Obligation(8)

“Where are we going?” I ask after a moment.

“You’ll see. Dress casual.” He smiles, and a piece of hair blows onto his lip.

I fight the urge to close the space between us and remove it with my finger, using that as an excuse to see if his lips are as soft as they look.

“Did you hear me?” he asks.

My eyes focus on his. I feel my cheeks get pink when I notice the small smile on his handsome face.

“Sorry. No,” I admit.

“I asked if you could be ready in the next hour.”

“Oh, yeah… Sure,” I say, hoping I don’t sound as anxious as I feel.

He watches me for a moment before nodding once, turning away, and walking back towards the house. I watch him go, wondering what exactly I’m feeling. Since the moment I met Kai, I have felt some kind of strange pull towards him. But as much as he entices me, he scares me.

The only men I have been with have been lanky and soft-spoken, men I knew I could get away from if I needed to. I hate to say it, but I was very promiscuous for a while. It was like something in me had flipped and I realized the power I had. I realized I had the ability to say yes or no when it came to sex, and I wanted to prove to myself I could be intimate with someone—and maybe not completely enjoy the act—but it would be my choice.

I’m not proud of the way I acted or the way I used men. But like most things in life, it’s something I learned from, and it helped me grow and become a better person.

Kai is like none of the men I’ve been with. He’s large and intimidating. Though he is soft with me, I have seen him speak to some of the people who work for him, so I know that his gentleness is not always his way. I also cannot imagine him letting me be in charge the way I’m used to.

I haven’t been intimate with a man since my last relationship, and that was a few years ago. After Fredrick broke up with me, I was left confused. He was the person I’d planned to spend the rest of my life with. We’d met when I bought my bakery, and he’d helped me get my loan.

He was so funny; he had the ability to make me laugh at nothing. He was not much taller than I am and cute in that nerdy-guy kind of way. He was soft-spoken and gentle, and he said all the right things. After six months of dating, he asked me to marry him. I, of course, said yes. Our wedding was set for the fall, and we were planning on having a baby right away, hopefully with conception occurring during the honeymoon. Everything was perfect. I was getting the one thing I had craved since moving away from home: a family of my own, people who loved me, and somewhere I belonged.

Then, like everything in my life, it came crashing down around me.

Fredrick had been away for a week at a conference, and when he arrived back in Seattle, he asked me to meet him for dinner. I got dressed up, packed an overnight bag, and met him at one of my favorite seafood restaurants.

The moment I saw him, I knew something was off. He didn’t greet me with his normal hug and kiss. He took my hand and helped me sit down across from him. Without a word from him, I knew we were over. I remember sitting there, looking at him sitting across from me, wondering, Why? That’s when he told me that he believed our lives were going in two different directions and he wasn’t ready to settle down.

I told him that I would wait for him, that we didn’t need to get married, that we could put off the wedding until he was ready, and that was when it seemed like I was begging to be with him. That was the moment I realized he didn’t love me the way I loved him, so I lifted my chin, scooted the chair away from the table, and walked out of the restaurant, never looking back.

I loved him, but there was no way I would ever feel like I was begging someone to be with me again. I wouldn’t ever let someone have that much power over me.

I come out of my thoughts when the sound of seagulls fills my ears. I lift my face towards the sun, letting the rays warm my skin for a moment before turning and heading to the house to get ready.


“Let’s go.” I look at Kai, who is leaning against the side of a black convertible, dressed more casually than I have ever seen him.

Even when he comes to breakfast in the morning, he is normally wearing a suit, so seeing him in a pair of khaki shorts and a white, linen shirt with the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up—showing off a tattoo I never noticed before that wraps around his forearm—has stunned me.

I start down the steps, my eyes meeting his, and my step falters slightly when his eyes sweep me from top to toe before locking on mine.

“You look nice,” I say, immediately feeling like a fool when he gives me a slight smile and opens the door to the car without telling me something relatively the same.