your Hot Boyfriend, it says. I couldn’t even remember when he changed his ID on my phone. Fresh tears rolled down my cheeks. I was tempted to answer, to tell the driver to go back so I could run into Nick’s arms. It would be the easiest thing to do. And the least painful.
But then I remembered, Nick used me to give Margaret back her diner. He made a deal with my father with absolute disregard for my feelings. He was a gambler. He gambled with my father, and I was the chip on the table.
As soon as I reached home, I used my key and ran inside the house. I ran to the room and locked the door behind me, in case Nick came home and I was still here. I took my bag from the closet and packed everything I owned—those that I bought using my own money. Nick was calling me non-stop. I didn’t bother to answer. I was on a mission—to get out of his house and get him out of my life.
I was about to finish packing when I heard Nick turn the knob of the door.
“Kitten, please,” he pleaded.
I felt my stomach twist. A few hours ago, Nick was the person I trusted the most. He was happily inking me as “Nick’s girl.” Now I could remember him as only the best tactic my father used against me. To turn me into something that would be useful to him, something that wouldn’t remind him of the day his wife left him for her lesbian lover.
He knocked on the door again. “Kitten, please, let’s talk.” I heard desperation in his voice.
I leaned on the other side of the door, completely broken. How did this day turn out like this? I wish I hadn’t gone to the fair at all. We could have stayed home making love all day! At this moment, ignorance is bliss!
I took a few labored breaths, and then I wiped the tears on my eyes and cheeks. With all the courage I could muster, I turned the knob and opened the door.
Nick stared back at me with a broken expression on his face. He’d been crying, too, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. This was hurting him as much as it was hurting me. Maybe even more because during the whole course of our relationship, I really did believe that he loved me more than I loved him.
He started to take a step forward to hug me. “Kitten… please…”
“You said we’ll talk. So talk. You are not allowed to touch me in any way. Otherwise, I will walk out the door. Understand?”
He bit his lip and after a few seconds of contemplating on the situation, he nodded.
I leaned against the wall beside the door frame and then I sat on the floor. Nick stared at me for a long moment before he sat on the floor on the other side of the door frame, leaning his head back against the wall. We didn’t speak for a full minute. The silence was deafening. It was so thick you could cut it with a knife. My heart was pounding, I could almost hear it breaking.
Then finally I heard Nick sigh and say, “I know there is absolutely no excuse for what I did. I’m sorry, babe. I wanted to tell you sooner. Every single time since you got here, I wanted to come clean. But then you were having nightmares. I didn’t think it was a good idea to mention your father. You were running away from him. If you learned that he hired me to do the same thing as that motherfucker—albeit in a more romantic context—I knew for sure you would run away from me.
“Back then, nothing was more important than keeping you safe from your father. So I kept it. Not permanently. I told myself I would tell you someday. But I just couldn’t find the right time. I couldn’t picture myself telling you and then making love to you afterward. Every single time I imagined myself coming clean and you end up walking out the front door with your bags in your hands. And I wasn’t ready for that.”
“And that’s exactly what’s going to happen. But mostly because you waited too long to tell me,” I said wryly. “I thought I knew you better. Apparently, I do not know you at all. Your acting skills are beyond superb! You not only successfully turned me into the daughter my father wanted, you made me fall in love with you too!”
He looked at me, his eyes narrowed, as if he could not believe he was hearing those words from me. He took a deep breath and in a low, hoarse voice, he said, “I wanted you to fall in love with me, because I was in love with you beyond sanity! More than life itself!”
We sat there for a while, in silence. We were both crying, both fearing that this could well be the end of our story. I didn’t want it to be. But damn, I couldn’t help imagining how Nick started out on his venture to conquer the elusive Ken Clarke! It was all the ego booster he needed after Margot cheated on him.
“No wonder you knew where I lived the first time you picked me up. All that information was handed out to you by my father. You even saw each other that night. You both pretended not to know each other.”
He was quiet, which meant it was true.