Page 4 of Abigail's King
Chapter Two
Kye
It was a Friday night, and where was I? I was sitting in my apartment alone, except for a bottle of bourbon.
It was the same every weekend now. All the guys had their women at home waiting for them. Well, except for Richard, and if he had anyone waiting for him, we were sure they would be male. As I sat here, my thoughts went back to last weekend. We had all been in Oxford at Robert and Elizabeth’s house for Jayden and Sienna’s wedding. It was a lovely day. Well, as lovely as other people’s weddings were. It wasn’t really my scene, but being a senior member of the team, I had to go. It wouldn’t have looked good if I hadn’t. Especially after the bullet I had received saving Sienna’s life. I was just glad they had all forgiven me for the part I had played in her original kidnapping.
There was one highlight, though. Sienna’s friend. She was beautiful and seemed perfect for me in every way. Tall, long dark hair, perfect brown eyes…everything I was attracted to in a woman. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen her before. But it didn’t matter. I knew she was far too good for me. She wouldn’t have been interested in a bloke like me. I was the bad boy turned good. There was still that element of danger within me, though. I had watched her from afar. Watched her politely bat all the guys that went up to her away. She had seemed sad, or perhaps worried about something. I’d desperately wanted to go over there and hold her in my arms and tell her that everything would be alright. But my past held me back. I would only lose her like I had all the women before her. She was probably already in love with someone else and my heart would be torn apart again.
It had been the same story since I was seventeen years old: I was always too late to get the woman I liked or loved. It started with Sofia. She was a few months younger than me, and we got on really well. I was too afraid to tell her exactly how I felt, and when I plucked up the courage to tell her that I loved her, she had already fallen in love and got engaged. If that wasn’t bad enough, the night I was going to ask her out was the night I walked in and found her on the arm of my brother. He had beaten me to it. Then, of course, there was Sienna with Jayden and lastly, Kelsey with Nathan. However, to be fair, I saw Kelsey more like a little sister than anything else.
I poured myself yet another glass of bourbon, and I sat back and stared out at my apartment looking back on my life. Was I better off as the mercenary everyone saw me as back then? Yes, it had been a lonely existence, but no more lonely than the one I had now. Sure, I had the team as friends, but come the end of the workday, I still returned to this place alone.
There was a part of me that missed the bad boy that I had been. I had been feared by most. I didn’t have to say a word when I walked into the room; my presence was enough to make a room go quiet in seconds. Had I lost that edge since going straight?
I hoped not. The guys were still wary of me at times and would never cross me. It was only their women who seemed to stick up for themselves and call me out. But that was because only they saw my vulnerable side – well, except for Nathan. During the time we had spent together when trying to find Kelsey, he had seen the true me, not the façade I put on for everyone else.
To give him his credit, though, he never told a soul about what I had said to him. Never mentioned the late-night discussions we had, or how I had felt so guilty about the support and care I had been giving Kelsey while he was lying in the hospital bed. They were the closest thing I had to a family now, especially after I had walked out on my own.
I had been invited to their place and their parents’ on several occasions, but I never went. I didn’t want to get too close to anyone. I would only end up hurting them. Kelsey had even tried over the past few months to get me to reach out to my family, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in their eyes as I walked through the door. I knew my brother knew what I had been doing for the past fifteen years or so. He was in the Portuguese police force, he had to know. That meant my parents would know, and they would never forgive me for some of the things I had done.
I just had to get used to the fact that this was going to be my life until my dying day. Could I actually live with that? Was I better off dead? No one would miss me. I would just be another sorry soul who left this earth without anyone to visit their gravestone and mourn them.
God, I was drunk. I hadn’t had these thoughts in years. How could one woman evoke these feelings back in me?
My phone started to ring and I sighed as I looked down at the caller ID. Kelsey. Which probably meant it was Nathan, as he knew I would always answer a call from Kelsey just in case she needed help. Picking it up, I answered with my usual silence.
“Kye, are you there?”
Yeah, I was right. It was Nathan.
“Yeah, I’m halfway down a bottle of bourbon, so unless this is a life or death situation, I would like to continue drowning my sorrows.”
“Ricardo Carvalho, you listen to me right now!”
Fuck, that had my attention.
I hadn’t realised that Nathan had me on speakerphone. Kelsey was the only one to use my real name, and only when she was mad at me. It was like having your mother shout at you when you had done something wrong, and that feeling of dread about what was about to happen came over your entire body.
“Kelsey, I didn’t realise you were there.”
“Well, now you do. And after that statement, I have a good mind to drag Nathan’s arse out of here, get in the car, and come straight over to your apartment. Now, before I do that, you’d better tell me what’s wrong to make you hit the bottle for the third weekend in a row.”
Shit. Now she was keeping tabs on my drinking habits. This was serious.
“Kels, I didn’t drink that much last week. And I’m sure it hasn’t been the past three weeks.”
I knew it was more than that, but I wasn’t about to admit that to her and Nathan. Although, since they had a key to my apartment, I was sure that they had found me a couple of times passed out on the sofa, seeing as I always woke up with a blanket over me and in a position where if I had been sick, I wouldn’t have choked to death. They never said anything to me, and I didn’t mention it to them. There was just that understanding that they were there for me when I was ready to talk about it.
“You know darn well it’s been longer than the past three weeks. Now, am I coming over there with Nathan, or are you going to tell us what this is all about?”
I sighed and took a deep breath. How could I tell them I wanted what all the guys had? That I wanted someone to come home to at the end of each day, but was too afraid they would leave me?
“Kye, I’m worried about you. We both are. You know we both love you and want to help.”
Hearing the pain in Kelsey’s voice and knowing the tears were already starting to fall undid me. She knew I would break every time I thought she was hurting. It was how she got me to confess everything that happened to me. She didn’t do it on purpose – well, not at that time – but now she knew exactly how to get to me.
“What can I say that I haven’t already said, Kels? I’m a lonely, miserable man that has no chance of ever finding a woman who loves me and not someone else. I’m destined to die an old, grouchy, and lonely man.”
