Page 71 of Perfect Composition
Without a word, I run back into the house, uncaring this time if I make enough noise to wake Kane. I left my room seeking solace, and now I need the safety of it.
But what tonight’s interlude has solidified in me is I have to leave Kensington. I can’t live forever with the specter of Beckett Miller everywhere I turn. I need to be somewhere he won’t turn up and break my heart ever again.
BECKETT
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Caleb Lockwood, Keene Marshall, and Colby Hunt walked out of their building. Each were on cell phones. One was smiling, one was snarling, and one was laughing. Match the man with the call.
— Sexy&Social, All the Scandal You Can Handle
“I frankly don’t give a fuck. I’m not coming back to New York until I have everything settled down here,” I tell Keene Marshall, one of the co-owners of Hudson Investigations, the next afternoon while Paige is at the hospital after a morning where I think Antarctica might have been warmer than the temperature in her house. Thankfully, we had Austyn as a buffer between us until Paige left, whereupon my daughter decided she was going to go help her uncle exercise the horses at Kensington Stables, begrudgingly taking one of my security with her.
Paige wouldn’t even consider it when I suggested it. Then again, even if there had been an axe murderer standing outside the door with fresh blood dripping from his weapon of choice, I think she would have dismissed anything I said, I think glumly.
“You have two teams of eight down there to do what? Eat barbecue? Chase after a neighborhood dog? What the fuck, Beckett? Normally, you can barely tolerate a team of two and you’re prancing around Manhattan. Kane won’t tell me a damn thing outside you’re safe where you are.”
I make a mental note to give Kane one hell of a bonus, but I also appreciate Keene’s frustration. “Is Kane’s phone secure?”
“Do I look like an idiot? Do you think I’m sending any of my guys into the field with you as the principal and not equip them with the best tech there is? Sam can bounce a call off…why the hell does this matter?” Keene demands.
“I’ll give you the full story, but I can’t use my cell.”
Keene’s silent. “Hang up. I’ll call you back.”
Less than five minutes later, Kane opens Paige’s front door, holding out his phone. “It’s the boss.” He doesn’t appear unduly concerned.
“Thanks, Kane.” He slaps his phone in my hand. When I take it, I grab his forearm. “Kane, I mean it sincerely. Thanks.”
“Don’t know if you mind my weighing in, but if I were you, I’d hit up the one resource who might know how to fix the shitshow from last night.”
I challenge him. “Yeah? Who’s that?”
“Your daughter.” Just as I’m about to blast him, he smirks in a way he could only have learned from working at Hudson as long as he has. “Press ‘6’ to take Keene off hold.”
I do, right before I tell Kane, “You’re an ass.”
He flicks out his hand before he walks back out Paige’s front door.
“Tell me I didn’t just ask Sam to move a satellite for you to tell me your bodyguard is an asshole. He keeps your ass alive,” Keene barks in my ear.
Talk about a mental distraction. “Did Sam move a satellite?”
“Beckett,” Keene warns.
“I mean, because that’s some pretty cool shit.”
“God damnit, Beckett,” he thunders, not intimidating me in the slightest. Fortunately I know the two badasseswho own Hudson Investigations, Keene Marshall and his best friend, Caleb Lockwood, are two of the best men in the world.
“As you likely know, I have a daughter,” I blurt the news out. “I’m in Texas because something happened to her mother’s family. I needed to be here.”
My news is met with dead silence. I ramble on to fill the silence.
“She’s nineteen years old. Her mother and I…we were just kids. God, Paige. She went through this all on her own.” I rub my hand along the back of my neck as I pace.
Finally, Keene speaks as I hear the tap of his fingers on a keyboard. “Is that your daughter’s name? Paige?”
“No, Paige is… Austyn—with ay—is my daughter. Why am I even telling you this? It’s not like you don’t…”
