Bless The Beauty - By Stacey Kennedy Page 0,9
in and watch the interrogation of the current men handling the case. To look for flaws in their work and see minute details they couldn’t. But right now, I could care less about this McKinney—my thoughts were too selfish to think of others.
The chairs all slid out and snapped me away from my internal hell. One chair however, remained frozen.
Chase sat head bowed to the table. I reached out to touch his arm as tenderly as I could.
“Chase.”
My hand was only inches from his arm when he pulled away and stood. When he met my gaze, my stomach clenched with dread. I never wanted to see that hatred burn in his eyes. I was the enemy and his rage for me was clear. Without a word, he walked past me.
At the same moment, Kellen took my hand. Instantly, I yanked it away. “Don’t touch me.” Seeing that look in Chase’s eyes pulled me into a hole of despair. When Kellen touched me, all I felt was anger.
If he hadn’t come, Chase wouldn’t be feeling the way he was. This was all Kellen’s fault.
Kellen grinned, calm and collected as he always was. “Is that any way to speak to your husband?”
I couldn’t do a thing, say anything—all I could do was swim in my own sadness. I controlled nothing and my mind wouldn’t allow me the right to make sense out of anything. My only thought was the look in Chase’s eyes, the raw pain there. I was a bitch. A cold, hard and nasty bitch. Shame engulfed my mind.
Mike opened the door to the meeting room and glanced back at me. “Go take a ride with Kellen, Hadley. Cool off and sort this out. I need your mind focused.”
“No—I—” I sputtered.
He raised his hand, stopping my jumbled speech, and my mouth closed accordingly.
“We don’t need distractions now. Sort this out so you can get your mind back in the game. Don’t return until you have. That is an order.”
Dammit, an order was an order. What could I say? No? Not likely. Resolved, I did the only thing I could and nodded. I didn’t really have a choice here. But this went so much deeper than Mike assumed.
Would I return? I wasn’t sure. Even if I did, I needed time alone with Chase to explain. Until I could, I doubted I’d be of any help here.
As Mike and Nick exited the room, Kellen took my chin between his fingers and brought my gaze back to his. “I’ve missed you.”
I tore away from his grip, outright angry at the way he went about this. “I haven’t missed you.”
He gave me a grin I had seen a thousand times over, the one that said he knew better.
“Now you are resorting to lies.” He took my hand again and this time I let him, despite my annoyance with him. His touch felt good in the midst of all this confusion.
“I must do something about this unruly behaviour you have learned.” His gaze was as penetrating as it was calculating and I felt it heat my body. No matter how angry I was or how annoyed I felt—that look levelled me and he knew it. “Let’s go sort this out, shall we?”
Chapter Three
Outside police headquarters, Kellen stood on Main Street and held the passenger side door of his black Mercedes sedan open, grinning. “In you go.”
I forced my annoyance to remain at bay. I may be pissed, but it didn’t hamper the appreciation I felt for his display of manners. Kellen was born at a time when women were adored and treasured. Such niceties just didn’t exist anymore in the world today and I had missed being handled in such a way. Not that Chase wasn’t loving and thoughtful, just modern men didn’t do things like that. And I’d missed it.
“Thank you.” I slid into the leather seat, then he closed the door behind me, trotted over to the driver’s side and quickly got in. Once settled, he started the engine, put the car in gear and with a squeal of his tires, drove off.
I sat in silence—torn. The feelings surrounding Chase were sending a horrible gut wrenching pain to pool in the pit of my stomach. I loved him, but I had hurt him and nothing about that felt good. I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking now, and in truth, I didn’t want to.
We drove a while in silence as I watched out the window. The dark night surrounded us and the streets