"Katrina Randolph!  I said get down here so we can check your phone!"

I sighed and continued my trek down the shiny stairs, head pounding from the force it took to keep my mind off of Lachlan and the vulnerability that he brought out of me.  It didn't even matter if I could forgive him anyway, because it wasn't like I could be with him.  I couldn't even hang out with my friends like I wanted to without being in fear that some boogeyman (in the form of my birth father) was going to jump out at me and scream that I thought I'd had him fooled but he saw right through me as he took my loved ones from me one by one. 

There was a new visitor in the sitting room that I'd only met once, my mother's date to the charity gala the night I'd told her off and he'd been there to witness the aftermath. 

In lieu of his crisp tuxedo, he sported a posh olive green long sleeved turtleneck which accented his light brown skin, his facial hair neatly trimmed with the tufts of grey popping out which did little to diminish the overall handsome aura that he emitted. 

Jessie Suarez, I remembered his name as I stepped up to my mother's outstretched hand, which immediately flew to her mouth as she read the text over and over again, blue eyes going wide with fear as Jessie watched the scene with wild interest. 

"What's wrong?"

"Katrina, why didn't you call me as soon as you got this message?"

My mother's shrill voice alerted my dad in the sitting room with his heavily pregnant wife to jump to their feet in alarm. 

"I had a test in math that I needed to take and I couldn't retake it if you just pulled me out of class like you would've done if you had known about the message while I was at school. It's fine."

"It is not fine, young lady, you and I are going to-"

"Young lady?" I laughed humorlessly. 

"I'm pretty sure you can stop calling me that, dad.  I get it.  You're all worried something's going to happen, but I'm telling you that you two need to go back home, to California.  If I'm in any kind of danger, then so are you and so is that baby.  I'm not keeping my friends and sister at arm's length for nothing."

Jessie, my mother's whatever he was, squinted at me in confusion, wondering what I was talking about. 

"What do you mean, keeping your friends at arm's length?"

I crossed my arms in front of me as my mother continued scrolling aimlessly through my phone, over and over again she went, through every little direct message and text from any strange numbers.

"If I keep my friends at-"

"Katrina, who is this messaging you?  They said, 'hey, I know you're still mad at me but I just wanted to make sure you were okay.  I promise I won't bug you with my apologies, I know you don't want them, but I just wanted to see you.  I need to see you, can we meet up,' and it's from an unknown number, too!"

I sighed and rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands.  I knew just who had sent that message and far be it from me to keep anything from my mother anymore.  She wasn't completely insufferable, she just wasn't the easiest to be around, especially after I returned home from the disastrous California trip, which I'd told her nothing about, only that I'd attended Ian's funeral. 

"It's Lachlan."

"Lachlan Brooks?  Since when are you and Lachlan Brooks speaking?  You know, if you're not forgiving him for something, it should be water under the bridge," my father started, and I saw red. 

"Oh really?"  

My voice was saccharine sweet, the sarcasm lilting off of my tongue.

He looked scared by my words, like he'd just walked into a trap.

"...yes?"

"Well, how about this.  Should I forgive my dad for basically pimping me out to a potential business partner's son, just to spy on them and see if they were good to go as far as business wise?  Or should I forgive the son of your current business partner, for doing basically what you had done to me, except he did it willingly knowing what was going on?  Why should I forgive anyone in my life, when all anyone ever seems capable of doing is fucking me over again and again and expects me to just lie down and take it?"

"Katrina!  Language!"

I'd had enough.  I whirled on my mother, her blue eyes widened while Jessie held his arm around her waist protectively, like I was some wild animal that she needed protection from.  I scoffed in their faces. 

"Kate!  My.  Name.  Is.  Kate."

"No!  Your name is Katrina Randolph and that is what we named you!  You may prefer to go by Kate or Kat or-"

"Just Kate.  No one gets to call me Kat," I said in warning, mainly to my parent's new romantic partners, considering they hadn't been around long enough to know just how much I detested that nickname. 

"I don't care!  You are and always have been my little Katrina.  I don't care if you're not my biological child, you're still my blood and nothing can ever change that.  Not your horrible monster of a birth father coming after you and your loved ones, and not some stupid corporate espionage weaponizing children for business gains.  Do you understand me," she asked, coming to place her hands on my shoulders and shaking me slightly.  

