Page 20 of The Trouble With Bad Boys

The three brothers look at me with shock before returning their focus to Kellen. Shaking his head, Matthias asks, “Is there no one you haven’t slept with or pissed off?”

Unsure I even want this job, I step forward and say to Kellen, “This isn’t anything other than you having to deal with the consequences of your actions. I’m the best at what I do, so if you ever want to be anything other than a social pariah, you want my help.”

That shuts him up, so I say to Matthias, “I’ll give you all some time to discuss things. I’m sorry that I can’t accept anything other than Kellen following my rules to the letter. To be honest, I’m not sure he is a candidate for the kind of fixing I specialize in.”

“Please, just give us a couple minutes.”

I nod and turn around to walk out into the hallway where his girlfriend is waiting. She gives me a big smile and says, “Let’s go downstairs and give them some time.”

As we walk down to the first floor, she asks me, “So you know Kellen?”

I chuckle, not really pleased that’s out in the open now. “I do, but that won’t have any effect on my work for King Industries.”

We stop in a large room that looks like a living room, and she offers me a drink. “No, thank you.”

Cupping her tiny belly, she beams a smile. “I can’t because I’m expecting, but I thought I should offer you one.”

“Congratulations! I hope this situation isn’t causing you stress. I believe it’s upsetting Matthias.”

She shrugs and then smiles. “Matthias has always been intense. Things bother him. Kellen hasn’t always been the way he’s been acting, though. Before his brother Theo died, he wasn’t like this. Now he seems very argumentative and careless about people’s feelings. That isn’t the Kellen I’ve known all my life, though.”

I like hearing that, even though I shouldn’t care one way or another. What happened between us at that villa has nothing to do with the job I have to do to fix the problem he’s caused. The two people who had such a great time down there don’t exist here.

“Well, I hope I get to meet this person you talk about. It would make my job a lot easier.”

Her eyes wide and filled with concern, Ava leans in toward me and whispers, “Do you really think if he disappears from the public eye that people will forget all that’s happened?”

I nod and answer, “Yes. The hard part is getting people to forgive him for what he’s done. That’s going to take some work, but I’ve handled more challenging jobs before, so I can do this for your family.”

That makes her smile again. “I hope you can because I don’t want Kellen to be a social pariah. He’s a good person at heart. He’s just had a difficult time since Theo died. He looked up to him, so his death hit him hard. I really believe all his behavior has a lot to do with that.”

Matthias interrupts our conversation, and I notice how relaxed he looks now. Smiling, he walks over to where Ava and I are standing by the fireplace in the living room and wraps his arm around her waist.

“Thank you for giving us a little time. I know Kellen sounds like he’s going to be difficult, but I think you’ll find him more accommodating now. He told us what he did down in the islands. I’m sorry about that. I feel like that’s partly my fault since I told him he needed to get back here immediately. I hope that won’t affect your willingness to help us.”

I smile as I hope I’m not blushing at how embarrassed I am that now all the family knows what happened between Kellen and me. I was a nameless woman enjoying herself with a nameless man at the villa.

That’s not who I am here. Now I’m a professional woman getting paid handsomely to make Kellen look like something other than the world’s biggest villain.

“Please, it wasn’t anything serious. The difference between me and the woman who’s claiming Kellen sexually harassed her is I wasn’t working for King Industries at the time. There’s no need for apologies.”

That pleases him. “Good. Okay, let’s go back upstairs and finish our meeting.”

He kisses Ava and the two of us walk back upstairs in silence to rejoin the rest of his brothers. I notice a distinct difference in Kellen when I walk into the game room. He doesn’t seem so angry now.

Good. Maybe we can work together successfully.

Matthias stands with his two brothers and says, “Kellen has agreed to do whatever you say he needs to. No social life. No women. He’ll take a leave from the company. Basically, he understands he needs to lay low for a while.”

I look at Kellen and see him try to smile. “Good. I didn’t mention this earlier, but I think it would be best for him to not stay at his place while we’re working to make people forget what he did. Is there a chance he can stay here or somewhere else that we can be assured the press won’t descend like locusts?”

“So now I’m sent into exile? If I knew I’d be shunned like this, I would have committed some real crimes,” he mumbles, clearly not as willing to be cooperative as Matthias believed a few minutes ago.

The brothers talk for a few moments before Matthias says to me, “Our grandmother’s house is somewhere nobody really knows about. I think he could be safe from the press there.”

The suggestion makes Kellen lose his cool. “No fucking way. I live in a penthouse in the greatest city in the world. You’re sending me to stay in Grandma’s house that hasn’t been updated in half a damn century. What the fuck am I supposed to do out there? That place doesn’t even have Wi-Fi, for God’s sake!”

“What the hell do you need Wi-Fi for?” Ronan asks, obviously frustrated by his brother’s unwillingness to work with all of us. “No social life means no social media, dude.”

---