Devastated (Anger Management, #1)(42)

Yes, yes, she did, but…

“No,” Kylie said, biting her bottom lip as she forced herself to reach over and shut the lights off. She stood there for another moment, slowly exhaling before she reluctantly climbed into bed where she spent the next several minutes trying to convince herself that she wasn’t nervous about tomorrow. By the time Hunter climbed in bed next to her, she’d decided to look at this as an opportunity.

Tomorrow there would be thousands of people here, many of them CEO’s who might need a personal assistant when this was all over. She’d planned on taking some time off after this job ended before she started looking for her next position, but now she wasn’t sure that was a good idea. She didn’t want to sit around in some hotel room missing Hunter, and unfortunately for her, she was definitely going to miss him.

Over the past several months he’d become her best friend. He made her laugh, teased her, tormented her, made her feel protected; and those times when she struggled, he was there, holding her and letting her know that she was safe. For the first time in her life, she felt…

Whole.

There was no other way to describe it. She’d never felt like this, never known that it was possible to feel like this, but whenever she was with him, she felt like she was exactly where she was supposed to be. It felt like she finally found the place that she belonged and that was part of the problem. She’d considered asking Hunter if she could stay on after this was over, but that wasn’t part of the plan.

She’d been working on this plan since the moment she’d overheard her parents laughing as they’d placed bets on whether or not her soon-to-be ex-husband had caught something from a hooker and given it to her. That had been followed by a discussion on how much better their lives would be if she’d caught something that would kill her.

After that much-needed wake-up call, she’d started making plans that would take her as far away from her past as she could get. While she’d waited for the divorce to come through, she’d pulled double-shifts at a motel, cleaning rooms during the morning and working the front desk at night, listening to audiobooks that she’d borrowed from the library on business, organization, accounting, basically anything that she thought would help her. After work, she’d go back to her room, study until she’d passed out and do it all over again the next day. She’d kept doing that until the day she’d received the notice from the courthouse telling her that her divorce was final. Then, she packed her stuff, bought a ticket for the next train leaving the state, and never looked back.

And now…

“Are you really going to hog the bed?” came the muttered complaint even as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer.

“Are you really going to complain all night?” she fired back with a wiggle, demanding that he hold her tighter.

“Probably,” Hunter admitted, as he tightened his hold around her and pressed a kiss against the back of her neck before casually asking, “Did you like the gift basket?”

“I loved it,” Kylie said, smiling as she thought about the large gift basket filled with lotions, bath salts, bath bombs, goat’s milk soaps, creams, loofa sponges, scrubbing brushes, a manicure kit, and all the luxury bath items that she’d never had and always told herself that she didn’t need.

“More than the cookie basket?”

“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t go that far,” Kylie said, feeling her lips twitch when he released a growl and pressed another kiss against the back of her neck with a “Goodnight, brat,” and before she knew it, she was falling asleep.

A gentle caress woke her sometime later. For several minutes she simply laid there, enjoying the feel of Hunter’s fingertips running along her jaw. She’d never liked to be touched, not when she was a kid, and definitely not when she was married. It used to take everything in her not to flinch when David reached for her. She’d hated his touch, his scent, but mostly, she’d hated not being able to be close to anyone without being afraid.

When Hunter asked her why she’d married David a few months ago, she hadn’t been able to give him an answer, but now she knew. She’d never loved David, but she’d cared about him and back then that had been enough. She was sick of being alone and being afraid all the time and that had led her to the biggest mistake of her life. She thought getting married would make her feel like she belonged, but all it did was make everything worse. He’d never made her feel safe, never made her feel wanted, or even bothered to pretend that he cared once they’d said, “I do.”

David had been quiet, boring, polite, kind of pathetic, and once upon a time, she’d thought that meant safe. The moment he thought she wasn’t going anywhere he’d stopped pretending to be harmless and she’d found herself trapped in another nightmare. He’d turned cruel, belligerent, and had taken great joy in throwing everything that she’d foolishly told him about her family back in her face.

It hadn’t taken long to realize that she didn’t love him after that and even less time to realize that she didn’t even like him. When she’d found out what he was doing behind her back, it had made accepting the truth that much easier.

She was better off alone.

At least, that’s what she used to think. Now, she wasn’t so sure what she wanted, she realized, as she opened her eyes to find Hunter sitting next to her, watching her with that curious look in his eye that she couldn’t quite understand. He slid his fingers through her hair as he slowly leaned down and brushed his lips against hers, giving her an achingly sweet kiss before he pulled away, letting his fingertips caress her jaw one last time with a softly murmured, “What am I going to do with you, Kylie?”