Beautifully Shattered (The Beautifully Series Book 1) (63 page)

“Um, okay?” I ask
skeptical. “If it was just junk then why can’t I go in there?”

“That . . . that room
is full of my mother’s stuff. I only go in there when I’m feeling
alone. I usually lock it. I’m sorry, but I don’t want you in
there. You can go through anything else you want, but that room is
off-limits.” He says it sweetly, but it’s laced with panic.

Immediately I
understand. “Don’t worry about it, Kohen. I won’t go in there
if you don’t want me to. I was just curious. I’m sorry if I upset
you.”

He doesn’t say
anything as he digs into his pocket and locks the door with a key.

“Wow, that’s not
insulting,” I mumble.

“What was that,
babe?” Kohen asks over his shoulder.

“Do you not trust me?
I’m not going to go in there once you fall asleep. I understand why
you don’t want me in there. You can trust me.”

“I trust you,
Adalynn. Never doubt that. It’s just a habit.” He shrugs like
it’s not a big deal, but his eyes are tense.

It doesn’t escape me
that he still keeps the door locked. I let it go, for now. I have
secrets of my own that I keep locked up inside me. The only
difference is that my secrets are a part of me and not in a room
inside my apartment.

Taking charge, I grip
Kohen’s hand again and lead him to his bedroom. I’ve been here a
few times so I know exactly where I’m going. When we enter his
room, my take-charge attitude floats away.

I’m stuck staring at
a blown-up picture of my face. It’s the picture from his living
room. He’s mounted it to the wall in front of his bed. I turn away
from it and glance around. For some reason the bed seems larger, more
intimating. I’m being crazy. I’m just in a weird mental state,
that’s all. It’s the same bed that he’s always had, fitted with
the same expensive blood red sheets. His furniture is black, opposite
of what I would’ve pictured when I imagined his room. It seems out
of character for him to have dark furniture, it doesn’t match his
light personality.

I tense more when I
realize it might fit him more than I thought. He isn’t all light.
If he was then we wouldn’t be facing a gigantic hurdle right now.
He’s changing, changing for me. Nobody else has attempted to do
that for me, ever.

“Want a shirt to
sleep in? I have scrubs you can wear too, but they’re going to be
huge on you.”

“Sure,” I squeak
out.

Kohen hands me a pair
of navy scrub pants. I open my mouth to ask for a shirt, but stop,
when he removes his. I can only manage to stare. Kohen works out . .
. a lot. No matter how many times I’ve seen him without his shirt,
I can’t help my hormones spiking.

“Thanks,” I choke
out when he passes it to me.

Kohen chuckles while he
turns to give me privacy. I would rather change in his bathroom, but
this is good enough. Quickly I strip out of my tank and jeans. I toss
them on the chair in the corner and slip his shirt over my head. It’s
still warm and smells like his sexy cologne. My stomach tightens for
some unknown reason. Since the shirt covers everything, I toss the
pants at his back and jump into his bed.

He leaves the pants on
the floor and strides over to me. It’s the only thing out of place
in his room and it makes me laugh. My laughter dies when he climbs
into bed with me. He reaches over and switches off the lamp on his
nightstand, surrounding us in darkness.

“Relax,” he says
when he hauls me closer to him. “Come away with me,” he whispers
into the darkness.

Suddenly I’m glad
that he’s holding me and that I’m not laying on his chest. I
don’t want him to see how broken I am from his words. It really has
nothing to do with him, everything he’s doing is perfect. I just
wish he was somebody else.

“When?” I ask,
knowing that I’m going to go anywhere he wants because it’s the
right thing to do.

“Tomorrow. I have a
house in the Hamptons. I’ve been wanting to take you there for a
while now.” He drags me closer to him so that my back is fully
pressed against his chest.

“Why?” I’m
stalling.

“Because I know how
much you love the water and I want to enjoy the ocean with you. I
think a weekend away is exactly what we need. We can leave first
thing in the morning and be back Sunday night so that you won’t
miss work.”

