Kean had frowned but did as I asked.
Back at his condo, Thad met up with us and demanded to know what had happened. Both men listened as I told them about Stuart. When I was done, Thad had stomped out the front door. I knew he was on a mission to find Stuart.
I sighed as a painful throb came from the cheek I was holding an ice pack to.
Kean turned his head in my direction. The intense expression on his face scrutinized my body but gave away nothing as to what was being said on the other end of the phone.
“Keep me posted as soon as you know,” he barked before tossing the cell onto the coffee table.
With his hands on his hips, he stared at me for what seemed like more than a minute before taking a seat on the sofa next to me. “Thad hasn’t been able to find Whitman.”
I trembled slightly.
Kean reached out and gently pulled my body onto his lap so that I was straddling his thighs as I faced him.
“Christ, Ciaran, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t gotten there in time. I should have killed him. He’s not going to get away with it again.”
A sob got stuck in my throat. I was sick and tired of crying.
“Again?” I whispered.
Kean softly trailed a finger over the dark purple spot growing on my cheek.
“Stuart and I went to the same high school. He was a couple of years behind me so I never paid much attention to him but of course I had seen him around. He was an odd one. A loner, which I could understand to a point. Then I got caught up in…” He trailed off, his eyes darkening with his thoughts.
“You were caught up in what?” I urged.
Leaning his head against the back of the sofa his eyes went hooded as they focused on my face.
“One day I discovered a note in my locker from the younger sister of one of the girls I had gone out with. She asked if I would meet her in the science lab because she had something important to tell me. I saw Stuart leaving the lab as I approached but I didn’t think anything of it. I found the girl in the room, hysterically crying. Her shirt had been ripped open and she had blood dripping from her nose. She must have been trying to stop the bleeding because her hands were smeared in red. I tried to calm her down, to help her, but she slapped me when I got close so I left to get help. On my way to the office, school officials cornered me. Before I knew it, the police were there and everyone kept asking a bunch of questions. They accused me of assaulting her. I was handcuffed and placed into a squad car.”
“Kean, why didn’t you tell anyone?” I asked stunned by what he was sharing.
“I tried as soon as I realized it had been Whitman but I was the one with her bloody handprint on my face. She named me as the attacker, not Whitman. It was my word against hers as well as the word of Whitman and the teacher who witnessed me walking out of the classroom. My father was furious. Not with the officials but with me. He didn’t want to deal with the situation. He didn’t listen to a word I said, which wasn’t unusual for him. His work had always come first, which meant there was little time or patience for my mother and I. After he lost the patient on the operating table, my father was continuously under fire. No one wanted to believe it had been an accident. The press hounded my family, and friends turned against us. As soon as the story made the paper we all started receiving death threats. My father became bitter. It made no difference to him that it also affected his wife and son. At my mother’s insistence, my last name was changed to her maiden name which was Bennett. She had hoped to protect me.
A year after my father was found not guilty, my mother was diagnosed with stage four thyroid cancer. Within another year we lost her.
The incident at my high school was another fuck up that would draw more attention to the family and my father did not want to deal with it. He paid off the girl’s parents, so they wouldn’t press charges and donated an obscene amount of money to the school without even listening to me explain to him that I was innocent. After a two-week suspension, I was allowed to return to school so I could graduate. It wasn’t until later that I learned the girl’s entire family had taken the money, packed up and moved to another state. No one ever suspected Whitman.”
Wrapping my hands around the back of Kean’s neck, I pulled his head towards mine and rested my forehead against his. “Kean, all these years you’ve lived with the blame for something that wasn’t your fault while Stuart got off scot free.”
I asked another question. “How exactly did you meet Thad?”
“Thad was part of the security team my father initially hired after the threats started. Eventually the rest of the team moved on to other jobs as the threats decreased but my father kept Thad on the payroll. Thad was young. I gave him a run for his money and as the years passed we became friends. He eventually started his own security company, which he still runs. He was there when I lost my mother and again, when my father suffered his heart attack and didn’t survive. Thad helped handle all of the arrangements.
“I was there when he married the love of his life. And a year later, when she announced she was pregnant but had been having an affair and wasn’t sure who was the baby’s father, I stayed by his side. He is the closest thing I have to a brother.
We tried to figure out who was behind the threats or establish what the person wanted but have come up empty handed for years. Originally, the security team had thought it was revenge for the death of my father’s patient, but none of the threats specifically stated the tragedy. Just a lot of ‘you don’t deserve to live’ and ‘monsters get what’s coming to them’ type of stuff. The odd thing is, they stop for a year or two then start again. It had been a full year of nothing and then you showed up on almost the same day the first one arrived.”
“Oh God, you guys thought it was me, didn’t you? That I had something to do with it? Wait! Do you think it’s Stuart?”
“Ciaran, although I was a little leery when you first started stalking me, I don’t think I ever really believed you were involved. Once I got to know you, I knew deep down it couldn’t be you. You care too much about people. You wear your heart on your sleeve even when you try to hide it.” He placed a kiss on my forehead then continued. “As for Stuart, Thad and I always suspected his involvement but he would have been too young when my dad first started receiving the threats for that to be possible.”
Kean tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and placed a soft kiss on my lips.
I felt my heart lurch in my chest. I loved the way he was opening up. And it confirmed what I had originally suspected about him. He despised the media and was bitter when it came to his outlook on people because no one had proven to be trustworthy or stood up for him. Out of fear and anger he had tried to keep himself hidden. Yet he had a heart so big he stepped in to help others when it wasn’t possible for them to help themselves. All because he could and felt he needed to step in.
This man was misunderstood in so many ways.
I was falling head over heels for him.
All I wanted, more than anything in my life was to prove to him how much he was loved because I was in love with him.
“Kean, you saved me.” I couldn’t keep the emotion out of my tone.
Kean pulled me tighter against his chest. “Ciaran, you’ve been saving me right back.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ciaran
First thing Monday morning, with a layer of makeup hiding my purple cheek, I marched to Shawna’s office and paused right outside the door. Pressing a hand to my chest I felt the steady beat of my heart as it pounded against my rib cage.
I was about to murder my career by informing my boss I hadn’t completed my assignment.