The tears welled up, but they didn't spill, and I wondered if they ever would again. 

"Yes," I whispered, my voice thick with emotions desperately clogging my throat. 

"Good.  Now, let's all sit and have dinner, Sloane and her boyfriend are waiting in the dining room."

"Great," I muttered, wincing slightly as I realized that they'd heard the entire conversation and I noticed Jessie staring at me with a blank yet searching look on his face.  I raised my eyebrows in question at him and he quickly looked away, grabbing my mother's pale hand and following her into the ornate dining room decorated with golden furnishings and copper tinted wallpaper. 

The metallic hues blended together in some sort of new meets old style that I'd never liked and my eyes stayed glued to the meal in front of me, not on my sister staring daggers into my head, nor Holden hoofing away at his food like it would be the last meal he ever ate. 

Once I was dismissed, I dashed around the table to escape Sloane's nightly lectures, but she caught me right before I escaped.  She was wearing me down, I had to give her that.  A few more weeks of her logical words and I'd be begging my friends for forgiveness by the end of the school year, blowing my plan to stay isolated and all of them safe from, as Sloane had so eloquently put it, 'psycho daddy'. 

"I'm really not in the mood Sloane.  I already got one lecture from mom and dad, I don't need another one," I began, staring back at the table with Ellen, my dad's child bride, rubbing her swollen belly and staring at him lovingly.  

My biological parents had never had that, only blood, violence, and rage, and the thought disgusted me thinking of how much my birth mother had given up just to give birth to me, and then dying for doing the right thing by me. 

"Thank you."

I whipped my head to Sloane, confused and astounded at her words. 

"Excuse me?"

"I said thank you.  I know you're only pushing us all away because of your stupid, stubborn martyr complex, and in your own weird way you think you're protecting us, even me, who probably didn't deserve any kindness from you after everything I've done and said to you, so thank you.  It might be completely stupid and illogical, but you really care, and I know you're just trying to keep all of us safe."

The breath whooshed out of my lungs as I took in her words, leaning against the door jamb and watching the rest of the table dining silently, my mother casting us a dark look over her shoulder that told us that we had better not be fighting in front of her man guest. 

"Um...you're welcome?"  If it wasn't obvious, I was so not used to words like these from my sister. 

"He's a wreck without you, you know."

I tensed at her words.  I knew just how he had been holding up, my eyes always cast his direction when he thought I wasn't looking. 

"You're a wreck without him, too.  Without all of us."

I didn't dare say a word to betray me, only stood silently while I took everything she was about to give me, and then I would wallow in it all night. 

"I don't know why you're doing this to yourself.  He knows we're friends, just because we had a 'falling out' like you're trying to make it seem, that doesn't mean you wouldn't still care about us.  Or maybe he sees through you and that it's all an act because he said all your friends were next.  It still doesn't excuse you for shutting me out, we're sisters, so obviously if he harms me it will hurt you.  Well, I hope," she broke off and I immediately stopped her in her tracks. 

"It would.  Hurt me, I mean.  Probably more than I ever want to imagine," I admitted, her eyes softening at my confession, the blue in them almost a swirling shade of peace. 

"Same.  But Kate, at this point you're just torturing yourself, and everyone around you.  Let us help, let us do something to-"

She was cut off by the doorbell ringing and I jumped at the sound.  She strode over to the door with a finger pointed up, telling me this was not over. 

"What do you- oh, it's you..."

Lachlan Brooks stood behind my door. 

His dark hair was disheveled and dripping wet from the ends which splattered to the floor like my old tears that had used to cascade down my cheeks to the tune of his betrayals. 

His tall frame filled the doorway, head almost brushing the tip of the doorjamb while his hands scraped through his black as night hair, the sight mouthwatering and dangerous all in the same breath. 

He was trouble and danger and everything forbidden to me because of what he'd done and who he was but that didn't stop my brain from wanting him, body and soul, blood and bone, skin and breath. 

"What are you doing here," I breathed out, the air around us stuck on a haunted whisper that floated on the promises of something new to come, something that could wash away the past.