“Okay.”

I want to ask him how
he knows that I’m not working tomorrow, but I don’t. I probably
told him sometime last week that I took off today and tomorrow
because I needed an extra day to relax. I can feel Kohen’s grin
against the back of my head.

“I love you,” he
whispers.

I tense because I can’t
say the words back. I don’t love him and I won’t be that girl who
says it back just because a guy tells me he loves me. Instead I
snuggle as close to him as I can.

“Good night,” I
murmur.

“Good night, my
love,” Kohen replies with a little edge to his voice.

“All set?” Kohen
asks when I enter his apartment the next afternoon.

“Yup,” I say as I
drop my bag next to his on the floor.

Kohen woke me up with
kisses this morning and breakfast in bed. And when I say this
morning, I mean before the sun even came out. He was cheery, excited
to leave the city for a few days. I just grumbled and wished for
sleep. I didn’t get much last night because I kept tossing and
turning. My brain wouldn’t shut off. When it finally did, I dreamed
of Jax . . . well, I had a nightmare is more like it.

But now that I’ve
showered and I’m fully awake, the nervousness has taken hold. I’m
restless because this is the first time I’m going away with a guy
that isn’t Jax.
Going away
will be good for us.
I need a distraction and a few days
away at the beach with a hot guy is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Kohen collects our
bags. He holds out his free hand. For some reason I hesitate; this is
it. If I take it, I will be sealing my fate with him.
No
more Jax. He’s out of your life.
I take it and squeeze
his hand while he leads me out of his apartment. He doesn’t let go
until we reach his car.

“Thank you,” Kohen
says once he’s done lining up our bags in the back of his Lexus.

“For what?” I try
to think of anything special I did for him today. I come up blank

“Thanks for letting
me steal you. I know that you’re a little on edge because your
brother left so I wanted to take your mind off it.”

God, if he’s any
sweeter I might get a cavity. “Trust me. I should be thanking you.
I needed to get out of the city for a few days. I’m glad that I’m
gonna be with you.” I say the last part quietly, but I mean every
word of it because I have no one else, no one left to trust in my
life.

Kohen gives me that
breathtaking smile of his before starting the car. Immediately I plug
in my phone and select one of my favorite playlists for long drives.
It’s catchy music that you can sing to, but quiet enough where you
can still have a conversation. It’s perfect. Basically, I rock at
making playlists.

I hum along to the
first few songs and watch New York City fly in a blur. Kohen is
quiet, which I appreciate. I have a lot on my mind. I can’t stop
thinking about my relationship with Jax. All lies. I see his face
when he told me loves me for the first time, I feel his lips on mine,
I hear his laughter. More lies. I want to push things further with
Kohen because of Jax. I want Kohen to make me forget him.

“Wake up, babe,”
Kohen says softly into my ear.

I mumble back something
and turn my head. It’s only then, when I feel the kink in my neck,
that I realize the car has stopped. I manage to open one eye to see
Kohen standing beside me. I open the other and gasp when I spot the
beautiful ocean in front of us.

“Wow!” I say,
sitting up to take in the view.

“Want to take a walk
on the beach?” Kohen helps me out of the car.

“Yes,” I say
immediately.

Kohen laughs at my
enthusiasm. “Don’t we need to stop and get groceries?” I ask
when we pass the house.

“I took care of it.
Fridge is full and our bags are put away upstairs already. Oh and I
texted Harper and your brother to let them know where you were.”

I tilt my head to see
him grinning down at me. I smile back. “You did?”

“Of course. I knew
you would want them to know where you were and since you fell asleep
I did it for you . . .You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not,” I
tell him while I give myself a mental high-five.

I’m so glad that I
deleted my text thread with Jax. I know that it would have been
torture to re-read every text that he’s ever sent me.

“Great. Now let’s
take that walk.”

