Little Secrets(67)
Kenzie doesn’t belong here. It’s time to go.
Chapter 20
Not knowing how to reset the alarm, Kenzie leaves it off. She exits the house the same way she came in, quietly and carefully. What she just did was stupid and reckless, and she can never allow herself to lose control like that again.
The air smells fresh from the rain and she decides to walk for a while to clear her head. Her last boyfriend, Paul, had lived in a neighborhood similar to this in Boise—quiet, pretentious, suburban, white. The last time Kenzie saw him was three weeks after his drunk wife tried to push her way into the apartment. Paul had already tried to end it with her—over the phone, no less—and when she protested, he’d offered her ten thousand dollars “as a parting gift.”
As if.
Kenzie had showed up at Paul’s house a couple of nights later, crying, begging him to be with her, pretending to be drunk and heartbroken. His wife and daughters were at home, and when he answered the door and saw her, his face paled. He shut the door behind him and yanked her over to the side of the house, where it was dark and full of bushes, where nobody could see them.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Paul hissed.
His hand gripped her arm, and later, she would discover bruises where his fingers had pressed into her skin. She’d never seen him so angry. He’d always been gentle with her … soft, even. It was amazing how much strength someone could muster when they felt threatened.
“You’re hurting me,” she whimpered, and he let her go.
“You can’t be here.” Paul glared at her with a look so fierce it could have detonated stone. “I have a family, McKenzie.”
“I want us to be together. I love you.” She reached for his hand. “And you love me.”
“It was never love,” he said, backing away from her. “I see that now. I was unhappy and needed someone to … make me feel wanted again. Leah and I are starting therapy, and we’re going to try to make it work. I’m sorry, okay? Now please go. My kids are inside.”
“So that’s it?” She stared at him. “You’re done with me, so you’re just going to throw me away? Like I’m garbage?”
He softened, and for a moment Kenzie worried that she’d overplayed her hand. She had zero desire to continue their relationship, and she had no intention of actually winning Paul back. Whatever attraction she’d felt toward him had dried up the moment the spittle from his drunk wife’s mouth sprayed her face. What she wanted was for this to end on her terms.
What she wanted was to get paid an amount she deserved.
Paul straightened up, his expression hardening again. “Whatever it is I needed from you, Kenzie, I don’t need it anymore. I’m not trying to hurt you, but there’s nothing I can give you. Now, please. You have to leave.”
She looked up at the side of his huge house, and then around the corner at the driveway where his cars, a Jaguar and a BMW, were parked. “Must be nice, sleeping with girls half your age and then tossing them away when your wife finds out,” she said. “Waving your money in their faces, keeping them interested, treating them like whores.”
“What them?” Paul frowned. “There’s no them. There was just you, and I never should have—”
“You offered me ten thousand dollars to go away. How do you think that made me feel?”
He looked mortified. “I know, I shouldn’t have said that—”
“I’ll take fifty.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Fifty thousand,” Kenzie said. “And you’ll never hear from me again. After everything you’ve put me through, I think it’s the least you can do. Not to mention everything your wife put me through, screaming at me and my roommate in our hallway like a fucking lunatic, like I’m the villain. You’re the one who started this, Paul. You’re the one with the family. This is your betrayal, not mine, and you got caught. If your wife hadn’t found out about us, you know what we’d be doing right now? We’d be having sex, Paul, that’s what. So while it’s all well and good that the two of you are working things out, you’re not going to get out of our relationship that easily.”
Paul seemed completely flabbergasted, but after a moment, his confusion turned to self-righteousness. “You’re kidding, right? I’m not paying you fifty—”
Kenzie stomped away from him, through his wet grass and back to the front door. He got to her just in time—her hand right above the doorbell, poised to push—and wrenched her arm back.
“Fine, I’ll pay you,” he hissed. “But get the hell out of here.”
“Cash. Tomorrow. Where do you bank?”
When he told her, she said, “I’ll meet you outside on the corner at exactly nine thirty. If you don’t show, I’m coming back to your house. And I’m going to wait here until your wife comes home. And if your neighbors ask who I am, I’ll tell them. Hell, I’ll show them pictures. I have a ton of photos, Paul, did you know that? I’m one of those bubbleheaded millennials that takes pictures of everything, and I’ve got a whole bunch of you sleeping beside me, naked. You never noticed, did you? And I’ll post one photo a day on my Facebook and Instagram until I’ve ruined your life the way you’ve ruined mine. You broke my heart, you asshole.”