"I just..." he trailed off, and a flash of anger filled me from when I'd let my guard down.  I stepped close to him, taking one last look in the direction of my family who was now keenly interested in my conversation with Lachlan. 

"You just...what?"

He looked around after I shut the door behind me, his face confused like he didn't realize how I'd gotten him alone so fast, our breaths mingling in the hard winter air that caressed our skin like a sting of a thousand needles. 

"I just had to see you after today, I had to make sure you were alright.  We left things in a weird place."

"No we didn't.  I left things how they needed to be for me to stay away from you.  I can't do this Lachlan.  Not again."

"There will be no more secrets between us, I swear.  I'll tell you absolutely everything I know.  I'll tell you everything I've always wanted to tell you but was too afraid to.  I'll-"

"Lachlan!  It might be better if you actually tell me these things instead of listing them for me."

"Yeah, you're right.  Okay, so when I was a kid, my mom always used to tell me to be a kind person, to always treat people how I'd wanted to be treated, and I guess that's kind of cliche but it is what it is.  And I realized that in trying to keep my family safe, and failing miserably in that, I started treating you in a way I'd never want to be treated.  I made you feel betrayed, and used, and I'd never want to feel that way so I can only imagine how it made you feel," he started, his words being carried away on the wind with misty whips of air. 

"No, you don't know how it made me feel.  But I can't expect you to, either.  Look, I don't want to do this here, but-"

"The charity gala, this Saturday."

"What?"

"This Saturday, be my date to the charity gala and we can talk then.  You won't regret it."

I had a feeling that I would, but being in such close proximity to Lachlan had my inner brain connections completely severed.

"Why would I be your date after all the horrible things you said and did?"

His face fell, but still his presence filled the space around us, and me, with a sense of longing so profound it hit me straight in the gut. 

I wanted to be near him, I wanted his arms to fold me into his chest and for him to sweep me into a kiss so deep that I forgot my own name. 

I wanted to brand my name upon his soul and for him to do the same, although I was pretty sure he had already done something close to my own with the force of his betrayal, which was not a similar thing that I wanted to impose upon him, no matter how much he'd hurt me.

"You need a date, a chaperone for the whole stupid debutante thing that they do every year.  Plus, if you hate me so much, you shouldn't be worried about being seen in public with me.  If something happens to me, you wouldn't care."

"That is not true.  I would never put anyone in that kind of danger, no matter what they'd done to me."

I didn't add that my birth father getting his hands on Lachlan was my worst nightmare, similar to if he'd gotten me into his clutches, but worse.  Lachlan was too important to me, but there I was contemplating putting him right in the face of danger.

"Well, then, maybe you're just scared that you'll fall right back into my arms by the end of the night.  You know what, that has to be it.  You're so wrapped up in me that you have to push yourself away, otherwise you-"

"Ugh fine!  Whatever I'll be your date, just will you please go?  It's way too cold to be outside talking about this," I muttered, already regretting my decision, but I couldn't let his words ring true.  Pride was one of my biggest downfalls, and he knew it. 

"Here," he said, shrugging out of his overcoat and placing it gingerly on my shoulders after my remark about it being too cold.  His scent enveloped me and I swayed lightly on my feet as I soaked up his warmth, but he kept me steadied.  Our gazes locked and unbridled pain shot through me at how easy this all felt.  How right.  How I couldn't have what I so desperately wanted.

There was an electric and tantalizing pull between us, thickening the space between us and sucking all the air out until he was all I could breathe in, my addiction being fed by my refusal to step back, no matter how much I knew I should have.

His head leaned in slowly while my heart beat at a traitorous, raucous pace and my breathing wasn't any better, the lungfuls of frigid air matching my heart's staccato rhythm. 

"Sweet dreams, Kit-Kat."  

His voice rumbled my entire body, the deep bravado of his words imprinting themselves on me as I shivered in wanton need of his body on mine, relishing in the feel of his wet hair sliding against my skin, the ghost of his lips on my forehead an after thought while I soaked up all I can while he was still there.  While I didn't keep myself at a distance and just let myself be.

But then he was gone, his shadow of a kiss still dancing on my forehead hours later while I traced the pattern of his lips on my skin, dreaming about forbidden desires and wants that I didn't dare say aloud.