Stepbrother Bad Boy's Baby Boxed Set(57)

It was the same inside the apartment, as Kim kept herself positioned between us constantly. I could barely even get a full view of Krystal, at least until I went to the complete opposite side of the room and sat down on the sofa. "So what did you want to say?" Krystal asked after putting the groceries away.

I read her face, and could see that she was still pissed off at me. She was still angry, but I was hopeful, because I could also see that underneath all that anger, she still loved me. It was in the way her voice said it, that she was angry, not resigned or sorrowful. She didn't want to let go of me either. I chose my words carefully, but spoke from my heart.

"Krystal, what I did..... I'm sorry. I was stupid, I was immature, and I was flat out wrong. I should have told you, even before I told you how I felt about you, that I had been with Gina. I should have told you about my original plan, and I should have told you how you stopped me from going through with it, because I fell in love with you. I should have done all of that, but I didn't."

"Damn right you didn't," Kim said heatedly. "What did you expect, that the two of you would go the rest of your lives without Gina ever seeing you together and going Hmmm, maybe I should tell my niece that her boyfriend and I hooked up at her mother's wedding?"

I sighed and nodded. "I don't know what I was thinking, Kimberly. After admitting to myself that I was in love, then with my own other problems, and then learning the truth, and then Krystal and I coming together..... I don't know what I was thinking half of the damn time. So for all of that, I'm sorry. Then after you found out, I made it worse by running away instead of trying to make it right and talk to you, that's just as bad, and I apologize for that too."

"Is that it?" Krystal asked. "You just wanted to say you're sorry, and maybe hope that I take you back?"

I shook my head. "No. Krystal, that's not all. I need to continue on the path that you set me on, and I know I've said that before, but my actions are just proof of it all. Well, I've been offered a a second chance."

"How so?" she asked, a bit of curiosity coming into her voice. "And does it have anything to do with you looking like a brick?"

"In a way," I said. "After I left, I took the first flight out of Logan I could, which happened to be Miami. I walked to the beach and just sat there for two days, and probably would have been dead by now if it wasn't that an old friend found me. Right around sunset on that second day, Dwayne Forrester found me and took me home. He cleaned me up, and he talked some sense into me."

"You know Dwayne Forrester?" Kimberly asked, still angry, but at least somewhat interested. "What, did you two raise some hell together?"

"Yeah, for about three months around the Caribbean," I replied honestly. "Dwayne though, he's matured, he's grown up. He has a wife now, and a beautiful daughter. Looking at the photo he showed me, I realized that unless I change, I'm never going to have that life. So I asked Dwayne what I should do. He told me the first thing was to come here and set things right, to beg your forgiveness. But then he offered me a lifeline."

"You haven't done much begging yet," Krystal noted, "does that start soon?"

I saw a ghost of a smile flash across her face when she said it, and I felt my heart leap up. Still, I wasn't out of the woods yet. "Give me a minute. Here was Dwayne's deal. He's opening another resort, near Kennebunkport. I'm to work there as the assistant manager in charge of fitness and recreation facilities, in a junior executive mentorship program. At the same time, he's going to get me into a university. I have four years to graduate. If I do, he'll make me a Vice President of the chain. Krystal, I know it's halfway across the country, but it's only a few hours by plane. Hell, I'll use my trust fund to buy a private jet if you want just so that I can see you every day I have off. But at the end of it, I can maybe, just maybe, be a man that you'd be proud to have with you."

Krystal looked at Kimberly, and the two seemed to share a psychic communication. They came closer, whispering from one to another, before Krystal nodded, turning to look at me. "I've heard what you had to say. Now, time to beg. On your knees, in the middle of the floor, eyes closed."

I swallowed and nodded, doing just as she asked. Getting in the middle of the carpet, I closed my eyes and knelt. Just as I started, my words were cut off by the sound of steel on steel. I'd heard it before, when Krystal had used a sharpening rod on one of her knives. From the deep sound of it, it was her largest, a chef's knife that I'd seen her break up a chicken with a surgeon's precision.

"Shut up, and hold still," Kimberly said, her voice as sharp as the knife I could see in my mind Krystal holding. Still, if that was what Krystal wanted, I'd give it to her.

I could hear the two women approaching, and I heard the sound as Krystal slapped the flat of the blade against her thigh. I gulped down my fear, but resigned myself as their presence came so close that I could feel them, like some sort of magnetic field or something. Suddenly, a whoosh went by my right ear, and there was a snicking sound. I opened my eyes as I saw Krystal standing there with a lock of my hair in one hand, and her kitchen shears in the other. "I forgive you Julian, but you're on your last chance. Love can only get you past so much. Now stand up."

I scrambled to my feet, looking from Krystal to Kim, who was still angry, but had a small smile on her face. "I swear, you looked like you were about to piss your pants," she said, holding up the spatula she'd been holding, smacking it against her palm twice to clue me in on the deception.