Living A Lie

Chapter 17 - Nightmares

Alex and I sat in the middle of the huge bed in our room, drinking wine. I still can't believe it's ours. "Uh, that's your fourth glass, how wine drunk are you planning to get?" I looked at him over the rim of my glass. "Uh," I sat down the glass and looked at him. "Drunk enough?" I questioned.

He sighed. "You know drinking won't help you deal with what happened tonight." I toyed with my glass. "No, it won't; but it might help me forget for long enough that I can sleep." He looked at me with sad eyes. "Kate, when I taught you how to shoot, I imagined you shooting an attacker due to your status, I would have never dreamed of you shooting someone you knew, let alone shooting them because of me. I'm sorry." He hung his head, and his hair fell into his eyes. 

I grabbed his hand. "I'm glad you did, I would have rather shot him than possibly deal with him shooting you." I smiled slightly, crawled into his lap and hugged him. It took him a second to hug back, but he did. "I'm actually grateful you shot him. I almost shit my pants when he pointed that gun at you." I laughed a bit. "Me too," I replied. We stayed like that, for a while, just holding each other. Thankful that we were both okay.

"Oh, um, Alex?" "Yes, Kitten?" I forgot to tell him about our engagement leaking. I wonder how he'll take it. "Kander is official again." He cringed. "Oh, God, it leaked?" I nodded. "I hated Kander. Why does the public have to ship us, like we're not supposed to be together? We're already together." "Maybe because we're part of the rich people?" He groaned at that. "We're not celebrities, just hard-working people." I leaned back and looked at him. "Now you know well enough that there are plenty of celebrities who worked very hard to get where they are." I was getting sober. Ugh.  "I know, I'm sorry. Let's just go to bed okay?" 

I quickly changed into my favorite nightgown and crawled into the bed. Oh. My. God. It was the softest mattress I'd ever had the pleasure of laying on. I felt like I was on a cloud. "Alex," He grinned and crawled into bed next to me. "I know right? I searched for months to find the perfect mattress." He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me closer. Within minutes I could hear his soft snores. 

I managed to fall asleep shortly after Alex did, and had a dreamless restless sleep. I woke up about every hour, and it took me about a half hour to fall back asleep after waking up. I should have drunk more. At three in the morning, I decided to get up and take a hot bath and try to relax. 

I stood in the bathroom with the door shut, watching the tub fill. I was so excited to try out this tub. I pulled off my nightgown and my underwear and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked so exhausted. My blonde hair was in a rat's nest on top of my head, I had dark circles under my eyes, and I was slouched over. I didn't even have the energy to stand up straight. Alex had wiped all the blood off of me at the penthouse so fortunately, I didn't have to deal with that.

I added some lavender bubble bath and then sat in the tub. The water pricked and burned but only for a few moments, and then I leaned back stretching out. Oh, my. For the first time in my life, I was stretched out in a tub, all five foot six of me, and everything was covered. My knees, tummy, and breasts, all underwater. Oh, I'm going to have to show Alex my appreciation later.

I fiddled with the jets until they were pounding into my lower back. Then I fiddled with the bathroom lights, dimming them and changing the colors. This bathroom was more high-tech than Kaleb's whole house. Kaleb. Was he still alive? I shot him four times, but I didn't know where I had hit him.

I grabbed my phone off the side of the tub and searched some local news websites. I couldn't find anything on him breaking in and trying to kill Alex. Which was surprising. I searched a bit more and found the article I was looking for. 

He had four wounds, one in the arm, one in the leg, one square in the chest, and one in his stomach. The article didn't say much more about his condition other that he was in the ICU. It said the police were charging him with breaking and entering, attempted first-degree murder, assault, and battery. Holy crap. Well, that's grounds to fire him right there. Finally.