Once we take off our
shoes, hand-in-hand, we head to the edge of the water. I dip my feet
in. The ocean is chiller than I expected, but I warm up to it after a
while. Kohen doesn’t. He keeps jumping when the waves crash and the
water pools around our feet, making me laugh each and every time.

“It’s freezing!”
he shouts as I try to steer him further.

“Don’t be such a
baby.” I smirk when he finally lets me drag him in deeper, but not
deep enough to get his shorts wet.

“You do know that
we’re going to freeze to death, right?”

“And I’ll love
every second of it. Now come on.” I dive into the ocean still
wearing my sundress that I chose because it’s a warm autumn day.
When I surface a couple feet away from Kohen, he’s standing where I
left him.

“Come on!” I shout.
He just shakes his head, an amused expression on his face as he
watches me.

I roll my eyes and sink
back underneath the water. This is my favorite place. Underneath the
water, where all you can hear is the ocean crashing above you. I wish
I had gills so that I never had to surface, that I could just stay
here forever, in the silence. I turn over on my back and lay on the
ocean’s floor. I submerge my hands into the soft sand and watch as
it slides between my fingers. My body sways back and forth, moving
naturally with the waves. Suddenly I’m pulled out of my oasis.

“What the hell?” I
yell. I’m a little mad that he yanked me up so hard. Especially
since I was at peace.

Kohen’s eyes darken
at my outburst and I immediately regret snapping at him. He’s
breathing heavily, as if just that small act angers him. Not good.

“I thought you were
drowning,” Kohen says softly when he see that I’m okay. He
visibly relaxes.

He’s changing. He
wouldn’t have been able to calm down if he isn’t changing. With
the old Kohen, I would have ended up bruised. Progress.

“I’m sorry. I was
just . . .” The words die on my lips. I don’t know what to say. I
don’t know how to explain to him what I was doing.

“Finding yourself
again,” Kohen says with a knowing smile.

“Yeah, something like
that.” I wrap my arms around him. I can feel him shaking underneath
me. I don’t even feel the cold, I love the water that much. “Let’s
go warm up.”

Kohen gives me a quick
kiss on the lips and nods. Our clothes cling to our bodies as we make
our way out of the water and walk back to Kohen’s house.

His home is beautiful,
everything I imagined when I pictured it this morning. Flowerbeds
line the driveway up to a two-story house made of different shades of
grey stone. There’s a wraparound porch, complete with a swing
facing the ocean. I can’t wait to have my morning smoothie tomorrow
and watch the sunrise. The front door is massive, domineering in a
blood red that resembles his sheets back home. I spin around and take
it all in.

“Do you have any
neighbors?” I ask when I notice that I can’t see any other
houses.

“Of course, they’re
just a short drive down the road. I bought this place because it’s
so far away from everyone else. It feels like we’re the only two
people here, doesn’t it?”

My stomach clenches.
“Yeah.”

I didn’t realize it
was so isolated out here. I wish I stayed awake in the car so I could
have been paying attention. It dawns on me that I can’t escape to
my apartment if I freak out. I’m here with just him.

“I’m hoping that
we’ll make this a monthly thing.”

This is Kohen, not some
serial killer. “That sounds nice.”

Once we’re inside,
Kohen leads me upstairs to the master bedroom. “I’ll use the
shower downstairs and then I’ll make us lunch. Everything you need
is in the bathroom.” He grabs a change of clothes and leaves the
bedroom.

Instantly I’m
relieved that he isn’t pushing us. He’s letting us take things
slow and giving me the space I need. I walk into the bathroom and I’m
immediately in love. The huge jacuzzi tub can easily fit five people.
I sit on the edge and finger one of the bubble bath bottles on the
side. My smile widens when I recognize that it’s my favorite scent.
I look at the rest and find all my favorite stuff. Forgetting the
shower idea, I turn the nozzle for the tub and pour a generous amount
of lavender bath salts followed by the bubbles.