Page 94 of Branded
Loud knocking woke me many hours later.
My eyes snapped open, I shot up to sitting, my gaze shot to the door of Kailey’s apartment.
It was vibrating like it was going to fly off its hinges.
“What the?—”
Next to me, Kailey gasped and sat up.
At the same time, her phone began blowing up.
“—fuck?” I finished, the pounding not relenting.
Kailey grabbed her cell. I tossed back the blankets, headed for the door.
“Wait,” Kailey said.
But I was already looking through the peephole, seeing that an older guy in a suit was the one doing the knocking. He had one arm in the air, fist pounding against the door. The other was at his ear, holding a phone.
Seriously. What. The. Fuck?
I whipped open the door.
The man had his fist raised, ready to knock again, and the incredulous expression on his face as he took me in, who for what it was worth, probably should have tugged on a pair of underwear before opening the door.
But I hadn’t, and we were here now and?—
“Who are you?” Disdain in the question, the incredulity that had been present for a moment as he’d presumably been taking in a six-foot, two-hundred-twenty-pound man standing naked in the doorway.
“Why the fuck are you pounding on my girlfriend’s door in the middle of the night?”
A flick down, back up. Brows lifting. “Your girlfriend’s?”
A hand on my side, and then Kailey was pressing into me, her robe belted tight. “Dad,” she said, and there was definite frost in her tone.
Frost that was fucking Antarctica in my body as I realized this man, showing up and acting like this in the middle of the night, was the one who’d wounded Kailey so deeply.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, leaning a little heavier against me.
“You didn’t pick up your phone.”
As though that were explanation enough.
A door down the hall cracked open, an older woman peeking her head out. “Kailey? Is everything”—her eyes flicked down, and I doubly realized that my comfort with being naked hadn’t served me well in this situation—“okay?” she finished slowly.
“We’re fine, Bernie,” Kailey called. “Sorry to disturb you.” A flick of her eyes to her father. “Wh-why don’t you come in and we can talk about this?”
A flicker of nerves.
I slid my hand down her back.
Her father huffed, but when Kailey opened the door a little wider, allowing her dad entry, he moved into the apartment.
“Okay?” I murmured, taking her hand and drawing her toward the bed. My underwear had to be somewhere in the vicinity.
A shake of her head had my heart clenching.
Fuck.
